My first example on how deleting our humane feelings caused harm is Document 7 by James Ramsay called, “Essay on the Treatment and Conversion of African Slaves in the British Sugar Colonies”. The article speaks about the punishments done to slaves for misbehaving in their eyes and committing mistakes. The white men would beat them with sticks, breaking their bones, chain around their necks, etc. All this was done to cause fear within them. All these people thought since Africans are slaves, it’s okay to treat them as beasts.
Cyril Enagbare Dr. Grubbs History 2110 15 November 2013 The Narrative of Fredrick Douglass The “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave" strived to education concerning the slave's troubles. This powerful account contains Douglass' desire to escape from damaging restrictions, which lead to the writing of his story. In the Narrative, Douglass uses many themes, and representations to teach people on the reality of slavery. The Narrative’s main purpose was to teach humanity of the unnaturalness of slavery and the significances it had on the enslaved and the masters. Douglass’s Narrative really displayed how white slaveholders kept slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant.
Bryan Calderon 4/9/2012 Wrt 310 Response Paper Frederick Douglass vs. Martin Luther King Jr Frederick Douglass was one of the foremost leaders of the abolitionist movement which he fought to the end of slavery within the United States in the decades prior the Civil War. He was a brilliant speaker that was able to hold the full attention of his audiences with his charisma and past horrible experiences as a slave. He won world fame when his autobiography “The Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave” -F. Douglass 1845. Frederick Douglass suffered first-hand how brutal and vicious slave owners treated their property. The slave dealers and owners would dehumanize the slaves to the point that they had no say so in their lives or any freedom what so ever.
Behind every story lies a bittersweet message that sheds light on a shady subject. We remember his narrative as our glimpse into the depths of the unspoken truth. So in the effort to make his statement, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, was a way to expose the dehumanization of slaves to an insensible society, and to fuel the approaching, national abolition. Douglass wastes no time in his vivid description of his early life. He states that, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it,” (Douglass, L. 3).
and of course are and ought to be slaves to the American people and their children forever“ ( Walker 792). He uses this tone to depict just how silly the notion of slavery is when he says these things that are blatantly not right. Walker seems to use this method of speaking throughout his writing to get his point across. Walker compares the American way of slavery to the way it was under the Romans and comes to a very interesting point. “The world knows, that slavery as it existed among the Romans was, comparatively speaking, no more than a cypher, when compared with ours under the Americans” he stated (Walker 792).
In the story, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” a homily from a Puritan minister, named Jonathan Edwards, the symbol of God’s Wrath is broken down and reformed into a thousand different facets. From an arrow drawn and ready, to malicious waters kept at bay by inches, one thing is clear: the sinner has no power to control their destiny; they are in the hands, literally, of a ruthlessly enraged puppet-master. Imagine the entire state of aforementioned sinner; bound and gagged, like cattle on a meant hook, agonizing over the final seconds before slaughter. The sinner is a doll, with limbs attached by string to a wooden cross; it is a situation flooding with irony. Imagine living an eternity filled with strangers with ugly faces.
Sykes, on the other hand, is as evil as Delia is good. This is never more apparent when he answers Delia's question as to why he enjoys making her suffer: "'If you such a big fool dat you got to have a fit over a earth worm or a string, Ah don't keer how bad Ah skeer you'" (883). Unempathetic to the hardships and fears his wife endures, Sykes sees sport in all aspects of life, including frightening his wife. Abusive and unfaithful, Sykes doesn't care how his infidelity is seen not only by his wife but by the townspeople as well. His lack of morality and faith, his rejection in the belief of the same moral equanimity that Delia fosters in, frees him from the constraints of personal or communal responsibility.
His vengeance actually becomes a crazed obsession that will never cease. When Chillingworth sees little Pearl in the arms of her mother, he is deeply hurt that Hester has betrayed him, but more than that, hateful towards the adulterous man. He hates the man more and more as time goes by. He makes it his primary goal to find this man and hurt him. After he discovers that the man he is looking for is Reverend Dimmesdale, he creates an evil plot to destroy him.
There are multiple times in Douglass’ narrative when Douglass comes across a slaveholder or overseer who seems like a compassionate person, but shortly thereafter is seen taking some kind of enjoyment in beating a slave. Even Colonel Lloyd’s sons and son-in-laws, “enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased” (Douglass 22). Douglass even explains how some slaveholders would rape their slaves and following the rape the father/slaveholder of the new born slaves would then beat his own children, which questions the very strong and moral bond between families. Many times after something like this happens the wife will begin to become angry and spiteful toward the new slaves as she knows what they are evidence of. Slavery even begins to affect the slaveholders’ own religion and shows how ignorant they really are.
Douglass unintentionally heard of people around him talking between them that whites maintain power over black slaves by keeping them uneducated. He instantly shocked. Douglass has known intuitively that slavery is evil, but has been mystified by the logic of how slavery works. Douglass decided to educate himself and to escape from slavery. However, he is later taken from the Aulds and placed with Edward Covey, a slave “breaker,” for a year.