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Fredrick Douglas

Justeen Tomlinson
History 17A
15 November 2006
Question #2
The year is 1845 and I am here sitting with the famous self-educated Negro man, Fredrick Douglas. After reading the "Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglas", I have some questions for him about the conditions and brutality he claimed slaves went through and also aspects of the life of a slave. As a white Southern reporter I feel that slavery is good, and many of the slaves are happy to be their condition. Slavery in many minds of southerners is a positive civilizing development for African Americans.
When a slave is out working in the hot sun, doing hard labor in the fields of there master they sing and whistle because they are happy. Many slaves if you were to ask them how their master treats them would answer with a positive answer, putting their master on a pedestal in a sense. This is the common perception of a white southerner, but the truth is different says Fredrick Douglas.

Reporter: Mr. Douglas, when a slave is addressed about their master and his treatment of the slave, what is the slave suppose to say and what does he truly want to say?
Douglas: When a slave is addressed by a common southerner about the character and treatment of his master towards him, a majority of the time slaves are lying when they say that it is fine. "If they have anything to say of their masters, it is generally in their master's favor, especially when speaking to an untried man" (Douglass, 54). Slaves finding fault with in their masters in an insult, so many of the slaves complaining about their masters would be sold down the river. "This is the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in an answer to a series of plain questions."(54)

From my views, slaves seem to be happy with their master and the treatment they are given, I find this to be true for various reasons, one being because you hardly see any slaves complaining or showing misconduct towards their masters. Another...