Frederick Douglass, a slave born in Tuckahoe Maryland, was half white and half black.
His mother was a black woman and his father a white man. He was separated from his mother
almost immediately after his birth. Although he never knew his father, there was a word in the
narrative that his father was his master. Douglass wrote this narrative and I felt that it was
very compelling. It showed me the trials and tribulations that a black man went through
during times of slavery.”Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass is the most famous of the
more than one hundred American slave narratives written prior to the Civil War. The author
begins his narrative that he does not know when he born and who his parents are, like many
other slaves. He estimates that he was born approximately 1817 and his father might be his
master, Captain Anthony. Douglass’s mother Harriet Bailey, was working in a field who was
not allowed to see her son all the time. Frederick Douglass was separated from his mother
from the beginning of his birth like many other slaves. He writes about her in the narrative
that he remembered seeing her four or five times before her death. Douglass’s mother died
when he was seven years old. In his narrative, the author tells about his life in an objective
way and experiences many horrors of slavery. Although most slave autobiographies focused
on the desire for gaining freedom, the stories were presented in a way that tended to vary
between the females and the males. The problem that slaves encountered are focus of thought,
and views on the family monad all differed between sexes of the slaves. The autobiographies
of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs displays the thoughts of men and women on these
topics and let us for a comparison of the incidents of the slavery between genders. Although
Frederick Douglass was living under harsh circumstances, he struggled to achieve his own
freedom as he deserved.
Frederick Douglass is one of America’s most brilliant authors, orators, and the nineteenth
century’s most famous black leader. He was one of the first fugitive slaves to speak out
publicly against slavery about how he tried to escape from slavery. Frederick Douglass was
rescued from a life for plantation labour working as a servant when he was sent to Baltimore
to work for a shipbuilder. In Baltimore, his mistress taught him to read. After he continued his
education on his own in order to achieve his freedom and get rid of the illiteracy. He drives to
achieve justice for his race leads him to devote his life to the abolition of slavery and the
movement for black civil rights. He earned fifty cents from boot blacking and bought a copy
of the Colombian Orator a collection of speeches that included raising attack on slavery. This
book made him to understand the ideals of the Enlightenment and the American Revolution.
Also, he got inspired to his oratorical skills. Like many other slaves in the nineteenth-century
United States, Frederick Douglass wanted to escape the horrors of slavery to enjoy a life of
freedom. In 1836 Frederick Douglass and his friends John and Harris planned to escape from
slavery. When the plan was uncovered, Douglass was thrown in jail. In the narrative Douglass
states his opinions in this way; ”I was now left to my fate. I was all alone, and within the
walls of a stone prison. But a few days before, and I was full of hope. I expected to have been
safe in a land of freedom; but now I was covered with gloom, sunk down to the utmost
despair.” (Douglass, 37). It is understandable that he feels disappointed about his freedom
and himself. Because freedom means the condition of not being in prison or captivity.
However, Frederick Douglass felt even more captivated in prison and all alone. Douglass was
returned to Baltimore and promised freedom at the age of twenty-five if he behaved himself,
instead of being sold to the slave traders and shipped to the South as he expected. In
Baltimore, he worked in the city’s shipyard. Every day white workers harassed him and on
one occasion, they beat him with bricks and metal spikes. Douglass represents this moment in
his narrative like these expressions, ” They, however, at length combined, and came upon
me, armed with sticks, stones, and heavy handspikes. One came in front with a half brick.
There was one at each side of me, and one behind me. While I was attending to those in front,
and on either side, the one behind ran up with handspike, and struck me a heavy blow upon
head. It stunned me. I fell, and with this they all ran upon me and fell to beating me with their
fists’Kill the damned ni**er! Kill him! Kill him! He struck a white person.” (Douglass,
38). It can show us how white people treated them in a horrible way. White people thinks
they have rights to beat them even kill them. This moment can display slaves living in harsh
conditions also, with unfair treatments against to them. Eventually, Douglass’s owner gave
him the unusual privilege of hiring himself out for wages and living independently. During
this period Douglass joined the East Baltimore Improvement Society, a benevolent and
educational organization. He met Anna Murray there who is a free black woman. Later he
married.
Douglass had an obvious thirst for knowledge which he constantly fought towards
obtaining. He was taught the alphabet and how to spell at a young age by his mistress.
However, these lessons were cancelled when his master declared ”If you teach that ni**er
(speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him
to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and no value to his master. As to
himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented
and unhappy.” (Douglass, 18). Douglass soon began to recognize that an education meant
power. He noted that it was in that moment that he was recognize the only true way to escape
from slavery to freedom is a good education. Therefore, he didn’t give up about his education.
”I set out with high hope, and fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to
read.” (Douglass, 18). He decided to learn how to read whether it will cause trouble to him
or not. His desire for education was very clear, and he even uses this to his advantage in
writing of his autobiography. He narrates his story as if it were gathering of knowledge along
the journey to freedom. Furthermore, he consistently uses the bible and political documents to
develop and shape his way of thinking about intellectual views. He developed himself as a
person who desired to be a valuable and influential member of the society.
Douglass supported many reforms, including temperance and women’s rights. Frederick Douglass was one of the few men to attend the first women rights convention, held in Seneca
Falls, New York. Douglass’s main interest was the struggle against slavery and racial
discrimination. He lectured against slavery without getting tired of it, also he raised funds to
help fugitive slaves in Canada. He personally recruited two thousand African-American
troops to the Union army. Despite his old age in that times, he never stopped supporting for
equal rights. He was the great civil right activist. His fiery oratory and his achievements
influence across the centuries, making Frederick Douglass a role model for the twenty-first
century. By his narrative Frederick Douglass reveals horrible acts committed by slave masters
on male and female slaves, for instance torture, exploitation and even murder. Scholars of
American society observe that female slaves were assigned different roles in the United State
of America. Slave system has certain tasks for men, because the tasks needs more power than
the female slaves. According to Angela Davis; ”The African slave woman was charged with
keeping the home in order’ as her biological destiny, the woman bore the fruits of
procreation. As her social destiny, she cooked, sewed, washed, cleaned house and raised
children.” It is state that female slaves were related to some domestic roles like cleaning,
cooking and washing. Therefore, slave masters gave different roles to female and male slaves.
In his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave the
author displays to us instances the gender differences among slaves. In the narrative,
Frederick Douglass presents us the horrible scene about Mr. Gile with this passage; ”The
wife of Mr. Giles Hicks, living but a short distance from where I used to live, murdered my
wife’s cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in
the most horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick’ She was
immediately buried’ (Douglass, 15). The reason of this behaviour through Mr. Gile that
She fell asleep and the baby cried during the night. We can understand that her role is
obviously taking care of the baby. However, she murdered in a cruel way. On the other hand,
men slaves in the narrative assigned with different roles. They are assigned field activities like
looking after livestock, ploughing the farm with oxen, cleaning bushes and others. For
instance, Frederick Douglass was send by his slave master Mr. Covey to the woods with oxen,
however, the oxen smash the cart. When Douglass came back, Mr. Covey was very angry to
him. He displays this moments in the narrative in these words; ”Upon this he rushed at me
with the fierceness of a tiger, tore off my clothes, and lashed me till he had worn out his
switches, cutting me so savagely as to leave the marks visible for a long time after. This
whipping was the first of a number just like it, and for similar offences.” (Douglass, 26). In
Frederick Douglass’ narrative, the slave masters label female slaves as breeders and sell them
out. For instance, Mr. Covey brought Caroline as a breeder. Frederick Douglass displays this
moment in his narrative like; ‘the miserable woman gave birth to twins. At this result Mr.
Covey seemed to be highly pleased, both with the man and wretched woman. The children
were regarded as being quite an addition to his wealth.” (Douglass, 27). We can understand
that Caroline was forced to have sex to reproduce the slave population for profit to the
masters. Douglass makes a special point of describing the traumatic sight of female slaves
being beaten and abused by their slave masters. Douglass reminds us, the rape of female
slaves by their masters was a common incident. For instance, he never forgot seeing an aunt
receive forty lashes with a cow skin whip. He is describing this moment in his narrative as;
”Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her
neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked.”(Douglass, 10). He
represents the horror and cruel way of acting toward a woman. Male and female slave
narrators have the same goal as showing that they deserved to live as independent people in
society. However, men and women fugitives have different models of freedom. The slave
narratives written by men emphasize their desire to be ”men” in their society, to take
”man’s” role. On the other hand, female slave narrators have to convince their readers that
they were neither the victims nor the women that stereotypes have labelled them. Women and
men slaves played different roles because of the reason of the patriarchal nature of the slavery
system. Women slaves encountered slavery as sexual for pleasure and profit as opposed to the
men who only offered labour on the farm.
In conclusion Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass. An American Slave by Frederick
Douglass displays to the readers the differences between the genders and specific experiences
of slavery. Male and female slaves went thought the same trials of slavery, yet they
experienced them in different ways. While men faced intelligence phase like acquire strength
for slavery works, women faced the emotional phase like treated in a bad way as beating and
raping by their masters. They both shared terrible scenes of slavery and one characteristic
united them in the way of fighting for the freedom is determinism. Although Frederick
Douglass was living under harsh circumstances like many other slaves, he struggled to
achieve his own freedom furthermore, he strived against gender equality between sexes.