Douglass

Douglass The growth of domestic slave trade in the United States was induced after the official end of the African slave trade in 1808. Slaves were considered a piece of property and a source of labor, especially in the Southern cotton fields. The slave could be bought and sold like an animal. He or she was allowed no stable family life and little privacy. Law prohibited the slave from learning to read or write. Frederick Douglass was one slave who successively escaped the institution of slavery, and fought for freedom and equality for blacks. “Frederick Douglass wrote his narrative, hoping that it may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hasten the day when his brethren in bonds may be free” (Douglass 162). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave portrays many values of the south during the nineteenth century. In reflecting democratic and egalitarian values, the slave had no voice as to the way they were governed or the way they were treated socially. Equality was not a word used in the south. “There was no answering back to a white person; no explanation was allowed a slave, showing himself to have been douglass, slave, slaves, honor, south, slavery, ayers, free, southern, religion, one, frederick, culture, blacks, white, way, values, slaveholders, rights, read, property, nothing, north, narrative, man, life, escaped, dignity, american, against, women, united, under, two, trade, thought