Frederick Douglass - An American Slave

Paper Summary:

The paper summarizes the life of Frederick Douglass, as seen in his autobiography. The writer discusses the main themes in the book, namely a lack of family cohesiveness for plantation slaves and the effect of slavery on the slave holders. The paper explains that Douglass was a plantation slave and a city dwelling slave at different times, and details the differences in the way the slaves were treated in these two settings. In conclusion, the writer explains that because of the vivid detail in this work, it was used by the abolitionist movement to further their cause.

From the Paper:

"One theme that is found early in this book is the lack of family cohesiveness for plantation slaves. Their owners often separated family members by selling or loaning them to other nearby farms or selling them to slave traders who would then take their property long distances away. Although Douglass knew his mother, he never got to spend time with her. His father was a white man whom he did not know. Young children had no work to do, so Douglass often found himself just playing with other slave children not related to him. The few family members he knew were often tortured or raped; he was witness to some of these scenes. Because of this lack of family cohesiveness, the concept of being property was impressed upon Frederick Douglass at an early age.
"Although he had only two masters in the whole time he was a slave, those masters were more owners than masters. As a result, Douglass was often shipped from farm to farm, or to the city of Baltimore, depending on the whim of the master. He was exposed to two cultures, the plantation and city home dweller. The underlying principle was the same, that a slave was property, but there was a difference in the treatment of plantation slaves versus city dwelling slaves."

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