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  • Essay / Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs Concepts of Gender and Liberty: Compare and Contrast

    Table of Contents Stories Based on the Life of Frederick DouglassPersonal Stories of Harriet JacobsConclusionThe word "liberty" in early American history had many countless meanings, depending on who I heard it. For a white man in the 19th century, freedom meant prosperity through land ownership and wealth. However, for a slave in the antebellum period, freedom was indefinable and out of reach. In the case of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, as evidenced in their autobiographies, freeing themselves from their masters was only the beginning of their liberation as human beings in a rapidly changing society. These two intelligent and outspoken abolitionist writers paved the way for themselves and thousands of other African Americans through the power of their words. Freedom from being a slave was not just physical, but psychological, and the transition from slavery to empowerment was defined by personal will and endurance. Frederick Douglass, in his narrative, details the horrors of Southern slavery and its violations on the human mind and body; Harriet Jacobs is able to fill in the gaps, as an enslaved woman, by describing the sexual exploitation and emotional torment that women and families were forced to endure during slavery. Slave narratives provide the clearest insight historians have into the everyday reality of slavery; Both Douglass and Jacobs show through their personal narratives that the complex institution of slavery could be effectively combatted through morality, literacy, passion, and by transforming personal parodies into the hope that all could experience the gift freedom complex. In the words of Harriet Jacobs: “Reader, rest assured that this story is not fiction.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Stories Based on the Life of Frederick Douglass. Unsure of his year of birth, Frederick Douglass was born in Maryland in 1818, according to historians. It was not uncommon for a slave to be unsure of the exact date they were born – it was also likely that slaves had to consult their owners for this information, as families were often separated. Family separation was one of the countless hardships a slave had to endure during his period of slavery (which, in some cases, lasted his entire life). Frederick Douglass's biography details these horrors not only to generate sympathy, but also to reveal the horrible truths of slavery in the hope that change will be made. One of the most gruesome scenes in his tale depicts one of his cruel masters, Caption Anthony, whipping one of his slaves, an aunt of Frederick Douglass, in the middle of the night. He frequently awoke to the sound of “heartbreaking screams” as the slave owner barbarically beat the woman while she was naked and tied to a post. Douglass remarks that "no word, no tear, no prayer, on the part of his bloody victim, seemed to turn his iron heart from his bloody purpose." These incidents occurred frequently, in addition to the daily stressors a slave had to endure, including hunger, illness, exhaustion, and lack of proper clothing. Slaves also had to fear sexual exploitation of their bodies by their masters, a subject addressed by Harriet Jacobs in her own personal account, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Frederick Douglass's account was not only designed to recount the atrocities ofhis life. as a slave, but also to create unease among the whites in society through the crudity of his story. The Antebellum period was characterized by a strong presence of Christianity which influenced much of society and even reached slave communities. Frederick Douglass understood what it meant to be a Christian even though he grew up in slavery. In his early twenties, Douglass was the slave of a Baltimore resident named Thomas Auld. Douglass records that his master attended Methodist services and that he "nurtured the faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves" and "make him kinder and more humane", although he was "disappointed in both respect”. In the eyes of the oppressed, a practicing man capable of treating his slaves with severe cruelty presented an enormous moral incongruity; Frederick Douglass pointed out in his account that society seemed unable to recognize this gap. The concepts included in the Declaration of Independence - liberty, freedom and natural rights - are also rooted in the Christian religion, but somehow this does not cause the upper class to reject the immorality of slavery for religious reasons. Later in his biography, he addresses his criticism of religion by saying: “to be the friend of one [Christianity] is to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceful and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slave-owning, woman-whipping, cradle-robbing, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this country.” This hypocrisy is what inspired many of Douglass's arguments during his later career as an abolitionist and writer. Editor and history professor David W. Blight comments on his efforts, saying that if "the hearts and minds of the American people were first persuaded of the evil of slavery, then the laws and political structure would change.” If Douglass could point out this contradiction to the general public, then perhaps his guilt could pave the way for structural change. Personal Accounts of Harriet Jacobs Like Frederick Douglass, Harriet Jacobs also published a personal account that provided insight into the wide range of atrocities committed by a slave. experienced during their lives. Both authors developed a strong literate mind that would help them become free, not only in the physical sense, but also spiritually and in every other sense of the word. A key difference between the lives of these two fugitive slaves turned reformers lies in a small but significant detail: their gender. Editor Jennifer Fleischner, in her introduction to Jacobs's account, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, comments that "although Harriet's story is an example of an individual's power to fight against persecution, “she is also an example of the importance of a strong family network and a supportive community in the fight against oppression.” Harriet Jacobs effectively introduces a slave's quest for liberation by beginning her story with a reflection on the innocence of her adolescence. Jacobs was “born a slave; but I never knew it until the end of six years of happy childhood.” Her discovery that, to the broader white population, she and her entire family were considered property was incredibly upsetting, and she began to experience things that only a slave could endure. Harriet Jacobs gave birth to two mixed-race children with a free white man whom her master had forbidden her from marrying. One of these children was a girl. Jacobs said, in light of his daughter's birth, “slavery is terrible for men; but it is much more terrible for women.” Even the joys of motherhood were hampered by the crude institution of.