Frederick Douglass An American Slave Summary

The Myths of Slavery in the South The accounts given by Melton McLaurin and Frederick Douglass in their essays provide an insight into the everyday lives of slaves during the 19th century. Both essays are attempting to eliminate the myth of the “happy slave” and these essays reveal critical information and details that had not been previously explained by those who defended slavery. These essays describe the hardships and brutalities that the majority of the slaves in the 19th century faced everyday during their lives. These hardships and brutalities consist of but are not limited to, child separation from their families like shown in the experts from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave or the forced sexual exploitation …show more content…
The daily sexual explorations and abuses she faced everyday created an inevitable protest on her behalf. McLaurin, the author of Celia: Slavery and Sexual Exploitation, states that Celia’s action were completely understandable but the sad part was that many of the female slaves did not choose the same route as Celia because they feared the retributions. The author continues to describe the typical life of a female slave stating that “women were forced to abandon the care of their own children to care for the masters’” (Celia 201-202). This statement directly relates to Douglass’: “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant – before I knew her as my mother…Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off” (Douglass 1). This pair of recounts again contradicts those of who defended slavery during the 19th century, specifically Pinckney’s statement: “The separation of near relatives, seldom takes place, except by their own desire” (Pinckney 2). It becomes evident that nobody truly knows the truth, unless you are a part of the