Fredrick Douglass: Antebellum Slavery

When we think of Antebellum Slavery the first thing that comes to mind is slaves and masters; while this may be a correct thought, there is so much more detail about their interpersonal relationships under the surface. The Antebellum Period in American history was a period before the civil war, also known as “pre-war” from 1820 to 1860. This was a time of very significant changes that took place in the United States under expansion and division in the states. Changes such as the institution of slavery spreading south and the cotton era had begun. As slavery spread to the south there was an increase in the number of slaveholders. Before the Antebellum Era more than half of the whites in the south did not own any slaves, yet alone, support …show more content…
His narrative carries us through his early childhood to his victory escape from slavery. Fredrick Douglass was born into Slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County, Maryland around 1817 or 1818. His mother was Harriet Talbot, a literate slave, and his father a white man whom he had no recollection of. At a young age he was sent to be a house servant at a home in Baltimore but escaped years later to move to New York City where he changed his name to Fredrick Douglass and married his wife, Anna Murray, also a free slave. Because Douglass was such an educated public speaker no one had believed that he had ever been a slave once so his went on to write his narrative, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass. In his narrative he discusses his life as a former slave and his interpretation on the slave …show more content…
The more slaves, the better for them. Many slaveholders were among 2,000 wealthy family planters who owned around a hundred slaves. Amongst planters were non-slaveholders who would frequently rent slave from the planters for labor. They along with other white southerners had believed that their economic freedom as well as personal freedom rested well on slavery and how many slaves they had. Since slavery was all non-profit, slave-owners had to keep close eye on their slaves if they were to pull anything like Douglass had with Covey. Whites during this period heavily defended the slavery system because it provided them white superiority where they took comfort in being equally wealthy to their neighbors and found controlling blacks to be very effective. They believed that any end to slavery could potentially result in black slaves competing for the work of the white man.
The antebellum period was an extremely harsh and difficult time for black slaves. As slavery increasingly grew in the South more slaves were sold, and families were being separated. While blacks in the North were emancipated and building new lives for them, they still suffered greatly from ongoing prejudice against their race and forbade having any form of public education, even as freed