Early Pages of American History - Essay Example

English Literature ic and Modern), Essay Topic: English Introduction: The pages of American history are daubed in bloodshed of the blacks and contain accounts of discrimination and victimization of the highest order against them. To an extent history still asks the crying question. Can this country be made heaven-like where there is no trace of racial bias whatsoever? Not the legal provisions alone but human hearts full of positive vibrations, eyes full of understanding and life that refuses conflicts—enough these moral qualities are alone enough to reach that goal. Centuries ago, when slavery was practiced in South America in its crudest form, leave aside the plantation owners and politicians, even the guardians of Christian religion had Cross on dangling on their necks, but not Christ in the hearts. It is paradoxical how the religious authorities remained mute witnesses to the shocking barbarity and meanest deeds to which the slaves were exposed. Slavery was a tragedy in the lives of the blacks. That it was practiced under the umbrella of religion was their double-tragedy. In the 1800s a bright star by name Frederick Douglass appeared in the horizon of America to expose the bifacial strategy of the whites and to passionately plead for the rights of the blacks. He writes, “—by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden.”(Preface, viii) In this narrative Douglass explains vividly the life of slaves, the victims of life-long dehumanizing process and the tragic stages through which their life had to pass through. Slaves were deliberately kept ignorant about everything, and animal-like treatment was meted out to them. The slaves owned a human body given to them by God. That was their divine asset to suffer. The author writes, “It may, perhaps be fairly questioned, whether any other portion of the population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings and horrors of slavery, without having become more degraded in the scale of humanity than the slaves of American decent.”(Preface x) Douglass had an awful childhood and that was true of all black children born in that era. The white masters had perfected the art of suppression of the black people right from their childhood. Mental and physical torture procedures were followed to break the spirit of blacks. The black race suffered life-long punishment for having committed no crimes, except that they were born blacks. It was just a sort of open-air imprisonment, working for long hours in the farms. Douglass writes, “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday.” (1) The slaves were not expected to know about their personal details. They just toiled, toiled and toiled again from sunrise to sunset in the farms of their masters. That was the beginning and end of their lives. The dehumanization process of Douglass commenced from even before birth. He recalled with great desperation that his father was a white man—most probably his master was his father. As an infant in the cradle, he was separated from his mother. As per the practice in vogue in Maryland children were snatched away from their mothers when the child was some months old and were taken to a faraway place to be kept in the care of an old woman. This was the worst part in the life of the black, the denial of mother’s love for the child. Douglass describes about the punishment through whipping by the white masters, and he was eye-witness to some such incidents. The slaves trembled; even the women were not spared, as to what would be in store for them the next day, on silliest of the pretexts. God sees the truth but how long the black man had to wait! In South America torturing of slaves was an accepted fact. The law supported the whites; the church backed them. The profound regret of Douglass was about the attitude of the Church. The nod from the religious authorities shocked and amazed and turned him cynical. Christianity is supposed to be a compassionate religion, but why not the Christians of Maryland? Douglass writes, “A slave- holder's profession of Christianity is a palpable imposture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a man-stealer. It is of no importance what you put in the other scale." (xiii) Religion as it was practiced by the whites was the worst experience of his life. In his narrative masculinity was at stake, because the identity of an individual (man) was crushed from his childhood and he was unable to develop the fighting qualities. The white masters had no consideration for the black children. Only those children who worked in the fields were given shoes, stockings, trousers and jackets. The non-working children, including girls, were given nothing. Children of both the sexes, seven to ten years old, remained almost naked, in biting cold or during hot summer. The working and living conditions of the male/female farmhands was awesome. Douglass writes, “ ….and when this is done, old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down side by side, on one common bed,--the cold, damp floor,--each covering himself or herself with their miserable blankets; and here they sleep till they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn.”(6) All such cruelties were order of the day, and what an appalling reality it was that the black people had to endure such hardships for their entire lifetime, without recourse to any remedies. In that dark sky of the blacks, an individual arrived like the polestar who challenged the dehumanizing process of the blacks. Mention of his abilities and merits is recorded thus: “As a public speaker, he excels in pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength of reasoning, and fluency of language. There is in him that union of head and heart, which is indispensable to an enlightenment of the heads and winning of hearts of others.”(ix) He cried a halt to the compulsive practice of the whites “to cripple their (blacks) intellects, darken their minds, debase their moral nature, and obliterate all traces of their relationship to mankind…”(x) The weight of the bondage is too difficult for the printed words to capture. Blacks groaned under the weight of their hardships for centuries. The Narrative read in the present context is the historical and prophetic appeal for the rightful place for the blacks in every segment of social and economic life of America. The clarion call of Douglass has now achieved the legal sanctity and blacks are an inseparable part of the American society today. Much has been done, and much more needs to be done for the assimilation of the hearts. Blacks and whites must be the like the alternative beats of the same heart-- that is of America! Works Cited Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Dover Thrift Editions), Dover Unabridged edition, April 13, 1995 Read More