Fredrick Douglass - Slave / Slave holder Christianity - Essay Example

only did they reconcile slavery by, what can now be termed as, misreading of the Bible, but they also found justification of their barbarous attitude towards their slaves within the Bible itself. Originating from the Curse of Ham, or Curse of Canaan, story of the bible, whereby Noah had cursed Canaan’s son, Ham, to be enslaved by their brethren forever, Southern slave holders often justified the enslavements of blacks to be a fulfillment of Noah’s prophecy, and thus perfectly justifiable. Since this was prophesized in the Bible, therefore, they had religious sanction for their slave-holding habits.

The slave holders took religious scriptures to justify their own reprehensible actions, and tried to insulate themselves from the reality of their barbarity. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass gives just such an example of the religious scriptures being taken out of context for the nefarious purposes of the slave holders. A master of Douglass “found” religion, and when meting out harsh punishments to a female slave he owned, he quoted a passage of Scripture “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes” (Douglass, Chapter IX 4th Paragraph).

Thus, for the slave owner, God, Himself, had given sanction to his cruel whipping of the female slave, a whipping that reduced her to a bleeding pulp. As per this verse of the Bible, it was the duty of the slaves to do their master’s bidding, failing which, the master was well within his rights to mete out any punishment to the slave. The whipping and lashing of slaves were considered to be just punishments, endorsed by the Bible itself, for any insubordination. Even the suspicion of insubordination won the slaves a whipping, however, that too was considered to be authorized by the Bible.

What is even more interesting about Douglass’ account is that it is apparent that the closer the slave master was to religion, the harsher and