Comparison of The life of Frederick douglas and other minority experiences
...tal hardships he and other slaves have to endure while under the rule of their harsh and egotistical white masters, which is similar to the way that natives were treated by the whites upon arrival to this country. In one part of the book he writes about how slaves were often “whipped” (Douglas 65) and they were deprived of food as there owners would keep them “half-starved” (Douglas 65), such as the case of Henrieta and Mary who were whipped very often and withheld food from. It was not bad enough that they had been taken from their homes and enslaved but they still had to suffer the harsh brutality of their masters. In A Different Mirror: A History of a Multicultural America, Takaki tells about how Native Americans also had to endure the brutality of the white man, as they were also “slaves” (takaki 53), with the exception that they could easily find refuge in a society that was composed of white immigrants and native tribes, as opposed to blacks who could not find consolidation. Both of these races of people had to suffer mental abuse by their white superiors. Blacks had to suffer abuse in many ways, another form being mental abuse, Douglas talks of an event where “There were horses and men, cattle and women……all holding the same rank in the scale of being(Douglas71).”, whites used treatment such as this to keep the blacks of this time period mentally suppressed. Another example of this treatment is how blacks were discouraged towards reading in the manner that “if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him.” (Douglas 63). In Takaki’s book the same mental abuse was bestowed upon the Natives, as they were disregarded and didn’t even count in accordance to the constitution (Lecture 9/9). Native Americans also suffered this kind of abuse because their land was taken away and in “…justification for…”(Takaki 87) their “…removal”(Takaki 87) President Jackson had made the point clear that failure to “civilize the Indians”(Takaki 87) was reason enough to take their land and push them ...