Throughout Fredrick Douglas’ novel, he expresses readily and whole-heartedly his opinion specifically on Christian slaveholders. On page 1043 is when he starts promoting his criticisms about these slaveholders in a harsher manner. In this chapter, Fredrick Douglas moves from Mr. Covey’s to live with Mr. William Freeland. This is where Douglas’ hatred for Christian slaveholders increases. He states that out of all the slaveholders he has ever met the Religious slaveholder was the worst by far. He makes it known within the novel that the Religious slaveholders are of the harshest and meanest of them all.
He says that living as a slave to a Christian slaveholder was brutal but living with a Religious slaveholder within a very Religious community is worse. They would give each other suggestions on how to make sure that their slaves were behaving at their best. They would make comments at how one another could be better disciplining their slaves. Mr. Freeland, however, was not hypocritically a very religious man. Instead of using his religion as an excuse to pass on constant cruelty to his slaves, he makes them work hard and treats them fairly. Although, this does not make him a better person, he still was a slaveholder. Douglas offers a counter-narrative to the details he records of the typical behavior of Christian slaveholders by further expressing how not every religious slaveholder is the worst. His example being Mr. Freeland. He only owned two slaves and hired the rest of his staff.
In order to not lose hope, in my opinion, I believe that Douglas’ counter-narrative helps in that aspect. Another reason this chapter gives us hope is the fact that Douglas began holding Sabbath school in the home of a freed slave. Although this is a dangerous situation, the idea that young slaves are gaining knowledge and expanding their education gives me hope within this chapter.
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