Frederick Douglass: Slaves Killed For Ilogical Reasons

“If there is no struggle there is no progress.” -Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was a slave from the time he was born until he ran away to the North. He didn’t know his mother very well because they separated them when he was born so they didn’t get a bond. He learned to read and write by himself and succeeded. Three events that Frederick Douglass includes to persuade his audience that slavery is wrong are slaves being killed for illogical reasons, slaves being beaten and mistreated for unnecessary reasons, and sending his grandmother out by herself to die. First, Slaves were being killed for illogical reasons. In the book, Frederick Douglass tells stories of how some of the slaves were killed. A man was …show more content…
Frederick Douglass’s Aunt wasn’t treated to kindly by the master when he wanted her for sex and was with another slave. The master beat his Aunt for it. In the book, Frederick said that with one of his masters, It depended on his mood if the slaves that took care of his horses got beat or not. The slaves that took care of his horses, in his master’s eyes, never could do anything correct. The slaves got very little food, only enough to keep them alive. They didn’t get beds, only the floor with a couple of blankets. The slaves didn’t get much sleep because they worked in the fields until the sun went down and then had to go and make themselves food and it was late by the time they got to bed and had to get up as the sun was coming up. Sometimes slaves wouldn’t get sleep for a few days. The slaves were treated like property, they were bought and when their master died they rounded up the slaves and animals and divided them up. In the story, Douglass says that the slave children on one of the plantations that worked on, were fed in a trought like pigs. The slaves weren’t taught to read or write because the slave owners said that if the slaves had any knowledge then they would start to rebel. When Frederick put this in his book that the slaves were beaten and mistreated for unnecessary reasons so that the white people in the North would know that the slaves were not treated like people …show more content…
Slavery was a horrid time period for African Americans and Frederick Douglass lets the reader take a step into the gruesome truth of what the life of a slave was like. He shows how terrible the slaves truly had it and how cruel and inhuman the slave owners were and how power went to their heads. The slave owners showed no mercy and Treated the slaves like animals and property. Slaves were not humans in the slave owners eyes, just another piece of property. “I expose slavery in this country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death.” -Frederick