In this picture you see a slave bound at the wrists and ankles. He is on his knees with his hands folded and looking towards the sky. It is almost as though he is pleading with someone, or praying to God to deliver him from the pain. The man in this picture, however, is larger and better built than those in the picture before it. He looks strong and masculine which I believe show’s strength. The banner under him reads, “am I not a man and a brother?” This is a deep statement. In a Christian nation, founded on the values of freedom and liberty, why aren’t all men protected and free? I think this picture represents the spirit of all the oppressed slaves well.

In this passage Mulatto’s in the antebellum period were discussed. A mulatto is a slave who is typically of white and African origins. In this article there is a passage that goes as follows, “ The mulatto figure was a scandal- not only a sexual but an intellectual scandal, confounding as it did the racial categories that were as fundamental to the social life in the north as in the south.” They were seen as confusion to social life in the north and the south. Not to mention they were viewed as a sexual scandal. This goes along with the theme of “less than human” that we continue to see emerging in all of these texts. The article refers to a part of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, where Tom is being beaten and his master said you are mine body and soul. Tom pretty much tells him, you can buy the body, but you can never buy the soul. I think this statement reflects the same kind of attributes we see in Frederick Douglass. He never gave up and eventually he was able to escape slavery and become an avid abolitionist.

This article talked about the violence that Frederick Douglass witnessed and experienced. As a boy he was forced to watch as his Aunt was beaten often for no reason by her master. In the south whites could do as they pleased with slaves since they were property and had no legal protection. Under the slave codes no white man could be convicted for any injustice due to the testimony of a slave. Douglass saw another slave named Demby shot in the head by Gore for disobeying the order given to him to get out of the creek. And Douglass experienced the violence first hand when he was jumped by a band of shipyard workers, one of which busted out his left eye. Slaves in this period were treated as less than human. They were given no rights and no protection.

In Christian violence and the Slave Narrative by SallyAnn H. Ferguson, we take a look at Christian slave masters and slavery in Christianity. Right off the bat it gives a description of a violent act committed by a Christian slave owner against a slave who attempts escape, it is out of The Narrative of the Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, “The Christian master immediately pinned the wretch to the ground, at each wrist and ankle, and then took some stick of sealing wax, lighted them, and dropped it all over his back.” Equiano and Douglass both demonstrated how “theological concepts of original sin, blood sacrifice, and spiritual atonement to rationalize the moral contradictions and brutality that went with Christian slavery.” It is also said that the image of Christ on the cross helped slavery because it “communicates the message that suffering is redemptive…” Christianity in the mind of the slave owners equaled a moral perversion that enabled the slave owner to “use” his violence to save the ones he abused. Even the “Christian” slave owners of the time were so corrupted that they could do such wrong to a person. Christ endured many of these transgressions, anyone who is a true Christian would never want to bring this on anyone.