fredrick douglas
...our American History and in its time, was used as a positive influence to move towards the destruction of slavery in antebellum America. Douglass leads his readers to believe that slavery was wrong and blacks were deserving of the abolitionist movement. From the beginning of his narrative we feel the cruelty of slavery. Douglass talks about his father creating him and then abandoning him to slavery. He talks about the rape of the black women by the white men with power. The children of white masters and female slaves generally receive the worst treatment of all, and the master is frequently compelled to sell his mulatto children, “out of deference to the feelings of his white wife” ( Douglass 41). For the wife, her husband’s mulatto children are living reminders of his infidelity. Owners often took sexual advantage of their slave women and would show no remorse for the feelings of the slave women. Douglass attacks and shocks his readers. Douglass makes the readers feel vividly detail and physical cruelties inflicted on slaves. As a child he remember the first time he witnessed a slave being beaten. Douglass saw his master beat his Aunt Hester out of jealousy because a slave from a neighboring plantation had paid attention to her. “He would at times take great pleasure in whipping a slave” (42). “The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest” (42). Douglass witnessed and felt the beating of slaves. By showing in great detail the abuse that slave owners did to the slaves it moves the reader emotionally, therefore moves northerners towards abolishing slavery. Northerner’s can feel the mistreatment and beating. Douglass shows the reader how slavery corrupts the whites. About eight years of age Douglass was sent to Baltimore to work for Hugh Auld. Baltimore was a amazing to Douglass. For the first time in his life he encountered “it was a white face (Mrs. Auld) beaming with the most kindly emotions” (56). This beaming white face went as far as educating Douglass. Mrs. Auld was a gentle and dynamic person. She treated Douglass like a real human being because before meeting Douglass, she had never owned a slave. Mrs. Auld did not understand that teaching a slave to read and write would free his mind....