Posted by ato on 4/15/2009, 8:36 am
41.212.200.5
Frederick Douglass started life as a slave. He was born to a slave mother in 1818, at a time when slavery was practiced almost universally throughout the United States. At the age of 20 he was able to escape from slavery, educate himself and transcend his humble origins. This transformation gave Frederick Douglass a unique perspective on slavery.
Frederick Douglass wrote an autobiography in which he described many of his experiences as a slave in graphic detail. He was a person who experienced the atrocities firsthand.
For example, he describes the violence of his master in this way:
He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass.
He spoke of the slave trade in this way:
We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder.
[Source: "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas" by Frederick Douglas.]
Imagine these injustices magnified across the lives of thousands upon thousands of slaves in the United States and you can begin to understand the horrific magnitude of slavery in America. Slavery is a scourge. It is an atrocity.
All of us know that slavery is abhorrent. Slavery involves the loss of free will and the subjugation of one person to another. Slavery is a form of imprisonment. Slavery turns human beings into a type of livestock that can be bought and sold as the property of another person. As described by Frederick Douglass above, slavery is often accompanied by remarkable brutality. No human being would want to be enslaved. This is what makes the concept of slavery so repugnant.
Now that you have a clear image of slavery in your head, here is an important question: How would you imagine that God feels about slavery?
As the all-loving creator of the universe and of each human soul, you would expect God to be violently opposed to the enslavement of human beings. Our all-knowing God would certainly despise slavery in the same way that any normal person does. What other position could a perfect God take?
It is surprising, therefore, to discover that the Bible tells a different story. If we read the Bible, we find instead a God who embraces slavery wholeheartedly. The Bible is so supportive of slavery, in fact, that it was frequently used as a justification for American slavery prior to the Civil War.
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