Frederick Douglas and Mary Jemison
... brother. She went through an adoption ceremony, which was when she first saw the squaws’ true love for her. The ceremony was very emotional, and here Mary saw that the white man’s image of these people was false. After this ceremony was when she truly began to accept the Indian culture. This Indian culture became her passion. It soon became clear that she would never leave the Indian community. Mary quickly learned that this culture she had feared for so long was actually very peaceful; they were not the heathens that they were said to be. It is a culture built on trust, friendship, and family. In Indian communities, family ties are thought of very highly. The Indian people knew who their family were, and if necessary they would fight and die for their family. Mary became so accustomed to the Indian culture that she even married an Indian. She grew to love the man for his noble qualities and love of justice. “His good nature, generosity, tenderness, and friendship towards me soon gained my affection”(Seaver 82). She also went on to have several children with her husband. Mary learned that the Indian culture is not severe. The tribe would work together as one in planting, cooking, and sewing. In times of peace the Indians would enjoy many pleasures. This life of peace is what Mary came to love most. Her love of the Indian culture led her to not only marry within the culture once, but twice. She also gave birth to several children with both of her two husbands. Despite her being brought into this culture unwillingly, she grew to love it. She went on to live a happy and peaceful life within the Indian culture. She had her opportunity to leave the Indian culture; after taking this opportunity she quickly returned. Frederick Douglass experienced a life of captivity that was very different than the captivity that Mary Jemison experienced. Douglas was a captive in a life of slavery. The cruel existence to which he was brought into denied him the knowledge of life outside slavery until he was able to escape. Douglas was under the belief that slavery was the accepted way of life for African Americans. He held this belief until he learned otherwise through his self-taught education. The slave culture’s sense of family differed greatly than the Indian culture’s feeling towards the importance of family. In the life of a slave, family was nonexistent for the most part. Few ties were kept, and closeness and unity was not apparent or allowed. In slave life children are often taken away at an early age and families are frequently broken up. Many slaves did not know the existence of family, and those who did would not show any feelings for them. When Frederick was born he was taken away from his mother to live with his grandparents. This became the only form of family he would know. When he became old enough to work on the plantation these ties were quickly broken. This experience pushed him out of the lifestyle he had loved, and into the life of slavery. After his move to the plantation the existence of family became a distant memory. At the plantation he was introduced to siblings he did not know, and he did not know who his father was, but he had heard that his master was a possibility. He did get to meet his mother, but because he had never met her he felt no feelings toward her. When he heard of her death he did not mourn at all, he had felt no loss from it. The slave life that he knew would not allow anyone to become close. When Frederick was moved to the home of a white family in Baltimore it was the same there. He was treated as a member of the family, but when it came down to it he was black and they were whi...