Animalistic Effect in 'Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglas'
In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Fredrick Douglass argued that slave institutions dehumanize slaves as well as slave owners. Slave institutions were founded on the basis of cruelty, brutality, and getting the most labor from a human as possible. These qualities led to the dehumanizing of African Americans by treating them like property. Douglass refers to African Americans in these slave intuitions as “Defenseless Animals,” and refers to slave owners as “Predatory Beasts.” In the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass essay is shared that after reading the narrative by Fredrick Douglass, there is both an inherent and causal relationship in slavery between the way slave masters treated their slaves and the societal impact that this had on both slaves and their masters. Slavery dehumanizes slaves and their owners, which causes the animalistic living of slaves, the slave owners turning into savages due to power, and the slave owners depriving slaves of many forms of knowledge.
Slavery in America was an extremely cruel and unjust system where slaves were forced to live in inhumane and animalistic conditions while having to work year-round in various conditions. Frederick Douglass ties in his own life experiences living under the master Colonel Lloyd to show the conditions in which slaves lived. Douglass states that the slaves were given one common bed to share. The bed was the damp floor, and they all shared blankets. On top of that they were woken up every morning by the horn of the driver, and the overseer would whip them if they did not get up fast enough. After the slaves got up, they were summoned immediately to the fields where they went straight to work from sunup to sun down. These tactics were used to break the morale of the slaves, and create a relationship where slaves viewed themselves as powerless. The conditions of the fields were also very inhumane. In Baltimore, where Douglass worked the fields, the temperature in the winter months could reach to the chilling temperatures of 29 degrees. These cold climates made for unbearable working conditions, especially since the slaves were given minimal clothes. Douglass states: “Their yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen trousers, like the shirt, one jacket, one pair of trousers for winter, made of coarse negro cloth, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes”. Working in the fields year-round would cause a lot of wear and tear on the slaves’ clothes, but Colonel Lloyd only gave them one set. If the slaves were to rip a shirt or an article of clothing, they would have to do without. Douglass remarks about how it was very natural for kids to be without clothes, because they were given less linens than the adults who worked in the fields. For kids to do without clothes in nature is one of the ways the slaves were viewed by slave owners as less than human, almost in an animalistic manner. Children on Colonel’s plantation also had to deal with the inhumane food and feeding methods used. Douglass states
“our food was coarse cornmeal boiled. This was call mush. It was put into a large wooden tray or trough and set down upon the ground. The children were then called, like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come and devour the mush; some with oyster shell, other with pieces of shingle, some with naked hands, and none with spoons”.
This serves to show as an example of how slave children are dehumanized because they are treated like pigs. Eating cornmeal every day is on the same quality of pig’s food, and it is not nutritious enough for humans. An average serving size of cornmeal yields about 361 calories, 3.86 grams of fat, 76.85grams of carbs and 6.93 grams of protein. That is not enough nutrients needed for a child to grow up healthy. Kids health believes “ But there is a recommended range for most kids between 6 and 12 years old: 1,600 to 2,200 per day, depending on how active they are”. In addition, not giving utensils to eat is dehumanizing in nature, and shows the children they are not good enough for utensils, which is one of the most basic of human desires: some distinction between themselves and animals.
Slave owners seen in Douglass’s narrative had ultimate power. Owners made all decisions concerning the wellbeing of their slaves. This led to the abuse of power, turning slaves into savages who would prey on the slaves. Douglass refers to slave owners as beasts, and when he escaped slavery, he claimed to be the “one who had escaped a den of hungry lions”. One of the lions Douglass talks about is Mr. Thomas. Mr. Thomas boasts about killing two slaves and was never investigated for his actions. This was only one example of how slaves were victims to the whims of plantation owners and overseers. Douglass also talks about the murder of his wife’s cousin and the murder of Colonel Lloyd’s slave for fishing in his pond. From these examples it’s obvious that slave owners, like animals, were very quick to aggression and physical dominance. In Karl Jacoby’s articles an overseer told him “Why, sir, I wouldn’t mind killing a nigger more than I would a dog”. It’s also apparent that slave owners lack human ability to sympathize because their thinking is less than rational and extremely problematic. This thought process comes from slave institutions where owners believed they were superior. In a study conducted by Lammers about the increase in power causing dehumanization, he concluded “A position of power entails making difficult decisions for other people that may cause pain and suffering. Dehumanization helps to downplay this pain and suffering and thus to justify these decisions”. Throughout the narrative, this idea justified many of the slave owners’ actions. For example, older and younger Barney’s owner, Lloyd, would give them the harshest punishment of whipping when they were least deserving. Plantation owner Colonel Lloyd would whip the two Barneys for any reason concerning his horses, even if they did not do anything wrong. Lloyd lacked the self-control of a normal human thought process, and he would take the anger out on the Barneys, even when they did nothing wrong. Whipping was their punishment, and Fredrick says this was their “severest punishment”. Whipping was a common punishment seen throughout the whole narrative. Not only was it a common theme from Douglass’ narrative, but also from the majority of plantations all over. In American Slavery as it is, Reverend Francis states “Sometimes the whipping is deferred until the weighing is all over. I have said that all must be trusted to the overseer. If he owes anyone a grudge, or wishes to enjoy the fiendish pleasure of whipping a little, (for some overseers really delight in it,) they only have to tell a falsehood relative to the weight of their basket; they can then have a pretext to gratify their diabolical disposition; and from the character of overseers, I have no doubt that it is frequently done”. Reverend Francis’ experiences not only match those of Douglass, but they also back up Douglass’s claim of the inhumanity given to slaves for no inherent reason by the overseer. Douglass specifically talks about Mr. Covey and how brutal he was as an overseer. All the slaves on the plantations referred to him as “The snake” because he would slither around stalking slaves like prey. He also represented the Devil on the plantation. The animalistic aspect of Covey is apparent in how simple his mindset is. His life goal is to catch slaves off guard, to punish them, and to break their soul. Fredrick Douglass states “If at any one time of my life more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey…I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute”. Even as bleak as this is, there is one more thing that was more severe than anything else.
The third method by which Douglass illustrates slave institutions’ dehumanizing of slaves is by describing their restriction of knowledge. Slaves in the American slave trade were meant to be kept ignorant, so that they were easier to control. Douglass states
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man”.
Slave owners purposely repressed knowledge of freedom among slaves, so as to control them and keep them loyal and subservient. This ultimately dehumanized slaves by creating a hierarchy on the plantation, where slaves were childlike in their knowledge, and slave owners were like parents. Other ways slave owners would repress knowledge was by separating families, often separating parents from children and husbands from wives. Douglass states
“Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result”.
This forced separation is a common practice among field animals, like cattle, and draws another parallel to the fact that so many of the slaves were viewed as nothing more than livestock. This forced separation caused children to have to grow up without a caring mother as well as the lack of knowledge about their past. Studies have also linked growing up without a parent to a lack of being able to keep a co-operative relationship as an adult. The last way Frederick Douglass described slave institutions repressing knowledge among slaves was the law against allowing slaves to read. Douglass was taught how to read and write by Mrs. Auld, but the majority of slaves were not given that opportunity because it was illegal at the time. The Alabama Slave Codes of 1833 made it illegal to teach slaves to read or write. The article from the Slave Codes was
“Any person who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars.Any person who shall attempt to teach any free person of color, or slave, to spell, read or write, shall, upon conviction thereof by indictment, be fined in a sum not less than two hundred fifty dollars, nor more than five hundred dollars”.
Laws like the Alabama slave codes of 1833 oppressed slaves and gave slaves no way to uplift from slave owner. These were the most prominent, among many, ways that knowledge was repressed among slaves.
In conclusion, Douglass helps us understand much about how slaves were dehumanized, leading to animalization in their time, and the prevention of progression. The most interesting points Douglass made about slave institutions were causing the animalistic living of slaves, the slave owners turning into savages due to power, and the slave owners depriving slaves of many forms of knowledge are still relevant today. It wasn’t until the 13thamendment in 1865 when slaves received most basic rights as citizens and ended involuntary servitude. Douglass noted that not only the slaves were dehumanized, but those perpetrating and committing the cruel acts were dehumanized from there action making them barbaric animals. Society in the slave era enabled and encouraged these animalistic acts, and that is a danger that America must remember daily, lest history repeats itself.
