Frederick Douglas: A View on the Effects of Slavery

In his essay “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” Douglass discusses the effects of slavery on slaves themselves, but also on slave owners. Specifically, he focuses on how slavery affected Mrs. Auld, his master’s wife. Mrs. Auld was from the North, and had never owned a slave before. When Douglass first came to live with her, she had been “preserved from the blighting light and dehumanizing effects of slavery.” Slowly, …

…who participates. Douglass says this about Mrs. Auld, “Slavery proved as injurious to her as it was to me.” When Douglass was taken to be valued with the property of his former master, he remarked “…I saw more clearly then ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder. Douglass allows his readers to experience this through his eyes when they read of his life and his experience as Mrs. Auld’s slave.