Frederick Douglass In Discovering The American Past Summary

“Give him a bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his own master”(259), wrote Douglass in his book “My Bondage”. This explains how many of the slaves felt while in slavery. In this paper I will present a summary of each piece of writing I read, note the points of of differing interpretation between the authors, and also my evaluation of the various authors issues and how they relate to each other.
The summary of the “In Discovering the American Past”, It talks about the Peculiar Institution stating what the problem was and the method or changing the problem and the evidence showing the problem. The problem is Slavery with over 500,000 slaves in America. They tried to stop it by ending the Middle Passage that …show more content…
Slaves then question that how does the white man know black man are suppose to be slaves as they say God intended. This caused very few to go through life with discontent. Many master and overseer agree that slaves were “troublesome property”, this caused much restrictions toward the slaves to keep them in line, no matter how much whipping or restrains it was hard to crush the dream of freedom. By this strong will in this dream many heroes became known for the cause of human freedom. Slaveholders had many issues with slaves. One was, is it more trouble to have a “smart” or a “dumb” slave? Many slave owners said the smart ones were rascally and that they were constantly getting into trouble. Many of the “dumb” slaves victimized the slaveowners by sagacity which this caused the slave owner to think they understood the slave so well. These slaves would also only do what they were told to do while they were watched. They found ways to slack off. Many of the slaves would cheat their quotas by putting dirt or rocks in the bottom of their cotton basket to escape the punishment of not reaching their quotas. Slaves retaliated against severe