Essay on Abolition of Slavery.

Submitted By dink17042
Words: 1678
Pages: 7

Abolition of Slavery The abolition of slavery has been seen throughout history as a way to have all people be treated equal. Things like wars have been fought over weather having slaves are an okay thing versus having slaves is a bad thing. Within our own history, a war was fought for this very reason and in the end helped to abolish slavery to an extent. Other people did it in a less, bloody way, which one way is to write about slavery and within the writing show how bad slavery can actually be. Fredrick Douglass was one of these writers. Douglass was born into slavery and spent most of his young life as one. He started to learn how to read and write as a child but it was put to an end because back then it was believed that a slave was no good if taught. Douglass interest only grew and once a young man, he left to the north to gain his freedom so he would no longer be someone’s property but his own being. In Fredrick Douglass’s narrative of his life, 1945, he writes about is time as a slave. In this one he tells others what he had to do and what he was required to do as a slave. He also would describe how a slave was treated and the horror he felt when he learned what “slavery” actually meant. In this version of his narrative he was more straight forward with the facts and not as emotional as the second version might be seen as. In his second version, Douglass yet again says things about slavery but also about his life. He describes in detail more about things that happened to him and the family he had while growing up. He almost seems to be putting his own emotion into this writing then just explaining how it is like in his first version of his autobiography. With these two writings of Douglass, it seems to me he is trying to get other people to see how slavery actually is. Reason why is because in his first version he is explaining what slavery really was to him and what kind of things were required of him to do. In a way, he creates almost a sense of feeling sorry for him and all he went through as a slave. The readers who seem to be attracted to these writings seems to be ones who may want to learn more about slavery through an actual slave’s eyes. I am not sure if Douglass literally lies out to stop slavery but I believe he does other things around it. In describing how horribly he was treated, and others, as a slave he almost gets people to feel pity for what happened to him and the others around him. He shows how wrong slavery is by just describing his life and experiences as one. He shows in his writing that he gains a great interest in learning to read, just to have it stripped away from him because if he has is he will be useless to the people who own him. Then to add more to the story he shows what happens when he is actually free. He shows that life is better for him now and he can finally know how to read without an “owner” telling him he will be useless if he learns. Learning to read is actually a good thing for him and can help him be able to do more in his life. He is creating negativity to slavery by just explaining what he went through and what he accomplished once he was no longer owned. Douglass’s first version was not so much as persuasions as it was to the point. He went right on explaining was happened, not goes into it easily or said much this was the wrong thing to do. He was to the point mostly and wanted to explain what things really were like. In the second version he goes into more detail kind of showing a deeper look into his own life and how things need to change for the better of his people. Another writer would be a woman called Stowe. She was not a slave, white, but sympathized with the slaves. She was the daughter of a preacher who was taken care of by her eldest sister mostly when their mother died. Stowe would start to write and see slaves viewpoints more as she grew older and especially after a huge event in her life, the death of her son. Stowe would