What Is The Treatment Of Frederick Douglass As A Slave

Improved Essays
“As to my own treatment while I lived on Colonel Lloyd’s planation, it was very similar to that of the other slave children. I was not old enough to work in the field, and there being little else than field work to do. I had a great deal of leisure time.” Fredrick Douglass a former black slave that was born on 1818-1895. He was born into slavery and his mother was barely in his life because she died while he was very young, also his father was assumed to be one of his plantation owners while he was a slave. When he first moved to Baltimore due to being sold and by the new owners of Fredrick Douglass, more specifically the owner’s wife Sofia Auld taught Douglass the Alphabet. The owner eventually found out and forbade Sophia from teaching …show more content…
Eventually, Fredrick Douglass was able to escape slavery with the help of Anna Murray. He escaped to New York and met up with an abolitionist David Ruggles and soon Murray met up with Fredrick Douglass and got married. Eventually in 1845 Fredrick Douglass was able to print his first autobiography called the “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”. The treatment of Fredrick Douglass as a young slave shows the life of a slave at his age and how it varies depending in each slave. At the start of Chapter 5, Fredrick Douglass talks about his life on Colonel Lloyd’s planation. At this point, Fredrick Douglass was a young slave, but since he wasn’t strong enough to work in the fields he had plenty of leisure time. The most Fredrick Douglass can do is run errands for Mrs. Lucretia Auld and help Master Daniel Lloyd find his birds after he has shot them. Before the events of this chapter, Fredrick Douglass was born into the Lloyd plantation and his first master was Captain Anthony. Colonel Lloyd was very wealthy man during this time. During his time growing …show more content…
Many people know slavery is harsh but not many people know struggles in detail. For example, Fredrick Douglass’ father was known to be a white man. Also the events that led up to this speaks about the masters of some plantations would sometimes rape their own slaves. In this passage it shows that Fredrick Douglass had easier work than some other slaves had. It shows that depending on the slave the hardships are different. Fredrick Douglass only had to do things like drive up the cows at evening, keep the fowls out of the garden, keep the front yard clean and run errands, but he still had a lot of leisure time. Fredrick Douglass’ life compared to some slaves on the Lloyd plantation, he actually had it pretty easy, still itdoesn’t change the fact that he still had no choice but to do whatever the master told him to do, in addition, to having only one set of clothing and not much to eat. This passage is very important to the context of the narrative because it shows slavery from Fredrick Douglass’ point of view and the treatment a slave gets if he or she doesn’t have the skills to do help with the

Related Documents

  • Great Essays

    Born a slave in Tuckahoe, Maryland Frederick received no education and grew up neither knowing any basic schooling, the date of his birth, nor even the identity of his own father. Douglass’s early childhood was spent on the plantation he was born on, wearing either a single linen shirt or nothing at all, driving cows, herding fowl, running errands for his mistress, avoiding the lash of the overseers and suffering from hunger and cold. At an early age he would wake up to the “heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine...tie[d] up to a joist, and whip[ed] upon her naked back till she was literally covered in blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose.” (7) .…

    • 1401 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    On the cover of the textbook Created Equal 4th Edition a young Abraham Lincoln graces the cover. A better choice would have been Fredrick Douglass as he was a very important figure in the abolitionist movement. While we are told in elementary school that Abraham Lincoln ended slavery and his whole purpose for the Civil War was to end slavery. Of course during this class I have found this well believed story to not be completely accurate.…

    • 755 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    He did not have parents or a proper learning experience, but he took that and made it something larger than life. With a life such as his who would have guessed that Frederick would grow up to be the greatest abolitionist to ever live? Now individuals may argue that Frederick was not…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Frederick Douglass had many view points on the horrendous culture of enslavement. He explained how cruel it was to sell human beings into slavery, stealing them from their homes. Frederick helped us to understand the agony and torture most slaves went through on a daily basis, and how that if he were an animal, he wouldn’t be able to comprehend what was going on around him. Douglass recalls reading a book about the inhumane act of slavery.…

    • 303 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    As it is well known about Fredrick Douglass, he was a slave who became free and made a huge impression on history, as we know it. In the context of this close reading we are going to see the heartache and yarning for freedom of not only the body but also the mind as his hope is dwindling. Douglass in this context is releasing his inner emotions that he tries to keep cool and calm, but wants them to run free so that he may have some sort of peace. These sections will be taken from chapter 10 paragraph 5.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Superior Essays

    Born into slavery. Frederick spent his formative years living “with his grandparents and with an aunt, seeing his mother only four or five times before her death when he was seven” (PBS). At the age of eight, Douglass was sent to Baltimore, Maryland to work for the family of Hugh Auld. It was at this time when Douglass learned to read and write. While learning these valuable skills, Frederick was first exposed to the term “abolition” and “abolitionists”.…

    • 1170 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
  • Improved Essays

    The Narrative of The Life of Fredrick Douglass effectively shows readers the hardships slaves had to live with on the road to freedom. From the faulty idea of a “romantic southern image” to the unfortunate slave-on-slave betrayal, Douglass debunks these ideas and blames them for the inability to improve the slave’s well-being and the societal ignorance regarding southern conditions. Several epiphanies, such as his new knowledge of the north and realization of slavery’s malice, motivated Douglass and filled his heart with determination to focus his train of thought towards freedom. Despite the many difficulties, he made it there. Douglass rebukes the romantic image of slavery by using vivid imagery to describe the horrors of his everyday situations…

    • 1045 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    From that precise moment little Douglass understood that he himself was also a slave and the only wrong he had done was to be born black. In his book Douglass is showing how women are beatean treated for less than humans. They are being rapped or forced to bear children for their master so that the number of slaves can increase for the only profit of the master.…

    • 1337 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master”(pg15). During the time of slavery knowledge was power, being just as powerful as a white man. With motivation, Douglass seeks for his liberty through “friends of little white boys…

    • 1000 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    American orator and writer, Frederick Douglass was a key person during the 19th century abolitionist movement, and his ideologies and beliefs still live on till this day. He was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey February 1818 in Tuckahoe, Talbot County, Maryland. During his first six years of life, he lived with his grandparents Betsy and Issac Bailey and he had no connection with his mother or his father. Author Pamela Kester-Shelton wrote that Douglass, “ transcended the oppression of his childhood to become one of the most forward-thinking social reforms of his age” (Kester-Shelton). At a young age, Douglass was taught to read and write elementary vocabulary by his owner’s wife even though it was illegal.…

    • 1477 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Great Essays

    The late motivational speaker and author, Wayne Dyer, once said, “freedom means you are unobstructed in living your life as you choose. Anything less is a form of slavery”. This is one of the ideas that is explored in Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Douglass tells the story of his life as a slave up until he escapes to New York City. He goes into such detail, that the reader feels as if he or she were at the scenes he describes so vividly.…

    • 1390 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Great Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Frederick Douglass Traits

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages

    After reading the Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, I learned a lot about the determination of man and the further horrors of slavery. Douglass was born as a slave and lived the first half of his life as one till he escaped. He didn’t have him mother growing up and he never knew who his father really was either. There was word it was his first owner and that he was a white man but that was the extent of Fredrick’s knowledge of the man. The moment he was old enough he’d be sold and witness horrors slavery forced upon him before being sent off to Boston to live with the Auld’s where he’d learn his ABC’s and soon enough start to teach himself how to read and write.…

    • 768 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Frederick Douglass was one of the many people born into slavery in the early 1800’s. He was born in the Tuckahoe district of Maryland. Like other slaves, Frederick’s identity was kept from him, and he did not know the basic things like his age or his date of birth. It bothered him knowing how slaves were being treaded, but is not till he escaped that he became a freeman. In My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass claims slavery not only affected him, but also slave holders, and the non-slave holding whites.…

    • 842 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Improved Essays

    Before the 13th amendment, Slave labor without a doubt transpires throughout history as one of the many attributes to receive mass attention when the idea of brutality comes to mind. Frederick Douglass, a former slave himself, goes through intentions to understand everyone’s oppression in the establishment of slave labor. Although the source of economy had to be based around cheap slave labor for a benefit of profit, the idea taken into consideration to also treat slaves terribly was sickening. Therefore, Douglass can absolutely claim that amongst many people involved with legal slave labor faced victimization through dehumanization, power imbalance, and corruption through advantages of oppression.…

    • 601 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
  • Decent Essays

    Fredrick spent two years with his masters family which exposes him to the blood and gore that other slaves had face. The slaves on the plantations where treated poorly and not given the necessities that others would have. The slaves would be allowed a small amount of clothing and food. When I read about how not only where the slaves abused and forced to work but on top of that didn't have their daily needs…

    • 76 Words
    • 1 Pages
    Decent Essays