Frederick_Douglass

There have been numerous times in American history, that us as citizens repeatedly caused a great majority of suffering and struck many people's lives with continuous pain. A frequently noticed era in our past society of those cruel acts is described in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass was a some-what fortunate slave in many ways that we might not visualize as lucky. Frederick was born in Maryland and eventually became a free man, as a former slave, and established himself and the rest of his life as an abolitionist. Slavery is one of the most sickening moments that the majority of us in the United States can think of, and it was these moments that took the fellow people who share the same planet with us, and turned their lives into disaster. Cruelty of masters showed dominance and ownership over their women slaves. In some situations they showed this trait by getting jealous over other women slaves being in the company of other men. “ Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out but had been found in company with Lloyd's Ned; which circumstances, I found from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offense”. Masters during these times would not get jealous over the women slaves out of affection for them, but for the ownership that they had over them. Masters did not mind the time, place, or setting they were in, nothing could stand in the way of their abuse towards these unfortunate individuals. Torture and abuse isn't the only category slaves suffered; they also had a very limited {text:soft-page-break} source of nutrition and shelter. The amount of food portions given to slaves were tremendously slim. Each slave would only be provided with a small fraction of food, and barely enough clothing to last them a week of fair comfort. “ The slaves of all the other farms received their monthly allowance of food and their yearly clothing”. This quote blatantly allows most people to realize how unfortunate the slaves were when it came to nutrition and proper protection. Another horrifying quote describing their terrible struggle to maintain proper food portions; “The men and women slaves received as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork, or is equivalent in fish, and one bushel of corn meal.” The slaves were denied any form of comfort, and were treated poorer than animals. Household pets had a much more extravagant value of meals than the slaves would never be able to compare to for the rest of their lives. Not only were these men and women deprived of food, they were also deprived of freedom of speech regardless of their setting or location. Most slaves would usually speak kindly or positively about their masters. If slaves were not constantly speaking in a positive manner of their masters, they would have very harsh consequences. Masters would secretively send people to spy on the slaves to see if they were being included in their conversations outside of their work, and also to see if they were conversing under the master's wants. Slaves had to stutter and shiver while speaking to a master to show a less dominant personality towards them. One slave in particular, who's name was Barney, was described in such a situation. Frederick stated; “ I have seen Colonel Lloyd make old Barney, a man between fifty and sixty years of age, uncover his bald head, kneel down upon the cold, damp ground, and receive upon his naked and toil-worn shoulders more than thirty lashed at the time”. These slaved would actually fight with each other over whose slave was superior. The number of restrictions the slaved people had are never-ending; {text:soft-page-break} whether its eating, sleeping, speaking, expressing themselves; they had every possible value regular human beings needs just to get by for a week taken from them, except the spirit of God which left them barely enough value to allow their souls to continue moving.