The Hierarchy of Slavery

Slavery was more than simply hierarchy based on races- most slave owners cared little about the actually well-being of their slaves, and just saw slaves as a way to make money; therefore dehumanizing slaves into just simply “property”. They were several ways slave owners did this, including forbidding slaves to learn to read and write, whipping them to near death, and participating in slave trading, without any second thought to splitting families. We see all these examples of social hierarchy in Fredrick Douglass’s personal narrative of his life as a plantation slave. One specific example of white’s treatment of slaves is in the relationship between Master Hugh’s Wife and Douglass.

Douglass’s Master Hugh wife was at first a kind, gentle lady. In fact, Douglass himself describes her upon first meeting her: “In the simplicity of her soul, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat one another,” (37). Douglass is so surprised by the mistress’s kindness and the fact that she treating Douglass like a human being that he goes out of his way to describe her warm heart. This also alludes to how badly Douglass was treated by previous owners, since he is so gracious just for someone’s kindness and treating him like an equal. The mistress even began to teach Douglass to read and write, before being discovered by her husband, and therefore, the becoming knowledgeable in the treatment of slaves: “Under its [slavery] influence, the tender heart [of the mistress] became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness,”(37). Once Hugh’s wife understands the hierarchy of slavery, she treats slaves in the common degrading way. In fact, Douglass points out that it was, “to her satisfaction that education and slavery were incompatible with each other,” (38). This exemplifies the popular idea at the time that since slaves were for profit only, there is no reason they need to be, or should be, educated.

Through the characterization of Master’s Hugh’s wife, we understand the influence of slavery on both the dominate and the inferior race. Whites learned how to treat saves through social norms. For whites, it was socially acceptable to punish a slave for trying to learn literacy, or whip a slave to near death for being for no particular reason, or as punishment for being unable to complete harsh standards of work. It was also common to view slaves as property, and therefore splitting up families if it produced profit was acceptable. In fact, not only were these actions social acceptable, they were the social standard, and to treat as slave as an equal was seen as weakness among superior whites.