Indignities That African Americans Worked As Slaves In The 1800s

The indignities that African American men and women withstood, while they worked as slaves during the early 1800s. Some of the most unimaginable horrors continue to haunt us even today. The writings of Frederick Douglas encapsulated his life as a slave while he worked tirelessly to become a free man. The high desire for freedom can be achieved if you are able to push yourself past the point of which you are allowed. This is not a story of a slave using the Underground Railroad to freedom, but of a slave whom freed himself on his own along with the knowledge of how to keep it.
Slaves during this time were considered property of another man referred to during this time as “master”. That master believed that he owned not only the slave’s body,
These slave owners would frequently use the women as domestic slaves charged with the upkeep of the house and grounds as well as sexual servants resulting in many mulatto children. This would of course make the slave owners wives very jealous. Out of fear of preferential treatment toward their mulatto children, they were sold off at a very young age, many before the first year of their birth. These mulatto children were never allowed to have even the simplest things in life, such as the knowledge of their age or contact from their mother or any other maternal relative. “Unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child” (Douglas 429) This would be the beginning of how their white masters solidified their place in this society. As an owned slave, you were required to work the fields on a farm out of fear of the masters’ harsh punishments. These punishments would often ensue just for the masters’ own twisted pleasure. “He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.” (Douglas 431) Punishments would not always be
That was quickly stopped by the master of the house. Douglas being able to understand and learn this concept, drove him to crave freedom even more. Withholding knowledge was another way of keeping slaves within their service. Douglas continued to learn how to read as he fashioned in his mind the way in which he would make his escape. Would he take the Underground Railroad to freedom? Or would he take on the responsibility of freeing himself? Douglas describes the Underground Railroad as a pathway to freedom in which he chooses not to take himself, but also does not judge those who did take this route. He felt the Underground Railroad was too dangerous of a journey for both slaves and their white allies that helped them reach the north. He understood that the Underground Railroad was not truly underground and that should be known by a different name. “By their open declarations, has been made most emphatically the upperground railroad” (Douglas