Douglass_--_The_Narrative

Douglass -- The Narrative Debunking the Southern Secret “Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds … relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for success in my … efforts and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause, I subscribe myself” (Douglass 76). With these words, Frederick Douglass (c. 1817-1895), an emancipated slave with no formal education, ends one of the greatest pieces of propaganda of the 19th century America: that slavery is good for the slave. He writes his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, as an abolitionist tool to shape his northern audience’s view of southern slaveholders. Through personal anecdotes, Douglass draws an accurate picture of slave life. Simultaneously, he chooses these events for how they will affect the northern audience’s opinion of southern slaveholders (Quarles ii). By using the written word, Douglass targets educated northern whites because they were the only group capable of changing the status quo. Illiterate northern whites and free northern blacks could not vote, while white Southerners would not vote because they did not douglass, slaves, slaveholders, northern, southern, slave, readers, because, animals, whites, master, one, children, slavery, quarles, douglass’s, white, wanted, society, masters, know, family, considered, being, audience, human, hoped, held, treated, situation, reason, pigs, own, opinion, northerners, mother, food, farm, better, 46, without, values, treatment, toward, themselves, sleep, slaves’, similar, share, rights