Literature Essay
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."
Slavery
- Social-economic system under which certain persons — known as slaves — are deprived of personal freedom and compelled to perform labor or services . . . the property of another person, household, company, corporation or government.
African Slave Trade
- The slave trade in Africa has existed for thousands of years. The first main route passed through the Sahara, tying in to the Arab slave trade.
Atlantic Slave Trade
- After the European Age of Exploration, African slaves became part of the Atlantic slave trade, from which comes the modern, Western conception of slavery as an institution of African-descended slaves and non-African slave owners.
Atlantic Slave Trade
Atlantic Slave Trade
Atlantic Slave Trade
Modern Slavery
- Despite its illegality, slavery continues in all parts of the world, including Africa.
Modern Slavery
- There are 27 million people (though some put the number as high as 200 million) in virtual slavery today, spread all over the world (Kevin Bales, Disposable People).
Modern Slavery
- This is, according to that group:
- The largest number of people that has ever been in slavery at any point in world history.
- According to Anti-Slavery International, the world's oldest human rights organization, there are currently over 20 million people in bondage.
Modern Slavery
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Africa's West Coast
- UNICEF estimates that 200,000 children from this region are sold into slavery each year.
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Chattel slavery in Sudan
- According to 1993 U.S. State Department estimates, up to 90,000 blacks are owned by North African Arabs, and often sold as property in a thriving slave trade for as little as $15 per human being.
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Physical mutilation is practiced upon these slaves not only to prevent escape, but to enforce the owners' ideologies. According to an ASI report: "Kon, a thirteen-year-old Dinka boy, was abducted by Arab nomads and taken to a merchant's house. There he found several Dinka men hobbling, their Achilles tendons cut because they refused to become Muslims. Threatened with the same treatment the boy converted."
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Child "carpet slaves" in India
- Kidnapped from their villages when they are as young as five years old, between 200,000 and 300,000 children are held captive in locked rooms and forced to weave on looms for food.
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Shackled laborers in Pakistan
- Many of the bonded laborers are shackled in leg-irons in Pakistan
- There are still roughly 50,000 bonded laborers in southern Singh
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Cane-cutters in the Dominican Republic
- The Dominican army, with the support of the State Sugar Council (known as the CEA), "hauls Haitians off public buses, arrests them in their homes or at their jobs, and delivers them to the cane fields."
Modern Day Slavery: Where are they?
- Girls sold into prostitution in Thailand
- Thailand is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.
Prostitution in Thailand
- Regional economic disparities drive significant illegal migration into Thailand, presenting traffickers with opportunities to force, coerce or defraud these undocumented migrants into labor or sexual exploitation. Women and children are trafficked from Burma, Cambodia, Laos, People's Republic of China (P.R.C.), Russia, and Uzbekistan for commercial sexual exploitation in Thailand.
Prostitution in Thailand
- A number of women and girls from Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam transit through Thailand's southern border to Malaysia for sexual exploitation primarily in Johor Bahru, across from Singapore. Thai and hill tribe women and girls are trafficked internally and to Japan, Malaysia, South Africa, Bahrain, Australia, Singapore, Europe, Canada, and the United States for sexual exploitation.
Prostitution in Thailand
- The denial of Thai residency to ethnic minority women and girls who reside in Thailand's northern hills makes them more susceptible to trafficking and delays repatriation due to lack of citizenship. Widespread sex tourism in Thailand encourages trafficking for sexual exploitation. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2007
Slavery still exists in the United States
- A number of women and girls from Burma, Cambodia, and Vietnam are trafficked internally and to the United States for sexual exploitation
Slavery in the United States
- The history of slavery in the United States (1700-1865) began several years after the English colonists first settled in Virginia and lasted until the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
Slavery in the United States
- By the 1700's court rulings established the racial basis of the American incarnation of slavery to apply chiefly to Africans and people of African descent, and occasionally to Native Americans. In part because of the Southern colonies' devotion of resources to tobacco culture, which was labor intensive.
Slavery in the United States
- From 1654 until 1865, slavery for life was legal within the boundaries of the present United States. Most slaves were black, and were held by whites, but also by some Native Americans and free blacks.
Slavery in the United States
- The majority of slaveholding was in the southern United States. According to the 1860 U.S. census, nearly four million slaves were held in a total population of just over 12 million in the 15 states in which slavery was still legal. Of all 1,515,605 families in the 15 slave states, 393,967 held slaves (roughly one in four), amounting to 8% of all American families.
Slavery in the United States
- “Now, I speak what I know, when I say it is like ‘casting pearls before swine' to try to persuade a negro to work. He must be made to work, and should always be given to understand that if he fails to perform his duty he will be punished for it.”
—Arkansas Slaveholder
Slavery in the United States
- On large plantations, slave overseers were authorized to whip and brutalize non-compliant slaves. Slave codes authorized, indemnified or even required the use of violence, and were denounced by abolitionists for their brutality
Slavery in the United States
- The Southern Baptist Convention formed on the premise that the Bible sanctions slavery and that it was acceptable for Christians to own slaves. (In the 20th c., the Southern Baptist Convention renounced this interpretation.)
Slavery in the United States
- In 1860 there were 3,953,760 slaves in the United States (of those, 435,080 were in Alabama).
Slavery in the United States
- Slaves were considered legal non-persons except if they committed crimes. An Alabama court asserted that slaves “are rational beings, they are capable of committing crimes; and in reference to acts which are crimes, are regarded as persons. Because they are slaves, they are incapable of performing civil acts, and, in reference to all such, they are things, not persons.”
America decides to end slavery
- The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society, formed April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers who had strong religious objections to slavery.
Abolitionist movement
- Beginning in the 1750s, there was widespread sentiment during the American Revolution that slavery was a social evil (for the country as a whole and for the whites) and should eventually be abolished. All the Northern states passed emancipation acts between 1780 and 1804
Abolitionist movement
- The Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 declared all men "born free and equal"; the slave Quork Walker sued for his freedom on this basis and won his freedom, thus abolishing slavery in Massachusetts.
Abolitionist movement
- After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, abolitionists continued to pursue the freedom of slaves in the remaining slave states, and to better the conditions of black Americans generally. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 officially ended slavery.
Emancipation Proclamation
- The Emancipation Proclamation consists of two executive orders issued by United States President Abraham Lincoln during the American Civil War. The first one, issued September 22, 1862, declared the freedom of all slaves in any state of the Confederate States of America as did not return to Union control by January 1, 1863. The second order, issued January 1, 1863, named the specific states where it applied.
The 13th Amendment
- The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution officially abolished and continues to prohibit slavery, and with limited exceptions, such as those convicted of a crime, prohibits involuntary servitude.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
- Born a slave in Talbot County (Tuckahoe), Maryland, near Hillsboro
- Separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant
- A key influential leader in the abolitionist movement
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
- As a child, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld. Mrs. Auld sent Douglass to Baltimore to serve Thomas' brother, Hugh Auld.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey
- When Douglass was about twelve, Hugh Auld's wife, Sophia, broke the law by teaching him some letters of the alphabet. When Hugh Auld discovered this, he strongly disapproved, saying that if a slave learned to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the first anti-abolitionist speech he had ever heard.
Frederick Douglass
- Frederick Douglass once told a group of African American students from a school in Talbot County, Maryland, "What was possible for me is possible for you. Do not think because you are colored you cannot accomplish anything. Strive earnestly to add to your knowledge. So long as you remain in ignorance, so long will you fail to command the respect of your fellow men."
Frederick Douglass
- Frederick Douglass grew up to become a leader in the abolitionist movement and the first black citizen to hold high rank (as U.S. minister and consul general to Haiti) in the U.S. government.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
- The most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period.
- In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th Century in the United States.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass encompasses eleven chapters that recount Douglass' life as a slave and his ambition to become a free man.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- published in 1845—within four months five thousand copies were sold. By 1860, almost 30,000 copies were sold. After publication, he sailed to England for two years in fear of being recaptured by his owner in the United States. While in Britain, he gained supporters who paid $710.96 to purchase his emancipation from his legal owner
- The publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass opened several doors, not only for Douglass' ambitious work, but also for the anti-slavery movement of that time.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
- In The Norton Critical Edition, Margaret Fuller, a very prominent book review critic of that era, claimed, "we have never read [a narrative] more simple, true, coherent, and warm with genuine feeling . . . every one may read his book and see what a mind might have been stifled in bondage - what a man may be subjected to the insults of spendthrift dandies, or the blows of mercenary brutes, in whom there is no whiteness except of the skin, no humanity in the outward form . . ."
Chapters 1-4
- does not know the exact date of his birthday
- separated from his mother when he was very young
- His father was believed to be a white man, and most people actually had the notion that Douglass was the son of his owner
- At a very early age, Douglass witnesses his first brutal act of slavery when he sees Aunt Hester being whipped
Chapters 1-4
- describes the singing of the slaves
- details the cruel interaction that occurs between slaves and slave holders
Chapters 5-7
- Douglass is moved to Baltimore
- He starts to have hope for a better life in the future
- he discusses his new mistress, Mrs. Auld, who begins as a very kind woman but eventually turns cruel
- Douglass learns the ABC's and how to spell small words from this woman, but her husband, Mr. Auld, disapproves
Chapters 5-7
- Douglass realizes the importance of reading and the possibilities that this skill could provide him
- He takes it upon himself to learn how to read and write
- gains an understanding of the word ‘abolition’ and develops the idea to run away to the North
Chapters 8-9
- At the age of ten or eleven, Douglass' master dies . The slaves are valued along side the livestock, causing Douglass to develop a new hatred for slavery.
- he is sent to St. Michael's
Chapters 8-9
- He regrets not having attempted to run away, but on his voyage he makes a mental note that he traveled in the North-Easterly direction and considers this information to be of extreme importance.
- For some time, he lives with Master Auld who is particularly cruel
- He is pleased when he is eventually is lent to Mr. Covey for a year, simply because he would be fed
Chapters 10-11
- While under the control of Mr. Covey, Douglass is worked and beaten to exhaustion, which finally causes him to collapse one day while working in the fields.
- One day, Covey attempts to tie up Douglass, but he fights back. After this fight, he is never beaten again. He is sent to live on another farm where he befriends other slaves and teaches them how to read.
Chapters 10-11
- He and the others make a plan to escape, but they are caught and Douglass is put in jail. After he is released, he is sent to Baltimore and becomes an apprentice in a shipyard where he is abused by several white people.
Chapters 10-11
- Master Hugh is kind regarding this situation and refuses to let Douglass return to the shipyard. At this point, Douglass is employed to be a caulker and receives wages, but feels compelled to give every cent to Master Auld.
- Douglass finds his own job and plans the date in which he will escape to the North. He succeeds and travels to Massachusetts, minimally describing his escape to protect those who helped him and to ensure the possibility of other slaves escaping in this same manner.
Chapters 10-11
- Douglass unites with his fiancée and begins working as his own master. He ultimately attends an antislavery convention and battles the issue from that time on.