Through the black colonial lens, viewing slavery and focusing on A Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass

Abstract

In this paper, I will be exploring how colonialism spread and how colonialism has changed the world. When European colonizers settled in Africa and Asia, they established colonies and started ruling new foreign lands around the world. Through colonization, they controlled trade around the world. The colonized people had nothing to do with the powerful military approach of the colonizers, as the Europeans claimed to be more superior and civilized. The colonizers claimed that they would civilize and educate the savage natives. White colonizers settled in various parts of America and strengthened colonial rule. Plantations in colonial America required labor. Which they brought from Africa as the colonizers started trade with the African blacks. Thus, slaves had been brought in exchange for British goods. The slaves were transported through the middle passage, which is known by the name of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. So, I am arguing that colonial rule led to chattel slavery. Chattel slavery was different as it addressed slaves as private property and gave them no rights. The number of slaves involved in the trans- Atlantic slave trade makes it a significant event in American history. The slaves were treated like animals on the plantations; they were not even properly fed. The torture and beating slaves endured during the course of slavery cannot be explained in words. Slave masters had the power to do anything with their slaves and could order anything to be done. White masters had sex with the black slaves, which was a common practice among masters. A black woman could not do anything to protect her chastity, as she had no rights to do so. Inhumane treatment and harsh conditions only gave slaves agony and sorrow. Black slaves, who were men, could not even protect their wives or children from the master. If a master wanted to have sex with any slave, there was no stopping him; any slave could do nothing against him. For the slaves, the master was always right, no matter what. Until slavery was abolished, the suffering of the slaves continued. The abolition of slavery was not easy, as the Americans had a biblical justification for slavery and it was a source of free labor for their plantations. But the key fact here is that chattel slavery began in America as a result of colonialism. Fredrick Douglass was a slave himself who had nothing to wear or eat; he slept on the floor and suffered from the harsh realities of slavery. He had seen the cruelty of slavery with his own eyes and gave readers a glimpse of it in his novel A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. During his time as a slave, he saw how slaves suffered. He saw the suffering and inhumane conditions of slaves. But as he grew up, he started learning from a mistress and understood that education can bring some light into his dark. Douglass and Abraham Lincoln were like friends and had a profound impact on the abolishment of slavery. So, in this paper, I will be analyzing how Chattel slavery started from colonialism from a colonial lens, and through the analysis of A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, I will try to briefly analyze how slaves were treated in the plantation and what the life of an African slave was like. I will also be exploring things that helped British colonialism spread across the globe. Europeans used trade, education, religion, and weapons to colonize the natives of Africa and Asia. Other continents were bound to trade only with the British Empire, and this helped the Europeans control the economies of these regions. When white Europeans first came to Africa and Asia, they told the natives that the whites were civilized and educated, so they would civilize and educate the native people through colonialism. But their true purpose was to achieve their own interests and make slaves suffer in the process.