Frederick Douglass on Slavery

Douglass and Canot
Frederick Douglass believed that men should be free and that slavery was morally wrong. Captain Canot did not think slavery was bad and in fact supported slavery. Both men based their takes on slavery on experience and philosophical perspectives. However, the main difference was that Douglass was coming from the perspective of the slave and Canot was coming from the perspective of the slave owner. So for Douglass, of course slavery would seem bad as he experienced it directly and knew what it felt like to not be free. That shaped his perspective. Canot on the other hand only had the experience of being an owner and never felt the loss of his rights as a human being so did not appreciate this perspective.
Douglass based his views also on his education and his experience: he could see right away that inequality was hateful. He saw how children whose mother is a slave but whose father is a white slave master “are, in the first place, a constant offense to their mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom do anything to please her; she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash….”[footnoteRef:1] (Douglass, 1995, p. 2-3). Canot (2015) based his views on his European background and sense of hierarchy. He was born into the military and became a captain—a master of other men, so slavery naturally fit right into his way of life and thinking. It was as natural to him as anything else in life. He did not experience the other side in the same way that someone like Douglass did, so really had no conception of it. He was a man who appreciated the finer things in life and had a like for manners and civility, which is odd that he would not find slavery repellant. Douglass presents his information through narrative, and so too does Canot, but Canot’s approach is more Old World-styled while Douglass’ approach is more American in tenor. [1: Frederick Douglass, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (NY: Dover, 1995), 2-3.]

Obtaining Land in Georgia
My family and I obtained land during the colonial period in Georgia by means of a relative who acquired it initially and left it to us, his only kin in his will. He himself obtained the land through the land lottery. The land had originally belonged to the Creek Indians, but the Georgia government saw fit to let residents gamble for land that did not even belong to the government. The government simply confiscated it from the Creek Indians and gave it away in the 1805 lottery.
The rules associated with the land lottery at that time were that “public lands in the interior of the state were dispersed to small yeoman farmers (i.e., farmers who cultivate their own land) based on a system of eligibility and chance” and conducted in this manner: “The first land lottery, held in 1805, was authorized by the legislature on May 11, 1803, and involved 490-acre plots in Wayne County and 202.5-acre plots in Baldwin and Wilkinson counties. For a fee of four cents an acre, common Georgians could amass a sizeable land holding. In each lottery eligible participants applied to the state. The number of times a participant's name was entered into the first drum was dictated by age, marital status, war service, successful participation in previous lotteries, and years of Georgia residence” (Gigantino, 2006). Our land was won in Baldwin County and this impacted the Creek Indians negatively because it stripped them of where they lived.
We will keep the land and use it to farm as that is why it was won and now that it has been passed on to us and the Creek Indians are gone, there is no choice but to use it. If we could give it back, we might do that, but everyone would look at us like we were foolish, so we should farm the land and make it our own so that the community does not reject us outright.

References
Canot, T. (2015). Twenty years of an African slaver. UK: Cambridge.
Douglass, F. (1995). The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. NY: Dover.
Gigantino, J. (2006). Land lottery system. Retrieved from
http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/articles/history-archaeology/land-lottery-system