Comparison: Frederick Douglass v. Sojourner Truth
The truth is a powerful thing, and will always be victorious when against a handful of lies. Have you ever been oppressed? Been the victim of subservience and hardship, while under unjust authority. In the times before January 31, 1865, many African American people were being oppressed. In the novel Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, written by Himself, the reader witnesses a first person view of how slavery was like when Frederick Douglass was growing up in America. When Frederick Douglass grew up, he became a very well known abolitionist, or a person that fights for the end of slavery, Sojourner Truth, similar to Frederick Douglass was a very well known abolitionist and early women’s rights supporter. These two abolitionist along with others fought for a long time to end slavery, and eventually ended the long fight.
Truth was born in Rifton, New York, like Douglass she was also born a slave. They both experienced very horrible treatment from their masters, until they escaped. While Douglass was growing up on the plantain, he had never really known his parents, His father was unknown to him and he had met his mother only a couple of times in his life before she passed away. This situation is very similar to Truth’s for she also did not know her parents very well. In sojourners childhood she is sold at a very young age, to an abusive master. Separating her from her family and orphaning her. While Douglass and Truth have much in common, there are more differences than there are similarities.
One way that Truth and Douglass’s life as slaves are unlike one another is that their masters, because of their race and genders, treated them differently. For example, male slaves were purchased due to their physical strength and female slaves would be bought because of their bodies’ sex appeal. Another difference between these two genders is that as a man you would be beaten and whipped as punishment, women would be beaten, whipped but could also be raped. When Truth was separated from her family, she became home sick, because unlike Douglass she was able to create bonds with her family.