Slavery has probably been the most regrettable institutions of American history because it threatened the meaning of the original institution of democracy, in which the United States had been established.  We often try to forget the past and lose sight of the hardships and problems of our history.  However, it is inevitable to discuss the issues of the past, to understand how the nation has developed into what it is today.  By looking at literature of the past and present-day analysis of the past, we are able to gain hindsight of why events occurred and their significance in our history.  In order to perceive American slavery in relation to history and culture, I looked at two works, Frederick Douglass's slave narrative and Slavery by Stanley Elkins.  The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, provides a real account of the life of a slave and a freeman in ante-bellum America whereas, Elkins account depicts the institution of slavery in relation to slavery in Latin America, and also how it has enriched American culture.  Although these texts are written at different times, by distinct writers – a victim and a historian, and take contrasting approaches, both authors successfully portray the issues of paternalism and religion and the injustices of slavery.

    Frederick Douglass’s autobiography is a powerful and moving proclamation of a man who had survived the torments of slavery and succeeded in freedom.  Being an oppressed victim himself of the institution, Douglass’s narrative is very personal and real.  His descriptive, yet simple language allows the reader not only to empathize with the slave, but also reflect on the immoral institution as whole.  Douglass’s most effective portrayals are his recounting of whippings, questioning of true Christian faith of the masters, and his depiction of the North.  As a victim, Douglass reproduced the life and suffering of a slave.  From firsthand experience he had felt the torture of a “very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger” (290).  His enduring pain seems almost unimaginable, yet so real at the same time.  In addition to his implausible, yet gripping accounts of suffering and agony, Douglass also unveils his disbelief for his masters’ faith in Christianity.  Douglass provokes the reader to mistrust the Southern planters’ religious faith, for a true Christian would not compel his “woman slave to commit the sin of adultery” (292).  With his description of the whippings, torture and sin committed by the masters, Douglass depicts slavery as an immoral and sinful institution, an institution unrepresenting of America.  Furthermore, he proves that such an institution established to maintain wealth is unnecessary.  From observing the North, Douglass saw the “strongest proofs wealth” firmly incorporated into society without the “whipping of men” (323).  Hence, Douglass proves that slavery was unjust and inhumane, and that the successful industrial societies of the North completely refute the Southern institution.  Douglass’s narrative is very convincing because he experienced and observed all that he recounted.  Even though his tone is very objective and serious, Douglass is able to enlighten readers about the true life of a slave.
 
    Along with Douglass, Elkins reveals the injustice of slavery as a very problematic institution.  As a historian, Elkins uses other sources to support his analysis of slavery.  Even though he does not have direct access to personal experience as did Douglass, Elkins is also able to make an informative presentation by comparing America’s institution of slavery to that of Latin America.
The “liberal, Protestant, secularized, capitalist culture of America” had an effect on how slavery developed differently in the United States compared to the “conservative, paternalistic, Catholic, quasi-medieval culture of Spain and Portugal” in their New World colonies (37).  In the Latin American nations there were no laws binding slaves to the institution for life, as there was in the South of the United States.  Elkins does not praise Latin America, but rather compares its society to America’s in order to illustrate how imbedded the institution was in American society.  In addition to taking a different approach, Elkins is also looking at slavery about a century later after the Civil War.  He is interested on how the separateness of the slaves from the masters developed into Black and White culture.  Through his research, Elkins hopes to assess slavery in relation to race relations of today’s society.

     Both Frederick Douglass’s narrative and Elkins’s evaluation present the dreadful and complex life of slavery realistically.  Douglass illustrates that the master kept the American slave ignorant of his identity.  With this tactic, the master was able to maintain the slave’s status as subordinate and inferior.  To further inhibit the slaves, the masters would separate families, children from mothers and siblings from each other. Thus, the slaves were forced to develop “dependence and childlike attachment” to their masters (Elkins, 82).  Paternalism was the main feature on the plantation to sustain the masters’ authority as superior father-like figures.  Ironically, “numerous mulatto children [were] born every year of white-planter fathers and slave mothers” (Elkins, 55).  Along with Douglass whose “master was my father,” many slaves were children of the plantation owners (Douglass, 256).  Obviously, this “cunning arrangement” threatened the Christian tradition and family (Douglass, 257).  However, because the acts of infidelity were never brought forth to the law, the sin remained repressed in the master-slave relationship.  Like Douglass, “knowing” their true father “was withheld” from the slaves (Douglass, 256).  Masters of the American slave readily displaced their children and replaced humanity for their own gain and wealth.  Instead of promoting the development of a stable, Christian family, the plantation system “conceived and evolved exclusively on grounds of property” and profit (Elkins, 55).  It was always in the master’s benefit that he could augment his labor force by making a “gratification of his wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable” (Douglass, 257). Hence, both Elkins and Douglass perceive slavery as a very complex institution based on the upholding of ideology of paternalism.  The two works are necessary to fully understand how the institution sustained itself and how it affected the victims and America as a whole.

    In America’s capitalist “democracy,” the institution of slavery thrived.  However, it challenged America’s idealism.  Douglass and Elkins are both necessary to study American history in order to fully understand the complexities and impact of the institution on American culture.  Douglass, the author, utilized his experience and achievements to unveil the true burden of the slaves, whereas Elkins, the historian, used his research to attempt to assess the development of a separated culture.  These two examples of historical literature are significant to American Studies because they provide a realistic, literary history as well as an assessment of how history has influenced American society and culture of the present day.
 
 

Douglass, Frederick.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.  Boston:  Anti-Slavery Office, 1845.

Elkins, Stanley M.  Slavery.  Chicago:  The University of Chicago Press, 1959.
 
 

Slavery links

Slavery-Freedoom

"The Peculiar Institution" a brief history of slavery

Approaches to American Culture

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