Frederick Douglass On The Desire For Freedom Analysis

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VOICES OF FREEDOM-ERIC FONER-SECOND EDITION-VOLUME 1 VOICES OF FREEDOM-ERIC FONER-SECOND EDITION-VOLUME 1 08 Fall 08 Fall Chapter 11 Document Analysis Liberate what does it mean? The locution itself implies manumit. Liberation occurs when individuals are set free from a situation, imprisonment or slavery, in which their liberty is severely restricted. This chapter “The Peculiar Institution” gives multiple propositions and gives you juxtaposition of what slaves endured. These articles about Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup, Joseph Taper and Nat Turner are all men who have experienced slavery firsthand. Defending the institution of slavery are Frederick Norcom, J. D. B. De Bow and George Fitzhugh. The life of a slave was it that…show more content…
Douglass also spoke of one of the greatest crosses he had to bare that of learning to read. “As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy” (Douglass p. 214). It made Douglass more intolerable as his position as a slave. One reason Douglass didn’t escape earlier because he now lived with a double edged sword, one edge wanting to be free and the other edge that he stayed in slavery to fulfill his desire to…show more content…
In 1837 he escaped and took his family to Pennsylvania. Taper didn’t feel safe in Pennsylvania so he moves to Canada. Taper writes his friend Joseph Long (who is still in Virginia) about how free he feels in Canada, but the title is “Letters by a Fugitive Slave.” Canada is the land of liberty. Taper pledges his allegiance to the Queen. “God save the queen” (Taper p. 230). “Confessions of Nat Turner”(1831). Turner is interviewed, while he was in prison by Thomas R. Gray, a white lawyer. Turner is the extreme case of wanting to put slavery behind him. Turner feels he is doing god’s will. He hears voices from above guiding him on his mission. In Turners rebellion he garnered a force of eighty slaves and by the time they’re arrested by the militia, they’re sixty victims all in the name of god’s will. “Rise of the Cotton Kingdom” (1836). Norcoms letter to James C. Johnson “I have met with I suppose from 50 to 100 men who (many of then are entirely destitute of common education) five years since could not get credit for a pair of shoes, now worth 100,000 to a million of dollars” (Norcom p. 217). He further stated that opportunity was abundant and one could get rich in speculating cotton. He saw nothing but growth for the region, and was thunder struck that land values soared overnight. Norcom sees nothing but growth for the area and the population is booming. Norcom is astounded

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