Douglass 7/15/09

I found Frederick Douglass's writing to be way more factual and imposing, at least on me, than Jacobs's or Stowe's writings. The main reason for this is the accounts of the "typical day of a slave". I.e. what they wore on a daily basis, their chores, the way they were treated, etc. The beginning of chapter 5 stood out above all other parts of the reading. In it, Douglass describes what clothes they were distributed, as well as what little food they received. " I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked...He that ate the fastest got most; he that was strongest secured the best place; and few left the trough satisfied." In this excerpt, Douglass describes the little clothing they received, resulting in him having to resort to sleeping in a corn bag to keep warm when little. This affected me because it just showed how little slaveholders care about their slaves. This was a first-hand account, made public after the writings' publication to non-slaveholders and people who didn't know the inner, cruel details of the slaveholder/slave relationship. Douglass then went on to tell how they ate. They got little food, and the food they did receive was called "mush" (boiled corn meal). Douglass's owner at the time refused to give them a sufficient amount of food, so when the slaves did receive the "mush", they had to act almost like animals, fighting for scraps, wrestling, with no utensils, forcing them to eat with oyster shells and other makeshift items, unless they aren't in contact with any, in which they resorted to using the bare hands. This treatment forced them to act like animals. Anyone being food deprived would act the same; fight over the little food that presented itself. These accounts I found to be really powerful, way more powerful than anything that appeared in Stowe or Jacobs's writings. It gives the cruel details that some didn't care to share or know, or that some (probably in Stowe's case) never even knew how bad it could get. Stowe probably couldn't even fathom what slaves went through on a daily basis; this caused a bias in her writing. Douglass's account is real, filled with gruesome details that did not come to the public's knowledge before him. He informed the greater nation of what it was really like to be a slave, using these daily accounts to sum up the sorriness of slavery.