7. Who was Sophia Auld and what did slavery do to her personality? What was the slaveholder’s attitude about teaching a slave? What inspired Douglass to want to learn?…
5) Bias: He was once a former slave who has gained these brutal experiences as well.…
B) Growing social awareness – the realization that the slaves are living under the conqueror’s principles and religious belief.…
Instructions: This exam consists of twenty-six questions worth one point and eight questions worth three points. Students should type all answers. The link to the entire PDF of this reading is available on Blackboard. Students found to be engaged in collusion or plagiarizing the work of another student will receive a zero. Please spell-check your work and type all answers appropriately, i.e. in complete sentences where possible.…
10. When did Douglass see the most brutal effects of slavery? How did his grandmother fit into this…
According to the narrative of Frederick Douglass, during the 19th Century, the conditions slaves experienced were not only cruel, but inhumane. It is a common perception that “cruelty” refers to the physical violence and torture that slaves endure. However, in this passage, Douglass conveys the degrading treatment towards young slaves in the plantation, as if they were domesticated animals. The slaves were deprived of freedom and basic human rights. They were not only denied of racial equality, they weren’t even recognized as actual human beings.…
7. To what extent did extreme abolitionists do more harm than good, with regard to the slavery problem?…
In the second quotation, Douglass is talking about the meaning of the songs and how it was difficult to explain “apparently incoherent” to outsiders, but the slaves themselves understood the…
In order to create a different mindset, Douglass refutes the romantic image of slavery in his narrative. He establishes this idea by presenting the realities of Southern living and the appearance it reflects through slavery. As expressed in Chapter Two, slaves on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation were granted the chance to run errands which allowed them the occasion to sing as a method to express their feelings. This myth includes the belief that Southern slaves were happy and they stimulate their content behavior through singing. Douglass proves this position false as he describes the mood and intention of their chants by saying “Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy” (30). This misinterpretation drowns the reality of their sorrow hearts and…
Slaves worked under constant watch by their owners, constantly fearing punishment for a slip-up. Enslaved African-Americans obviously resented the way they were being treated, and devised ways to rebel against their owners right under their noses. Reaching back to their African roots, Slaves sang seemingly harmless songs to one another as they worked under the sweltering sun. Little did their owners know that the slaves had weaved intricate secret messages into their lyrical pieces, such as metaphors intended to ridicule their masters or to send signals to other slaves. Their music was a mix of tribal African rhythms and American religious music, as they relied heavily on their religion to cope from day to day.…
I didn’t see how anyone living during that time could possibly believe that slaves were content with their work. By the 1850s, the main theme behind minstrel shows was that the plantation was the blacks’ rightful home and the only place they could be truly happy and cared for. Reading this confused me because the majority of slaves were anything but cared for. They worked long hours, were fed poorly, slept crowded on the floor, and were subject to brutality on a daily basis. Matthew Shaftel quotes writer Herbert Holl’s summary of this unrealistic picture of slave life in minstrel shows that “Northerners imagined an idealized landscape combined with relaxation, simple, rustic pleasures and the nobility of honest, rewarding labor; all culminating in an enviable and glorified lifestyle. Slave life was actually seen as an ideal one, by viewing the slave as an uncomplicated, child-like creature, happy and lovable, enjoying life’s simple pleasures while reaping the satisfactions of honest toil for a beloved ‘Massa,’ whose kindness swept away all sorrow and care.”2 It seemed as if society was trying to avoid facing the reality of how wrongly blacks were being treated. A minstrel show by Christy and Wood used the book…
The children unable to work in the field had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trousers, given to them; their clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts per year. When these failed them, they went naked until the next allowance-day. (Source: Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.) Slaveowners frequently discussed the care and feeding of slaves among themselves and within southern agricultural journals. It is clear that deliberations…
Perhaps one of the strongest elements of slavery is honor. Honor has had a wide range of impact in history, whether it was shaping major dynasties and hierarchies, deciding an individuals’ role in society, or family ties and marriages. This sense of worth, high esteem, or virtue was also manipulated by slave masters in order to control their slaves. “The slave could have no honor because of the origin of his status, the indignity and all-pervasiveness of his indebtedness, his absence of any independent social existence, but most of all because he was without power except through another” (p 6). This element is not just a physical force, such as coercive power, which one can heal and even escape, but also a social-psychological issue. A slave had no name or public worth. Any worth was lived out and given through the master. The relationship between the slave and master can be complex but there was always “the strong sense of honor the experience of mastership generated, and conversely, the dishonoring of the slave condition” (p 6). Although Patterson made a clear connection between the slave and master with honor, his concept still contains gaps as certain slaves managed to preserve their honor using the power of voice.…
In the book the Mugging of Black America, Earl Ofari Hutchinson relays an interesting experience by a reporter. The reporter, who spent two and a half hours watching suspects march before Washington, D.C. Superior Court Judge Morton Berg, noted that all but one of these subjects was Black. He stated, ¡§There is an odd air about the swift afternoon¡Xan atmosphere like that of British Africa in colonial times¡Xas the procession of tattered, troubled, scowling, poor blacks plead guilty or not guilty to charges of drug possession, drug distribution, assault, armed robbery, theft, breaking in, fraud and arson.¡¨ According to Hutchinson, the reporter witnessed more than a courtroom scene; he witnessed the legacy of slavery.…
The Dehumanization of the Enslave: Frederick Douglass The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself…