A Slave’S Awakening . . . Yifan Lin. . . . History 1301.

A Slave’s Awakening Yifan Lin History 1301 Nicholas Cox May 4th ,2017 Fredrick Douglas, a black slave, wrote the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave. The autobiography not only reveals the cruel nature of slavery but also discusses the issue of how slavery was maintained for such long time. Douglas enlightened us about the idea of that: knowledge is power, knowledge changes fate, and â€Å"it is the only access to freedom†. Frederick Douglas from (1817-1895), was one of the most prominent black leaders in the US history. He was known as a leader of the abolitionist movement. He lived life was hard and trying, was born in the south of Maryland, and for twenty years he was a slave. In 1838, he fled to the†¦show more content†¦The awakening of self-consciousness begins with the tragic realization of slavery from Douglas. In the autobiography, Douglas recalled the first whipping scene, that was the first time in his life he had ever seen such act. The women who was beaten was his aunt Hester. She was found dating a black male slave in another plantation. The whipping greatly shook little Douglas, because it was cruel and unthinkable. Before that, he was living out of the plantation with his grandmother and other slave children. He had no chance to experience the violence of the plantation, and he did not know that the violence was the main content of plantation. He was listening to his aunt constan tly begging, watching the slave owner hung her up, constantly whipping her† The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest .† That was the first time in his life he realized what they must have beard to be another person’s slave. Although he will see many such atrocities later, this time seems to give him the deepest impression, as this is the beginning of his own body becoming a slavery body. Slave masters thought that it is possible to turn a human into a tool, or a property with no capability to think. However, the truth is that this absolute obedient could only happen to a dead man, since he/she is no longer alive. This could never have happened to a man who is alive, even if he is a slave Although