American History

Violence as defined in the dictionary is the exertion of physical force so as to injure or abuse. But after reading the required readings for this article, I find that there is no definite meaning that can be attached to violence. It is imperative therefore that I discuss violent episodes that I have read about on these readings.

In the first chapter of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave, we see the first act of violence made against him. He grew up not knowing what his real age since there was no record of his birth and his master at that time did not permit him to even ask about it. Knowledge of his fathers identity was also kept from him and even though there were whispers that his master was his father, there was no real evidence of this. At a very young age, Frederick Douglass was also weaned from his mothers care as was then customary for slaves. He only saw his mother four or five times after that before she died before he was seven years old. In this chapter of his life, Douglas makes us understand that even before a slave is born, he is already stripped of the rights that free men enjoy. At that time, when you were born to slave parents, you become a slave upon conception.
The next incidents of violence that Douglass reveals in the next chapters deals with violence he has witnessed in the plantation he grew up but not necessarily what he actually experienced. He witnessed slaves cruelly flogged by their masters. The slaves and their familys cries of anguish and mercy fell on deaf ears. From what Douglass relates, most masters enjoy this act of barbarity and harmed their slaves at the slightest mistake or for no apparent reason at all but some whip their slaves only as a means of enforcing obedience and seem to take no pleasure in it. Slaves were also deprived of all the basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter. In Douglass words, the total cost of their allowance for the said necessities is seven dollars. They were made to work from sunrise to sunset with no wages and endure the verbal and physical abuse from the overseers of the plantation.

    When reading through the book, it seems inevitable that you find an unpleasant incident worse than flogging. We next encounter an episode where Douglass witnesses the death of a slave in the hands of an overseer. A slave Demby was shot by the overseer Mr. Gore when he refused to get out of the river he jumped into to relieve the pain from the cuts he got from Mr. Gores whipping. When the master of the plantation questioned Mr. Gore, he justified his action by saying that the slave has become unmanageable and was setting a bad example for the slave and if not corrected at once, a revolt might be stirred among them resulting to the freedom of the slaves and the enslavement of the whites. It was a crime that went unpunished. No judicial questioning was attempted on the heinous act committed. Two more incidents of slave killings were cited by Douglass and he concluded that killing a slave or any colored person in Talbot County, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community.

    This was the life that Douglass was as accustomed to as a child and probably what he expected to happen to him had it not been for a small stroke of luck sent his way. He was sent to Baltimore to work for the brother of his masters son-in-law. It was here that he learned a valuable lesson that sparked the idea of freedom in his mind. His mistress, Sophia Auld, seemed to be a kind-hearted woman when he first met her. She taught him the ABCs and proceeded to teach him how to spell words of three or four letters. Unfortunately, his new master, Mr. Auld found out and forbade her to instruct the slave further. It would be best to quote what Douglass remembers Mr. Auld telling Mrs. Auld to get the full impact

It is unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master--to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now, if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.

    Such words had so much of an impact on Frederick Douglass that would forever change his way of thinking and lead him to freedom in his later years. From that time on, his mistress acquired the slave owners attitude and regarded him as a property, one below her and not only stopped his education but made sure that he didnt get one. But Frederick Douglass was already given an inch and he was determined to take the ell. He contrived all means to be educated. He secretly studied the books of his masters son when his owners were not at home and thought of clever ways to make the white children in his neighborhood to teach him how to read and write. In the seven years that he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, Douglass never ceased his quest to be educated and succeeded to learn how to read and write.

    His stroke of luck ran out when he was sent back to St. Michael to his old masters son and was forced to work in the fields. It became increasingly hard for him to do this as he was not accustomed to this kind of backbreaking work being that his old job in Baltimore required him to take care of Mr. and Mrs. Aulds son and to run errands for them. For this reason, in his first week on the job he already received a hard beating from the overseer. He was sent to work for a merciless farm-renter who they nicknamed a nigger-breaker because of his brutal ways of handling slaves. It was in his custody that Douglass saw another act of cruelty that a reader can find shocking. Because the farm-renter, Mr. Covey, was poor and could only afford to buy one slave he thought of a cunning way to produce more slaves. He bought a young slave girl named Caroline and hired a male married slave to work for him for one year. He then made Caroline lie with the male slave every night and a year after Caroline gave birth to twins, effectively making her Mr. Croveys breeder.

    Frederick Douglas hardships continued on and even came to a point where he questioned the existence of God. People of St. Michaels at that time were being converted to Christianity. Reverends were converting the slave masters into pious brethrens. Ironically, masters even had more reason to continue their cruelty with their slaves and justified such actions with quotations from the scriptures. To this Douglass reaction was

I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,--a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,--a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,--and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.

    This only made the desire to break away from slavery in Douglass heart grow bigger until he managed to finally find a way with the help of abolitionists to head to New Bedford where he began his life as a free man along with his wife Anna Murray.

    Frederick Douglass spent the remainder of his life advocating and fighting for the freedom of slaves in America. He wrote books, published articles in magazines, gave speeches all geared towards the emancipation of all slaves from the bondage of slavery. He was even recognized as the Father of the Protest Movement.