Mistreatment is a constant in Douglass’ narrative. This is, of course, a staple of any story involving slavery, and the brutality is always to be expected. But it is the description of his first six months with Mr. Covey which stands out to me in particular. Douglass writes that “Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking [him],” that he was “broken in body, soul, and spirit.” (1199) Crushed beneath the heel of cruelty, Douglass experiences something akin to a severing of his humanity, where his interests and identity are washed away and he becomes “a man transformed into a brute.” (1199) What follows on the next page is his plaintive speech as he watches the ships leaving the bay and begs to understand the state of his life, how he could be abandoned to the “hottest hell of unending slavery” (1200) and deprived of his personhood so ceaselessly.
Here, let us take a moment to consider the frequent use of animalistic descriptions for the Native Americans in The Last of the Mohicans. Here, let us consider the similar zoomorphism projected onto Black people, both free and otherwise. These passages present both a counter and an explanation. The dehumanization wrought upon Douglass is explicitly done by the hands of his oppressors. It is not a natural state of being for him, whatever his contemporary white readers may have originally assumed. He sets the degradation of his personhood in direct contrast with what he has before and after it: humanity. By describing the process of losing and regaining that identity, he disproves the notion of its absence as an inherent trait.
I completely agree and also noticed the use of “animal-like” rhetoric, as well as “savage,” “barbaric,” etc. The point of Douglass disproving the notion that there Black people are inherently, characteristically “inhuman” is addressed again when he explains that the “better” his conditions in slavery, or the more “privileges” accorded him in his position as an enslaved person by his “master,” the more hopeful and fixated on freedom he becomes. This only speaks further to your point. The attempt to “break” an enslaved person, to deplete them of all spirit and energy, is an attempt to make them forget their humanity. Douglass mentions that while working as a calker, he could only think about his life in the present moment. He was so exhausted that he cold not even consider his past or future, his hopes or his dreams, his emotions or feelings; and are these not what compose humanity? This is, as Douglass identifies, intentional on the part of the slave owners. Keep them ignorant, too overworked, and too fatigued to even consider the nature of their circumstances and the possibility that they, too, are humans.
I agree as well with the importance of the idea of humanity. In response to Tessa’s comment, I thought it was also interesting that Douglass dehumanizes the slaveholders right back. He calls Covey “the snake” and describes how he would wait for the slaves “coiled up in the corner of the wood fence” (1198). Douglass’s statement on the following page was also striking to me, he said “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man” (1200). I found this quote notable because it both displays how a slave is considered to be less than human, but also emphasizes that it is not a permanent position. Just because a slave is seen as less than human does not mean there is no opportunity to become a full man or person. It also emphasizes that the slave themself has the ability to facilitate that change.
The complete dehumanization and brutal treatment Douglass describes so frequently also struck me while reading. The scary notion of the animal quality enslaved African Americans were treated like was really poignant to me when Douglass was discussing the enslaved woman Mr. Covey bought to be a “breeder” to produce offspring for him to acquire more slaves. Such disgusting animalistic motivations show just how horrifyingly depersonalizing the institution of slavery was, and just how much more significant it was that Douglass was able to escape and assert an identity for himself despite it all.