With these words, Frederick Douglass ended one of the greatest pieces of propaganda of the 19th century. Douglass wrote his autobiography as an abolitionist tool to shape his northern audience's view of southern slaveholders. Through personal anecdotes, Douglass drew an accurate picture of the life of a slave. At the same time, these events were chosen for how they would affect the northern audience's opinion of southern slaveholders. By using the written word, Douglass and fellow abolitionists targeted educated northern whites because they were the only group who could change the status quo. Illiterate northern whites and free northern blacks could not vote while white southerners would not vote because they did not want change. Therefore, Douglass used his life story as a tool to promote abolition among literate northern whites.

To further demonstrate the wickedness of southern slave masters, Douglass wanted his readers to know how religion was used as a "mere covering for the most horrid crimes...a dark shelter under which the darkest, foulest, grossest and most infernal deeds of slave holders (found) the strongest protection." (46) Masters would beat their slaves and then defend their actions with quotes from the bible such as "He that knoweth his master's will and doeth it not shall be beaten with many stripes." (33) Northerners with any religious background would know that this quote and others like it did not translate into justification for inflicting physical harm on a slave when they did not obey their master. Douglass wanted to show his readers how slave owners misused the teachings of the bible to strengthen their own power and how they basically saw themselves as God to their slaves. The reader would know the later was blasphemy, one of the seven deadly sins. As a result, the readers would detest their southern brethren because religious slave holders "(were) the worst...meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly of all others." (46)

Another example of how Douglass used family values as propaganda against southern slaveholders was in the treatment of his grandmother. When Douglass's master decided that his grandmother was too old and no longer useful, "they took her to the woods, built her a little hut...and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die." (28) This showed the lack of decency or gratitude on the part of slave holders toward slaves that had faithfully, their entire lives, served their masters. The mistreatment of elders in this manner would enrage the readers, especially those with close-knit families, because the aged were to be taken care of and respected until death. The usefulness of older people went beyond physical attributes because they had a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. The fact that slave masters could show so little regard and respect for Douglass's grandmother would be loathsome and despicable, and Douglass hoped this would help influence the northern whites against the institution of slavery.

To force his audience to feel further alienated, Douglass elaborates on the treatment of slaves as animals in his description of the slaves' sleeping conditions. Masters did not give the slaves a bed to sleep on, only a "coarse blanket." (6) So at the end of the day, slaves "old and young, male and female, married and single (would) drop down side by side, on one common bed- the cold damp floor." (6) Douglass was aware that some of his northern readers could relate to the slaves situation because they too had once endured similar circumstances of poor living conditions or even homelessness. But, northern society made it possible for a person to overcome such hardships while the slave masters denied their slaves a better existence. The institution of slavery held each successive generation in poverty, which is an affront to the dream that many northerners held of prosperity in the New World. Douglass hoped that the Northerner

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Approximate Word count = 2131
Approximate Pages = 9 (250 words per page double spaced)