Slavery In Frederick Douglass

Slaveholders and masters were brutal and treated their slaves like animals and property. Douglass recalls a traumatic event for him when he was a child, the whipping of his Aunt Hester, stripped naked because she was caught with another slave from another plantation. Whipping was a common punishment for slaves, given whenever the master felt like it even without a sufficient reason. Gender or age was not important, some masters enjoyed whipping their servants and slaves until they were bloody. Masters were always cruel and slave lives did not matter thus murder though unjustified is also common. Slavery transforms people, both master and slave. Douglass remembers one of his master’s wives as being good and warm hearted then explains how having