The Life of Frederick Douglass as an American Slave and its Influence on Today's Freedoms

This research will examine the consequences of slavery for black and white Americans from the North and the South as seen through the eyes of Frederick Douglass, the narrator of Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. This excerpt by Douglass is registered in the Clerk’s Office of the District of Massachusetts entered according to Congress in the year of 1845. As the reading opens Douglass, a resident of New Bedford, a free slave is feeling overwhelmed with his new freedom and decides to attend an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket.

Douglass proclaimed that slavery abolitionist gave new rise to the emancipation of new liberty for all Americans that had been illegally stripped of their birthrights. After his first speech at the convention many people began to hate the work of ‘slavery’ and what it represented. Douglass began to bring rise to the malicious beatings and maltreatment of the various victims to slavery which watered the eyes of many at the convention. “By the law of the land and the voice of the people Douglass became to make people see he was a piece of property and a chattel personal, nevertheless!” (Garrison 1997). He won the love of the conventioneers because of his humble personality when he apologized for his lack of education and his shameless appeal to the crowd.

There was much prejudice of the coloured skin by the Northerners as well as the Southerners. Douglass acted as a lecturing agent throughout Massachusetts after his freedom was granted. He proclaimed his goals were to educate the black and white Americans of the suffrage of slavery in order to give all American freedom to live in a just and fair society. He spoke of the personal as well as societal degradations to society as a result of the imprisonment of slaves.
“He speaks of two criminal murders where a planter shot a slave who was in quest for a fish and another slave who was shot on the property of an owner simply because he was running away from a beating of a master.” (Douglas, 2007). Douglass sought to make the slaves in captivity strong through faith and religion knowing it would be a struggle for their freedom and human rights. There should be no tolerance for captivity of a human being!

One of the most ravishing moments of Douglass’ narrative is when he speaks of his freedom along the Chesapeake Bay area viewing the freedom as an escape with white wings toward his freedom. It was a very moving moment during the convention speech. This is an illustration of how the institution of slavery has emotionally maimed Douglass but has not taken away his virtuous nature to dream through condemnation and hope.

The oppression of human rights and violence is traced to ideations of human progress in today’s society. From the depths of slavery people are still fighting for equal right as white and black Americans in the North and South. Some racists still live with the mentality that the slaves should be repressed simply because of the colour of their skin and because of their fight for freedom and equal rights. Manning states that through the study of past inequalities it is effective to study the nature and causes of past inequality to eliminate future inequalities. The nation and people have certainly come a long way with relation to equality but there is a constant fight as with seen in court of law and human rights battles.

Works Cited

Garrison, W. (1997) Preface by William Lloyd Garrison Retrieved November 27, 2009 from, http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/A1.html

Douglas, F. (2007) Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Retrieved November 27, 2009 from, http://books.google.com/books?id=X567BKcUaVwC&dq=Narrative+of+the+life+of+Frederick+Douglass:+An+American+slave,&printsec=frontcover&source=bn&hl=en&ei=Jo8QS5TVIo_-nAetvOHFAw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=4&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Narrative%20of%20the%20life%20of%20Frederick%20Douglass%3A%20An%20American%20slave%2C&f=false