The Role Of Slavery In Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglas

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Slavery:the restriction of Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness
Slavery was a quintessential part of the United States even before its conception. Before the Revolutionary War most of the colonies slaves were located in Virginia and South Carolina due the widely grown cash crops of tobacco and rice. In order for a well-off landowner of the late 17th century to make the most profit he needs to plant his crop on a massive scale, but this raises a question: How do I plant/harvest all of the crop? The only logical answer would be to buy slaves this is due to fact that they cost less than what it would cost to hire someone to work all year round. Slavery was still crucial to the economy of the United States even after the Revolutionary War
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Many lives of slaves were taken without consequence before slavery was abolished in 1865. Frederick Douglass talks about some of the slaves whom were killed in his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. One instance of these killings was when Frederick was living as Colonel Lloyd’s slave Lloyd hired a new overseer named Mr. Gore. While he was overseer, he shot and killed a slave named Demby for not coming out from a creek after calling for him to come out three times. In Frederick’s autobiography, he states how Mr. Gore didn't hesitate to kill Demby, “not even giving Demby an additional call, raised his musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Demby was no more.”(Douglass 11). Within the same chapter Frederick talks about how the cousin of his wife was killed without remorse by a woman who had lived a short distance away. The autobiography states, “...mangling her person in the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward ”(Douglass 11). To take a human life with remorse is what makes a person a …show more content…
To be with someone you love makes you happy, and there is no other love like a mother has with her child. Frederick was not allowed to see his mother because she was sold to another slave owner. Frederick talks about how slavery affected his love for his mother, “I received tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger”(Douglass 5).Another instance in which happiness was taken away from slaves involved Frederick’s aunt Hester. He details the incident in his autobiography, “He had ordered her not to go out evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in the company with a young man.(Douglass 6). Happiness gives people hope and that is exactly what you do not want your slaves having. As one can see America was not always the land of the free. It once took part I one the the most tragic industries; the Slave Trade. Slavery, by definition strips people of Liberty and in the cases of Frederick and the unknown slave both were victims because of something pure, telling the truth. Slavery also took a people’s right to to be happy as in the cases of Aunt Hester and Frederick’s mother. Slavery in some cases even took lives in the cases of Demby and Frederick’s wife’s cousin. Furthermore, slavery is not something that happened long ago; it still

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