Fredrick_Douglass

Fredrick Douglass Slavery Effects on the American People By his own accounts, Federick Douglass was born into slavery sometime in 1818.(p170) During the twenty years Douglass would endure the wrath of slavery, he would withstand and observe many different trials and tribulation that ultimately lead him to write about his story. In his story, Douglass not only tells how slave owners treated and mentally abused their slaves, but he also reveals how slavery effected not only the slave but the slave owners as well. Per Douglass, the goal of the slave industry, as a whole, was to destroy the spirit of the slaves. The owners would treat the slaves as if they were a common farm animals. This form of mental abuse would help to ensure that the owners would have authority and control over their slaves. But this was probably not the most damaging form of mental abuse. By preventing the slaves from learning to read or gaining any other form of learning, the owner also hindered the slaves from having any mental leverage against slavery. Douglass believed that learning to read was “The douglass, slaves, slave, slavery, owners, one, over, mental, ultimately, form, few, even, control, abuse, years, treated, state, result, religion, owner, observe, much, learning, issue, effects, described, death, cruel, children, change, both, beginning, ancestors, affect, adopted