An end to slavery through propaganda: The slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet…

An end to slavery through propaganda: The slave narratives of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs.

When you think of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs you probably don’t recall them creating any type of propaganda to aid in the fight to end slavery. But in reality both of their slave narratives the strongly suggest an end to slavery through the brutal descriptions of what they were put through as slaves. In Douglass’s narrative, he talks a lot about the dehumanizing effects of slavery, for example, he says “We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder”. In this passage, Douglass is able to make the point that slaves were never seen as humans they were always seen as property similar to animals which can be seen when animals and slaves were all lined up together for examination and judged on the same criteria. Douglass also goes on to tell us that his master had the right to demand what little money he made. Douglass says “I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it, — not because he had any hand in earning it, — not because I owed it to him, — nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same”. The point of this is to show that Douglass has no control over his own life or his own possessions he belongs to his master and Douglass can’t even argue this fact. Similar to Douglass Jacobs also describes her experiences to slavery but she puts a lot of emphasis on the fact that women are worse off than men when it comes to slavery. Jacobs is so heartbroken and instantly becomes concerned when she finds out her newborn baby is a girl “When they told me my newborn babe was a girl my heart was heavier than it ever had been before. slavery is terrible for men but it is far more terrible for women. superseded to the burden common to all they have wrongs and sufferings mortifications peculiarly their own”. Jacobs also goes on to tell us that female slave had no rights when it came to their bodies their masters could force themselves on her at any time this was also seen as profitable when the woman became pregnant as the children also become property to the master. This is why Jacobs becomes amazed when she finds a man who loves her for who she is not as property “I knew the impassable gulf between us, but to be an object of interest to a man who is not married, and who is not her master, is agreeable to the pride and feelings of a slave if her miserable situation has left her any pride or sentiment. It seems less degrading to give one’s self than to submit to compulsion. There is something akin to freedom in having a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and attachment”. These heart-wrenching stories should definitely be considered as a form of propaganda as they show the unjust treatment of slaves who want to badly to be free and to be seen as an actual person.