The Slave Within

Fred Heath

Eng 48A
10/13/09

Frederick Douglass
1818-1895

"I have found that to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man." (Norton pg. 2116)

In this Quote, Frederick Douglass describes what it takes to make a slave. Requiring enslavement of the body, spirit and mind, I can think of few worse inflictions to deal upon a man, or, more often than not, an infant. Innocent and powerless to fight back, a true slave is born into slavery, and doesn't even know the wrongness of that which is forced upon him. Farmed and fed, broken and borrowed by masters, and flesh mongers alike, Douglass admits that a slave has no humanity, because he is withheld its luxury. To make a slave, Douglass says that a man must cease to be a man, stripped not only of the body, spirit, and mind, but of the soul as well. A slave must be treated as an animal, and broken as an animal, until convinced that he is as he is thought to be. Looking into the mirror of his master's eyes, he must believe that he is nothing more than a slave. Most importantly however, Douglass says that a slave must be made to feel that slavery is right. It must be made to seem as if slavery is all there ever was, and all there ever will be, and having known nothing else, it becomes inherently right for lack of comparison.


"For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection towards its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother from the child. This is the inevitable result." (Norton pg. 2072)

In this quote, Douglass describes the separation of slave mother from child, and the effects of the malicious segregation. Not only breaking the bonds of family, the separation in effect, makes all all the slaves foster children of the farm itself, and removes any sense of identity inherent in being part of a family. Having nothing but slavery surrounding them throughout their childhood years, most slaves grow up expecting mistreatment.

Another thing that draws my interest is the enslavement of newborn children. I feel that the only way in which it is possible to truly force a man to become a slave is by enclosing the clasps of slavery on him as a child. Doing so not only enables physical enslavement, but more importantly a mental slavery otherwise unattainable. Frederick Douglass was one such slave. Embodied by the first daring act of breathing, a newborn child has no choice but to accept that which he is given. Having never been blessed with the right to think for himself or to receive an education, a slave is not allowed to realize the morbid truths that embody the position of his servitude. As Mr. Auld says, "If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy." An intriguing quote, and perhaps one of the greatest inspirations for Douglass to learn, this quote not only illustrates the importance of attaining knowledge in order to achieve mental freedom, but highlights the implicit understanding of the slave owners, and the calculated methods which they used to enslave the minds of their slaves as well. Helplessly ignorant, and made so by the malicious treatment of their masters true slaves don't even see slavery as a bad thing, because they have known nothing else since the day they were born.