My Bondage My Freedom essays

My Bondage My Freedom essays There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so destructive as slavery. (Douglass, 60) Its remarkable how one little sentence can describe the hatred and animosity that a single man has for a way of life. As a young boy in Tuckahoe, Maryland, Douglass saw the effect that slavery had on his family and friends. Born in approximately February of 1817, Douglass was raised by his grandmother and grandfather due to his mother being hired out to a Mr. Stewart. Douglass description made his childhood seem carefree and joyful. Up until the age of seven or eight, the slave children were able to run and play in the dirt, swim in the streams, and explore the lands of their master. This is where things started to take a change for the worse. In this paper, I hope to let Douglass speak through me in order to delineate his triumphant story ranging from childhood, through slavery and into freedom. Even though Douglass did not agree with the concept of slavery and dreamed of being an abolitionist, he knew that slavery was going to be his way of life. Douglass questioned why God would subject him to such hatred. By asking around he came up with several theories which did not satisfy his thirst for knowledge. Some of the theories included, God made white people to be masters and black people to be slaves, (Douglass, 89) and God was good and knew what was best for them. (Douglas, 90) Douglass finally came up with the solution it was not color, but crime, not God but man. (Douglass, 90) He knew that the weakness was not on the shoulders of God but on the shoulders of man. Slavery was a crime that could be changed through the education of slaves and giving them the tools to uprise. Because he stated, what man can make, man can unmake. (Douglass, 90) Slavery was divided into three classes slaveholders, overseers and slav ...