Slave Narratives

Slave Narratives

Adam Tyler

From reading On the Master-Slave Relationship, of hearing from slave Frederick Douglas in 1855, I have learned that slaves often wonder in fact why they are slaves, stating that "How did people know God made black people to be slaves?". This interested me as I never thought of it that way before. White people had no proof that blacks should be mistreated or how they should treat them badly. Many slaves hoped that God would send "bad slaveholders" in Hell for treating black people badly, however many slaves eventually doubted this. Douglas even said that he had never seen or heard of a bad slaveholder be punished for their crimes. Most slaves blamed God for there situation of being treated poorly, but eventually saw otherwise and blamed the sin of man, not God that was responsible for mistreatment of slaves. Douglas explains all of this and says that thinking of being a freedman keeps him going. He also says something I find a bit shocking, he says that slaveholders actually sent spies near their slaves to get information about how they were doing their work. Douglas was asked several times if he had a kind master, which he always answered with a "positive reply", so technically, slaves are never left alone. People even thought that Douglas' slaveholder was actually his father, but it wasn't true. Douglas said he might as well have been though as he had no other father figures in his life, making sense that he has no family, which is pretty sad. Some questions on this I have are; Was the slave the master of anything?, Did slaves see themselves as part of any family?, Were any slaveholders considered "good" by slaves?