Torrie Magee

Question #3
Fredrick Douglass vs. Slaveholders Dominion

Fredrick Douglass died on February 20, 1895, but he lives on through the four narratives
he wrote. He was extremely accomplished, and he helped the slaves become free by writing his
story down and telling of the brutality of slavery. (bio.com) In Douglass narrative titled The
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American Slave he says "you have seen how a
man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man (39). Throughout his
narrative he demonstrates the many ways the slaveholder mistreated his slaves mentally,
physically and emotionally. In other words, the master owned them, they were considered like
animals, not humans. They were treated as property. So how did the slaveholders show dominion
over their slaves, and how did Douglass get his humanity back? As he put it "how a slave was
made a man (39).
In order to understand why what he did is so extraordinary, it is first necessary to
understand how it was, before he found his freedom. The slave masters had many ways of having
dominion over the slaves. They had their ways of keeping slaves in submission. Three ways will
be mentioned in this report, so that they can be looked at in a little more depth. Slave masters
denied their slaves basic information, they kept them illiterate, and treated them brutally.
Denying slaves basic information does not seem like a big thing at first, but it actually
was. Basic knowledge was kept from the slaves. Not many slaves knew how old they were and
sometimes they did not even know who their parents were. Of course they could speculate or
have a pretty good idea of who they were, but they would never really know for sure.

As Douglass explains:
My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak
of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father;
but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was
withheld from me (11).
If they happened to know who their parents were, it did not really matter, because if they
knew their parents names, they seldom knew where their parents were. Slaves were raised by
others. Their families were often strangers to them and there was seldom a bond between them.
Douglass illustrates this point well when he talks about the death of his mother:
I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was
gone long before I knew anything about it. Never having enjoyed, to any
considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I
received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have
probably felt at the death of a stranger (12).
Slaves were taken from their families early on, so they never really knew them or were around
them.
Not knowing their age or parents may seem trivial but this caused problems for them later
on after the Civil War. When people over a certain age, and people who had free white fathers
could vote, the former slaves had no birth certificates or any real paperwork or knowledge of
when they were born. So they did not know if they were the right age to vote. They also had no
way of proving if their fathers were white. Even if it was common knowledge in the community,
they had no way to legally prove their parentage. But proving their ages and parentage were only
the first steps. They also had to pass a very hard test in order to vote, which was difficult if they
were illiterate, as most former slaves were.
Slave masters also kept more complex knowledge from their slaves, like how to read.
In his story, one of his masters, Mr. Auld finds out that his wife was teaching Douglass how to
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read, which he forbids her from doing. He tells her that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to
teach a slave to read. (25)
Mr. Auld later says:
"If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to
obey his masterto do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the
world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (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 of 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 (25).
What did Mr. Auld mean? The slaveholders thought that the slaves would be content with their
lives of hard labor, if they knew of no other way of life. If they could not read, they would not
know of the world outside the slave quarters and the plantation. If there was no other option, if
they did not have a full understanding of how badly off they were, the slaves would be content
in their ignorance.
But the slaves could see how the slave masters and their families lived in contrast to how
they were forced to live. The anger and discontent was there, but the slaves had no way of
expressing it out loud without getting into trouble. Discontented slaves might do their work
slowly; they might not work as hard as they used to; they might revolt; or they might try to run
away. Some say that there is more freedom in not knowing, than there is in the knowledge of
certain things. In some cases this applies, but sometimes the reverse is true. Douglass said about
learning to read.
It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which
my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what
had been to me a most perplexing difficultyto wit, the white man's power to enslave the
black man. It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly. From that moment, I
understood the pathway from slavery to freedom (25).

When Douglass started to read he knew that things could be different than they were,
which made him yearn for a better life and no longer be as content with his life as he had been in
the past. The others who could not read were content with their lives because what else was
there? They did not know, so they grinned and bore their troubles to the best of their ability. In
other words the slaveholders ensured their power over the slaves by keeping them in a false sort
of contentment.
Besides keeping their slaves ignorant, slave masters used intimidation to keep the slaves
too frightened to do anything but work. By having harsh punishments like beatings, whippings,
floggings, or the threat of selling them to someone else, they made slaves do as they were told.
Slaves were careful to keep in line, because they did not want to be the next one. Making the
punishments harsh and public instilled fear and showed the slaves what would happen to them if
they followed suit. The slaves were quick to obey, because they did not want to be punished
brutally. It kept them being on time and doing their job instead of taking a break, because the one
who shirks is soon to regret it. It also meant that when something happened to another slave they
were afraid to help them.
In this example, Douglas is fanning the wheat and while doing so he states:
my strength failed me; I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with
extreme dizziness; I trembled in every limb. Finding what was coming, I nerved myself
up, feeling it would never do to stop work. I stood as long as I could stagger to the hopper
with grain. When I could stand no longer, I fell, and felt as if held down by an immense
weight. The fan of course stopped; everyone had his own work to do; and no one could
do the work of the other, and have his own go on at the same time (39).
Even though Frederick Douglass was sick, no one dared help him, for fear of being punished
themselves.

The first step for Douglass to become a man again, was to realize the slave masters could
not enslave his mind. The master may own them in flesh, they could control what happened to
them physically, but they could not control their thoughts. Once a slave knows that, it gets harder
and harder to hold them down or exercise dominion over them. Foucault came up with an idea
that said that power is not just a matter of one having power over the other, it is not that simple.
Instead it is more like a scale tipping one way and then the other. Sometimes the underdog is the
one with the power sometimes the top dog does. Part of his theory is that the more you oppress
someone the more likely they are to rebel.
The second step for Douglass to become a man again, was to learn to read. He overheard
Mr. Aulds arguments against teaching a slave to read and decided reading must be important, if
Mr. Auld was so against it. As he said:
The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the
evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply
sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with
the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to
read.That which to him was a great evil, to be carefully shunned, was to me a great
good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my
learning to read, only served to inspire (25).
By trying to stop Douglass from learning how to read he only gave him a deeper desire and the
incentive to learn.
In the story Douglas master Thomas loans him out to another man by name of Mr.
Covey, who always seemed to find fault with him and would take any chance he could to punish
his slaves for not obeying him. One time Douglass was unable to obey him, Douglass was badly
beaten for it. So he goes to his master Thomas to talk to him about it. He is then told to go back.
He then has a choice before him:

I spent that day mostly in the woods, having the alternative before me,to go home and
be whipped to death, or stay in the woods and be starved to death (41)
He goes back. At first nothing is done about his running off because it is Sunday but on Monday
Mr. Covey tries to teach him a lesson. Which is where the third step comes in.
The third step for Douglass to become a man again, was to stand up for himself. He
explains what happens when he was being punished:
Mr. Covey seemed now to think he had me, and could do what he pleased; but at this
momentfrom whence came the spirit I do not knowI resolved to fight; and, suiting
my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat.My resistance was so
entirely unexpected that Covey seemed taken all aback. He trembled like a leaf. This
gave me assurance, and I held him (41).
Mr. Covey calls Hughes for help and when Hughes tries to help, Douglass kicks him.
This kick had the effect of not only weakening Hughes, but Covey also. When he saw
Hughes bending over with pain, his courage quailed. He asked me if I meant to persist in
my resistance. I told him I did, come what might; that he had used me like a brute for six
months, and that I was determined to be used so no longer.We were at it for nearly two
hours (42).
From this experience Douglass learned he had the advantage over Mr. Covey. Mr. Covey was
unable to punish him himself and in order to save face and his reputation he could not have
others do it for him. As Douglass explains:
Mr. Covey enjoyed the most unbounded reputation for being a first-rate overseer and
negro-breaker. It was of considerable importance to him. That reputation was at stake;
and had he sent mea boy about sixteen years oldto the public whipping-post, his
reputation would have been lost; so, to save his reputation, he suffered me to go
unpunished (42).
This specific experience helped Douglass in two ways. Mr. Covey did not whip him anymore,
and it helped improve Douglass self-image and self-confidence. In his own words:
It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my

own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a
determination to be free. The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full
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compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself.. My long-crushed
spirit rose, cowardice departed, bold defiance took its place; and I now resolved that,
however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be
a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who
expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me (42).
This was a major step for him so that one day he would be free. It not only helped him continue
his fight for freedom but also improved his situation. As he says: From this time I was never
again what might be called fairly whipped, though I remained a slave four years afterwards. I had
several fights, but was never whipped (42). Once he had the upper hand he did not let anyone
take what he had away from him. This is interesting not just because it is a story of a man going
against great odds to rise above his station but it also gives some steps for a person in bad
circumstances can follow to become the master of his own destiny. Which if applied could help
them become more then they would otherwise.
Works cited page

"Fredrick Douglas Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television. Web. 11 Mar. 2016.
<http://www.biography.com/people/frederick-douglass-9278324#family-life-and-death>.
Douglass, Frederick. Title: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American
Slave.