Читать книгу Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Frederick Douglass - Страница 8

So that his readers could begin to understand the system of “chattel” slavery, in the Narrative Douglass is careful to emphasize that the slave had no say in their living quarters or work assignments, no rights to family relationships, no redress for grievances and no legitimate testimony in the courts. A slave was legally considered to be property like a horse or a piece of household furniture, not a person. Chattel slavery means the slave as personal property, almost on the same scale as livestock.

Whites could not be prosecuted by slaves for crimes against them. Or as Douglass puts it, “No matter how innocent a slave might be – it availed him nothing …To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty.”

In the event of grievances for cruelty or even murder, a slave could not even act as a witness. Killing a slave was not treated as a crime, either by the courts or by the community. Indeed, Douglass writes, “It was a common saying, even among little white boys, that it was worth a half-cent to kill a ‘nigger’, and a half-cent to bury one.”