Analytical Research Paper on the Life of Fredrick Douglass.
Introduction.
Fredrick Douglas is an American historical figure who rose to prominence when he escaped from slavery and went on to play a massive role in the abolitionist movement at the height of the American civil war. Despite having little education in terms of formal schooling, Fredrick became a famous civil rights activist after the war ended in 1862. He was a talented orator who vigorously advocated for human equality and also fought for universal human rights. He led a vibrant life of service to humanity, evidenced by the many autobiographies and speeches he gave. One of his most famous works is the 1865 autobiography titled ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,’ which is still read worldwide and continues to inspire generations. This paper will discuss methods used by slave owners to dehumanize slaves to advance the goal of absolute control and how such practices negatively impacted slaves and their white masters.
Brutality as a Tool to Perpetuate Slavery.
The architects of the slavery establishment throughout the continental United States realized that the only way slave owners can guarantee total submission from the enslaved people was through a strategy of brutality. The practice involved a deliberate attempt to instill fear through a campaign of brutality and keep the slaves ignorant by controlling every aspect of their daily lives. Physical and mental trauma consisted of one of the most effective tools of brutality. Douglass recalls that when he was a child and working at his first master, Lloyd’s plantation, he witnessed men and women ruthlessly whipped and even shot dead by the extremely sadistic plantation overseers such as Mr. Severe and Mr. Gore.
The working conditions were particularly harsh. Men and women undertook backbreaking manual work under the scorching sun from sunrise to sunset without any rest. Anybody who did not keep up received a severe beating irrespective of whether they were sick or not; hence high numbers of slave workers died of fatigue.
Douglass ascertains that his upbringing was typical with any other slave child and recalls that he grew up without sleeping on a proper bed. As part of the physical torture, slaves were provided with minimal clothing and expected to sleep on the floor, which took an enormous toll on their physical well-being, especially in extreme weather.
Starvation was also a useful tool used for control. Slaves were provided with minimal amounts of food that could hardly meet their energy requirements hard labor in the plantations. Imagine if you deliberately starve a group of people and then offer bigger and more nutritious portions to some of the members. Human nature dictates that the individuals who receive such benefits will interpret it as a favor hence become loyal and can move mountains for you. The use of such inhuman and cruel techniques meant to break the will of the enslaved black people and mentally condition them to believe that they can only get salvation from the white man.
During the slavery days, slave owners implemented specific measures that curtailed potential unity among the enslaved people by dividing them into plantation slaves and house slaves. The slaves who worked in the house were treated better and lived a higher quality of life than their counterparts who toiled in the plantations under extreme conditions. These machinations constituted a deliberate attempt to make the house slave believe that they were better off hence maintain a more sympathetic approach towards the master’s interests. For example, house slaves could provide the master with valuable information on other slaves, such as theft or escape plans—Douglass’s first attempt to escape got sabotaged by a fellow slave who reported him to their master. The centuries of sheer brutality created a climate of fear that prevented enslaved people from taking any steps to better their circumstances. For instance, after the passing of Captain Anthony, Douglass is sent to work for his former master’s brother in law, a man named Thomas Auld. Due to his rebellious nature, Douglass was deemed to be challenging to manage by his new master, who rented him to Edward Covey, a man with a long and established reputation for ‘breaking’ slaves.
The brutality strategy’s effectiveness is demonstrated more clearly by the accounts of the methods used by Covey to ‘break’ Douglass. For six months, Covey overworked and senselessly beat him in an attempt to break his spirit. The strategy almost succeeded because, at some point, Douglass gave up his pursuit to acquire more knowledge by reading books to spend any free time available nursing his injuries and resting from exhaustion. However, Douglass eventually recollected himself and decided to fight back. He engaged in a two-hour fistfight with Covey, after which Covey resolved not to bother him anymore. The incident shows that only slaves with the strongest will and resilience could withstand the brutality and still intend to continue fighting.
The use of ignorance as a Tool to perpetuate slavery.
Douglass attempts to demonstrate how white masters perpetuated ignorance among their black slaves to keep them forever satisfied with their situation. During that period, when Douglass wrote his autobiography, many people in the Americans genuinely believed that the existence of slavery was a natural state of being. Both the white masters and the black slaves had come to accept that black people could not participate and contribute as equals in a civil society but can only serve as workers for the white race. The narrative was so entrenched that the majority of slaves did not even realize they were slaves, but had come to accept their plight as the natural order.
Slave owners went to great lengths to ensure that their slaves did not know essential particulars about themselves, such as dates of birth. Such a level of enforced ignorance ensures that continuous generations do not have any sense of their identity. As slave children grow older to become adults, white masters saw that they did not access or make use of reading materials. Slaveholders deduced that allowing slaves to read would expose them to information and enlightenment, hence developing ideas about self-sufficiency, which are substantial grounds for rebellion. The ability to read and write equips the enslaved black person with the ideological knowhow to put the white man’s right to enslave into disrepute. When Douglass is sent to work in Baltimore for a shipbuilder named Hugh Auld, his new master’s wife, who had never owned a slave before, was kind and tried to teach Douglass how to read and write. However, her husband warned her to stop and remarked that learned slaves are challenging to manage. Southern states mastered the use of ignorance to perpetuate slavery since illiterate slaves could not write their own stories, which kept the rest of America uninformed about the horrors that were taking place.
The Damaging Effects of Slavery on Slave Owners.
What makes the narrative on the Life of Fredrick Douglass Exceptional is that it does not only focus on the enslaved black person’s perspective but also delves into the effects of slavery on slave owners. Douglass points out that white slave masters wielded a lot of power, which they abused with abandon resulting in great moral strain. Douglass uses the behavior patterns of the average slave owner, which he had observed over the years during his time in slavery, to depict the negative consequences of the vice on everyone involved. For Instance, Douglass notes that slaveholding males got tempted to commit social vices such as rape and adultery by sexually abusing their female slaves. Such actions can destroy the slaveholder’s family since, more often than not, the illicit acts resulted in bastard children; hence the father was forced to auction or punish their child perpetually. The slave-owners spouse also becomes bitter and resentful thus may take out their frustration on the slaves. Some slave masters, such as Thomas Auld, would cling to perverted religious beliefs to justify the cruelty taking place in their households. Slavery transforms Sophia Auld, who was previously a very kind and caring human being into a cold and ruthless slaveholder. Douglass concludes that corruption brought about by slavery is the antithesis of all human values; hence the practice should be banned for the greater good.
Conclusion
Slavery was a monumental dent on human history and a mistake that should never happe again. The effects of the practice continue to be felt to this day in families and communities around the United States. The high crime rates and poor living conditions in the inner cities is a direct result of intergenerational poverty occasioned by centuries of brutality and work without pay. Slavery is a dark chapter of our country’s history that ought to be properly documented and taught so that current and future generations can learn from its excesses. It is the only way to guarantee that such horrors can never happen again.