Letter from a slaveholder - Term Paper Example

I have since made it my business to keep abreast of events and have in fact subscribed to a Boston abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, a fact you may frown upon but which I consider essential, if we are not to be overtaken by events. In May, they pointed to the imminent publication of a narrative by a certain Douglas, to which I paid scant attention. Three weeks ago, however, when I went to the club (yes, I know, you will frown on this too), the name was on everyone’s lips. Lundy3 was there with his crowd, gleefully claiming that this was a major blow to slavery and Baltimore would soon be slavery-free.

We had to hold Thompson off, who was so enraged that he threatened Lundy – quite ugly. He claimed that it was all a pack of lies, that this ‘Douglas’ was known to him, that he had been a slave with the Auld’s for the better part of 15 years and not one single statement was true, other than that he was a slave. If this wasn’t enough, Thompson got into an argument with Donaldson, who claimed that Douglass wasn’t a slave at all. Thompson took this as being called a liar and the fight was on for young and old.

As you might imagine, I requested the book immediately and I have now read it. Well, what can I say – I am deeply shocked and far more worried than I have been so far (if that is possible). We need to talk about this, find some solutions – we cannot let things go any longer. This is getting to a point where every self-respecting Christian and concerned plantation owner has to take action. But, I am rambling; let me tell you what the book says. Douglass claims to have been born into slavery and separated from his mother at an early age.

He is a half-caste and people thought (he said) that his then owner was his father (1). He describes various incidents of punishment of slaves (incredibly brutal) and also draws a disturbing picture of slave life. At 6, he is moved to Baltimore to Aaron Auld, where Lucretia (Auld’s daughter) teaches him to read the Bible (2). Aaron soon puts a stop to it, claiming that a ‘slave who can read is no longer fit to be a slave’. Apparently the boy overhears that and this is when he decides not to be a slave when he grows up, now teaching himself to read and write (3).

Aaron dies. Thomas inherits the boy ‘as part of the livestock’ (4) and keeps him at St. Michaels. After that the boy is moved back and forth between Thomas and Hugh Auld but ends up back at St. Michaels, where Thomas apparently nearly starves him to death, eventually using him as field hand (where he gets savagely beaten at regular intervals but at least fed). After beating the foreman in a fight, he is sent to another place and there teaches other slaves to read and write. He eventually escapes.

That’s the story and if what he says is correct, there is nothing of Hammond’s ‘natural and common good’ in such misery (Hammond 1936). I have put notes in some places, about which I want to talk later. Right now, I want to go back to what happened at the club three weeks ago. You weren’t there, so you can have no idea of the scenes in that place. The air of violence and the anger was so thick; you could have cut it with a knife. People, who have known each other all their lives, and who are good people normally, were attacking each other in the most unprecedented way.

This was not a good-natured argument that got a little out of hand. No, this was all-out war. If this is a sign of things