Ben Howson
APUSH per. 6
11/13/15
1. Is Douglass treated consistently by his various masters? What factors affected the relative kindness or brutality of the masters?
Douglass had many master throughout his life, and they were all very different from one another. Some were extremely kind and loving, never wanting to hurt a fly, but there was also many on the other side of the spectrum, and they were just horrible people. From Douglass's experience, the woman were the sweetest and most kind to the slaves, and treated them like human beings, but there was the accessional bad one. It was the religious masters that Douglass said were the worst, and most cruel. But in terms of location, slaveholders that were in the cities were far better than those who owned plantations. Douglass said that they were pretty much two entirely different places. In the cities, the people were much nicer, they gave them food, clothes, shoes, and cared for them, where on the plantations, they were barely fed, and were just a number that could easily be replaces by another.
2. According to Douglass, what were some of the affects of slavery upon the enslaved? Upon the slaveholder?
Slavery was and still is a very powerful thing, and it changes people, manipulating them to be different than they once were. For those that were enslaved, slavery gave them a life in constant fear with anxiety, no trust upon others, and it made pretty much made slaves not human, and not living a life. For the slaveholders, slavery brought out peoples dark side. For example Douglass said that slavery changed his mistress, taking all of her heavenly values and the good person that she was, and just changing her, also taking away her life, and what it is to be human.
3. What behaviors and actions did the slaveholders use Christianity to justify and how does Douglass effectively point out their hypocrisy?
You would think that the Christian slaveholders would be one of the nicest slaveholders because their religion is about equality, and the fairness of equality between people. But this was definitely not the case, because from reading what Douglass wrote, Christian Slaveholders were the worst. They believed that they needed to fix the slaves and really just the blacks in general, because they believed that the devil was in them, and that they pretty much needed to beat the devil out of them. Douglass points out their hypocrisy, and that is that what they were doing was not apart of their religion, in fact it was close to being against their religion, because they believed in equality and what they were ding was far from that.
4. What would white northerners have found most shocking when reading Douglass's autobiography? What do you find shocking about it?
I truly believe that the white northerners would just be completely shocked by the whole thing, but mostly about how poorly they were treated. Just that these people were being starved to death, worked to death, and along with those things, that the slaveholders had high expectations for them to do good work and do it fast, even though they found it hard to simply stand up. Although simple and not seeming like a super huge and big deal, the thing that shocked me the most was the simple fact they they had no idea when they were born, how old they are, and not even remembering their mother, the very person that brought them into this world. I couldn't agree more with Douglass, that the fact that they take them away from their mother, is completely dehumanizing and wrong. To me, I think that it would just be so weird not even knowing the simple things about your self, that everyone has a right to know, but I guess not then.
5. Based on what Douglass was able to accomplish, especially given his birth into enslavement, how would you characterize him?
Due to what Douglass was able to accomplish during his life, I would characterize him as an extremely intelligent man, who was very luck and fortunate enough to have been able to read and write as a slave. He was very open minded, and was able to look from other peoples perspectives, even his owners, and that must meen that he was mentally very strong and was able to understand the position that other people were in. He devoted his life to make a change, because he didn't want to just stand there, he was a doer.
