Frederick Douglass: Free in Body, Soul, and Spirit

Therese Arceneaux

History 2055

20 November 2015

Frederick Douglass:  Free in Body, Soul, and Spirit

The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass presents slavery as dehumanizing to both slaves and masters and appeals to the reader through graphic stories of violence and frustrating accounts of paradoxes. Ultimately, the Narrative portrays the conversion of Douglass from a slave of both mind and body to a freeman. Douglass asserts, "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man" (39).   

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a mulatto, was born into slavery in Talbot country, Maryland in 1818 to slave Harriet Baily and a white master, most likely Captain Aaron Anthony. Early on, Douglass was able to see the inequality around him.  The white children knew how old they were, but young Frederick did not. He was confused as to why he was deprived of the same privileges as white children and why he was not allowed to make any inquiries of his master concerning it.  The black children wore only coarse linen shirts and ate mush out of troughs like pigs, while the white children had fine clothing and wholesome food. Additionally, the white children were able to live with and have a relationship with their mothers. Frederick, like many slave children, was separated from his mother at infancy. Although Frederick's mother made long journeys during the night to visit him, Frederick "received the tidings of her death with much of the same emotions [he] should have probably felt at the death of a stranger"(2). These injustices helped Frederick realize that he was discriminated against, and the heartbreaking separation of mother and son demonstrated the evils of slavery. The turning point for Frederick was seeing his Aunt Hester get beaten because he then began to truly understand what slavery was. He also realized that he too would soon be prone to whippings and beatings because of the color of his skin. Frederick’s use of graphic, violent stories, particularly about mangled women, like Aunt Hester, (and also Henrietta and Mary) outrage the reader and show the humanity of the slaves.  

Around age eight, Douglass happily found himself sent to Baltimore at the home of Hugh and Sophia Auld, where he was better fed and clothed. Here, he learned the “pathway from slavery to freedom" (20), namely the ability to read and write. After Sophia Auld taught Frederick the ABC's, she was reprimanded by her husband and then began to be dehumanized by slavery herself. The duplicity of Christian slave owners and their dehumanization can be clearly seen in Mrs. Auld. She was first "a woman of the kindest heart and finest feelings" (19), although slavery quickly hardened her heart and made her very relentless. Mrs. Auld, like many other whites, perverted Christianity to justify slavery. She "had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. [However,] Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities" (22). Frederick asserted that the twisted Christianity of the south was “a mere covering for the most horrid crimes” (46). Although masters who were inconsistent in their beatings were despised by Frederick, he considered religious slaveholders the meanest and cruelest of all.

Sophia Auld gave Frederick an inch, and he certainly took an “ell.”  Just as Mr. Auld predicted, teaching Frederick the ABC’s made him "discontented and unhappy," as he "set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read" (20). The decided manner with which Mr. Auld spoke against teaching Frederick only convinced Frederick that he was indeed capable of learning. From this point on, there was no going back for Frederick Douglass. However, there were times when education became a paradox for him, because his new knowledge of the full extent of the horrors of slavery left him disgusted and wishing he had not learned of it. One epiphany led to the next, and Frederick realized that keeping slaves as unenlightened as possible was essential to the institution of slavery. For example, the encouraged excess drinking at Christmas made the slaves sick and gave them a distorted understanding of freedom. As a result, slaves saw themselves as incapable of independence.