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Terry W. Cooper
HIS 307
Dr. Ross
November 12, 2013
Slavery in the Eyes of Douglass and White
In Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas by Fredrick Douglass and Arnt I a Woman
by Deborah Gray White, we get a picture of what slavery was like from the slaves point of view.
From this point of view, slavery is not a benign institution for those who were caught up in its
web. To view this institution as one that is beneficial to the slaves because they were
simpleminded and unable to care for themselves is delusional at best and pure evil if given its
total due.
Douglass really brings home the absolute brutality that was slavery in the south. He tells
early on about watching as his own aunt was beaten; how he was often wakened by shrieks and
screams from those beatings. He goes on to tell how it was so horrifying that he hid in a closet
until well after the beating had ended. This kind of action was far from an isolated or unusual
occurrence but rather was quite commonplace, not only on the plantation where Douglass found
himself but throughout the south.
Douglass own experience was quite varied. He was very fortunate in that while he was
still quite young he was chosen to go to Baltimore to serve a relative, Hugh Ald and his wife
Sophia, of Captain Anthony, who was Douglass owner. Sophia had never had slaves prior to
this and subsequently was unfamiliar with proper protocol. Even Fredrick did not know how to
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take her actions toward him as she started out treating him like a person; not a slave. She started
to teach young Fredrick how to read. Of course this lasted only until Hugh found out about it.
Fredrick overheard the discussion between the Alds and his life was forever changed. Hugh was
explaining to Sophia how that not only was it illegal to teach a slave to read, but that he would be
ruined, forever discontented because of his ability to read. He also grasped that reading would
also be his ultimate pathway to freedom. It became a matter of supreme importance to Douglass
to learn to read from that point on. It would also be a matter of importance to pass on that
knowledge later as his circumstances changed. This part of his story also points out how the
psychology of slavery was denigrating to both the slave and the owner as Douglass points out
how this mild mannered woman is changed by her exposure to slavery.
Life for a city slave was very different than for slaves on the plantation. It was a far easier
life. The tasks to be accomplished were not as intense and the treatment was far easier; without
the constant fear of the lash. As Hugh Ald exhibited in his behavior about the reading, regardless
of whether one was a slave in town or back on the farm, dehumanization was an important aspect
of slavery. This dehumanization was accomplished in many ways, although fear was always an
element. Whether it was the aforementioned fear of the lash or other reprisals it always involved.
For someone in Douglass position in Baltimore that fear, might be the fear of ending up back on
the plantation or being sold to another master in a worse situation.
Douglass did eventually find himself back on the plantation and there he received the
whippings like he had witnessed as a youth. By this time Douglass was firmly intent on
somehow finding a way to attain freedom. When he was hired out to Mr. Covey, Douglass got
the full force of the dehumanizing tactics available. Covey was known for breaking the will of
slaves. He used deceit and trickery as well as the physical tactics of whipping and such. He
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would sneak up on his slaves and keep them forever wondering what he was up to. We also
learned about Douglass ideas about religion as it pertained to slaveholders during this period
when he was with Covey. Douglass fully saw the hypocrisy of claiming to be a disciple of Christ
on one hand and being a slaveholder on the other. Douglass put it this way:
I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for
the most horrid crimes, ---a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, ---a sanctifier
of the most hateful frauds, --- and a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest,
grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection.
Were I again to be reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I
should regard being a slave of a religious the greatest calamity that could befall
me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are
the worst. I have ever found them to be the meanest and basest, the most cruel and
cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only belong to a religious
slaveholder, but to live in a community of such religionists (Douglass, 2003, p.
92).
This justification on their part was purely fraudulent in Douglass eyes. Douglass also put it this
way They are they who are represented as professing to love God whom they have not seen,
whilst they hate their brother whom they have seen. They pay money to have the Bible put in his
hand, and missionaries to instruct him; while they despise and totally neglect the heathen at their
own doors (Douglass, 2003, p. 122).

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The fear that the slaves had was reciprocated by the slaveholders though, who lived in
constant fear of slave uprisings. These were fears that absolutely should have been taken as
realistic. In the appendix, Douglass included an excerpt of Dialogue between a Master and a
Slave which was a work of one Caleb Bingham. The last exchange in this excerpt really summed
up the situation of this fear perfectly:
Slave: Now I am indeed your servant, though not your slave. And , as the first
return I can make for your kindness, I tell you freely the condition in which you
live. You are surrounded with implacable foes, who long for a safe opportunity to
revenge upon you and all the other planters all the miseries they have endured The
more generous their natures, the more indignant they feel against the cruel
injustice which has dragged them hither, and doomed them to perpetual servitude.
You can rely on no kindness on your parts to soften the obduracy of their
resentment. You have reduced them to a state of brute beasts of prey. Superior
force alone can give you security. As soon as that falls, you are at the mercy of
the merciless. Such is the special bond between master and slave. (Douglass,
2003, p. 131)
Douglass really felt that without all of the threats, the violence, and all of the other tactics that
the masters used, they would have no chance to keep a man in this bondage; that the slaveholder
was only a careless moment away from the revolt that he feared. As far as the notion that the
slaves really were content or even happy about slavery because they were better off than they
would be left to there on devises, Douglass had this to say, I have found that, to make a
contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one, It is necessary to darken his moral and
mental vision, and , as far as possible , to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to
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detect no inconsistencies in slavery, he must be to feel that slavery is right; and he can be
brought to that only when he ceases to be a man. (Douglass, 2003, p. 106).
In her history on slavery, White not only verified many of the things that Douglass had in
his narrative, but in her attempt to show the effect that slavery had on women, she emphasized
several more insidious aspects of slave life. White went into more detail about how the treatment
of family members were used to intimidate slaves into maintaining the actions that the
slaveholders were looking for. The fear of having his family either sold or abused in some way
was used extensively to keep male slaves in line or to keep them from running away. This was
not only a way to terrorize him but when he had to watch his wife being strung up and beaten
while he was unable to stop or prevent it, it served to emasculate him as well.
White also speaks of young girls being instructed to go live with a male slave and being
given no recourse but to carry out that wish. Fertility was a big issue for slaveholders. Slaves
who were pregnant would many times be allowed lighter duties as they progressed in her
pregnancy. They would be given extra rations because a child would become a valuable
commodity. For some female slaves more food was actually an incentive to become pregnant.
Also fertility could keep them from being sold into what could potentially be a worse situation.
Many slaveholders made decisions about selling based on fertility history. In speaking about one
particular slaveholder White put it this way, He sold females both before and after their
childbearing years. Of the twenty-nine females he sold off his Mount Airy plantation between
1809 and 1828, four were small children, sixteen were girls aged nine to seventeen, and the
remaining nine were mature women, no childbearing women were sold. An ex-slave summed it
up: If a woman was a good breeder, they was proud of her; if not they got rid of her (White,
1999, pp. 101-102).
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This also brings some other issues forward. One is the interdependency that female slaves
developed over time. The women had many responsibilities toward their own welfare. It required
cooperation amongst themselves to achieve these needs. One was childcare. Since a female slave
would soon end up back on the job, it was necessary for cooperation to ensure that all children
were cared for. Also, the burden for delivering new infants fell on them as well. Most slave
children were delivered by midwives who were part of the enslaved population. Of course as a
counter to this position, because of the abusive lifestyle that slaves lived, sometimes they were
known to abort pregnancies and many times this would also be a collaborative effort as
knowledge of herbs and activities that could lead to miscarriage was another knowledge set that
a midwife might possess.
The mother-daughter relationship was one of the most stable in the slave community.
Generally, the masters were more reluctant to split a mother daughter than other familial
relationships. Because of this, many times functions that were necessary to help keep the
community functional would be passed down from mother to daughter. Skills such as sewing and
seamstress work would be one example. Midwifing would be another skillset that might be
passed from mother to daughter. Mothers also would try to school their daughters in areas
involving behavior towards the opposite sex, particularly as it pertained to white men who might
come in contact with them as rape was one of the many extra areas in which female slaves had to
deal. According to White some looked at beauty in this way, In this respect homeliness could be
a great asset If God has bestowed beauty upon her it will prove her greatest curse, because that
which commands admiration in the white woman, only hastens the degradation of the female
slave (White, 1999, p. 96).
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I found the Douglass book to be powerful and profound. Douglass himself proved that all
of assumptions made about Africans were totally fallacious. This book was very well written. It
proves that Douglass was very literate. I always wondered why on the one hand slaveholders
could say on the hand that these Africans are naturally inferior; unable to learn and think for
themselves; and obviously a lower life form. Then on the other hand feel as if it was necessary to
try to keep this same African from learning how to read and stop him from so many other
activities instead of just letting that natural inferiority from keeping him from achieving any kind
of success. Douglass made many powerful points in his narrative but possibly the most important
was that to keep a man in bondage would require constant diligence because that man was going
to continually seek to attain freedom.
Whites book affirmed many of the ideas in Douglass narrative plus gave much insight
into the life of female slaves in particular. She also gave us a better picture of what family life
was really like for those people who were caught up in this shameful institution that was used to
build the economy of the country, and not just the south. Taken together they illuminate the
notion that slavery was the biggest blight on this countrys history.

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Bibliography
Douglass, F. (2003). Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by
Himself (Second ed.). (D. W. Blight, Ed.) Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.
White, D. G. (1999). Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (Revised ed.).
New York: W. W. Norton & Company.