At my school, this website is very popular with a lot of my colleagues, and I myself am only just barely beginning to get started with it.
At the moment, I haven't created any quizizz myself, but have only used ones that my colleagues have created or found. It seems to be possible to use already created quizizz without creating an account. (Or sometimes I just log in with my Google account--which is another option.)
Also as with Kahoot, be aware that these game require the students to have their own devices (smart phones or iPads, etc), in order to play along.
It's somewhat similar to Kahoot, but there is an option for the students to work through the questions at their own pace while the teacher's computer displays the evolving total scores. Students seem to like it.
Originally published in 1919, this is the 13th book in the Oz series written by L. Frank Baum. It is also the second to the last Oz book that L. Frank Baum wrote before he died. (Although Baum would die before this book hit the shelves--Baum died in May, 1919, and this book was published in June.)
Summary of the Plot
L. Frank Baum is once again recycling plots from previous books. (Yet another sign that he had run out of ideas for his Oz series, but that he still needed the money.)
It's Ozma's birthday, and everyone is concerned with the preparations. Then, at the end, there's a grand party, and all the Oz characters make a brief cameo. This is the same plot that we saw before in book number 5: The Road to Oz. While this is going on, the evil Nome King is plotting to take over the land of Oz, but he is ultimately defeated by drinking from the fountain of oblivion. Again, we saw this same plot before in book 6: The Emerald City of Oz.
Links
I am once again relying on the analysis of Mari Ness at Tor.com . Her review is titled: Boredom in Fairyland: The Magic of Oz. You may get a sense of her opinion just from that title. But if there's any doubt, you can read her introduction.
So Ozma is having a birthday again. Yawn. And the various adopted citizens and hangers-on at the palace don’t know what to get her. Yawn. And an old enemy of Oz reappears. Yawn. Yawn. Have we reached the end yet?
Magic of Oz, the thirteenth book in Baum’s Oz series, is, above all, a tired book. Very little new happens. Glinda sets a group of young girls to weaving and sewing a gown formed from silk spun from softened emeralds. Trot, Cap’n Bill and the Glass Cat figure an ever changing magical plant will do the trick. Dorothy and the Wizard, cudgeling their brains together, come up with…performing monkeys. It’s even drearier than it sounds.
She eventually ends the review by saying:
With most authors, a book of this sort would be a clear sign to give up and move on. But Baum had one more Oz book left in him.
Ouch!
I'm also doing this book as a buddy read with Dane Cobain. He was a bit more kind to this book. His written review is HERE:
This book was just okay, and that’s pretty much all I have to say about it. Unfortunately, because I’ve left it a little while before getting to my review of this one and because I’ve also read another Oz book in the interim, I can’t really remember the details.
I can remember how it made me feel though, and in general it was a decent enough entry into the Oz series. Baum hit a bit of a bad patch with a few of the books before this one where it felt as though he was just churning out books because he had to, which is supported by the fact that he basically needed the money.
All in all, this was alright, but nowhere near as good as some of the others in the series. So there’s that.
Mari Ness isn't necessarily wrong. The plot of this book is pretty underwhelming.
Ozma having a birthday party is a pretty lame plot. It was pretty lame the first time around inThe Road to Oz, so it's an odd choice to recycle this underwhelming plot point.
The Nome King's attempts to take over the Land of Oz (a recycled plot from The Emerald City of Oz) could, in theory, lead to a dramatic climax. (Picture it in your head: an epic battle! All the forces of evil lined up on one side. All the characters of Oz lined up on the other side. They meet in a battle charge! Picture it like the scenes from The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, or The Return of the King).
Except, in both books, the Nome King never actually gets that far. We spend a lot of time watching him bumbling around, and then he is defeated (both times!) by the Fountain of Oblivion.
What makes the Fountain of Oblivion plot point particularly irritating is that it was supposed make the Nome King forget everything and render him harmless the first time he drank it in book 6. That later got retconned in book 8, where it appeared that the Nome King could remember everything after all.
Okay, fair enough. L. Frank Baum has a lax approach to continuity, and likes to retcon things. I've learned to accept that by this point in the series. But then, after having retconned that plot point, to reintroduce the Fountain of Oblivion as a plot device a second time to resolve the exact same plot point as before? That is really pushing things! I've been forgiving a lot as I've been reading this series, but there is only so much lazy writing I can put up with.
But, in spite of all my complaining, I actually didn't completely hate this book. It's got enough of a manic imaginative energy to it that I found it mostly entertaining, in spite of all its flaws. I'll try to illustrate some of this with a quotation below:
There had been trouble in the Forest of Gugu that morning. Chipo the Wild Boar had bitten the tail off Arx the Giraffe while the latter had his head among the leaves of a tree, eating his breakfast. Arx kicked with his heels and struck Tirrip, the great Kangaroo, who had a new baby in her pouch. Tirrip knew it was the Wild Boar’s fault, so she knocked him over with one powerful blow and then ran away to escape Chipo’s sharp tusks. In the chase that followed a giant porcupine stuck fifty sharp quills into the Boar and a chimpanzee in a tree threw a cocoanut at the porcupine that jammed its head into its body.
All this was against the Laws of the Forest, and when the excitement was over, Gugu the Leopard King called his royal Counselors together to decide how best to punish the offenders.
The four lords of the forest were holding solemn council in a small clearing when they saw two strange beasts approaching them—beasts the like of which they had never seen before.
Not one of the four, however, relaxed his dignity or showed by a movement that he was startled. The great Leopard crouched at full length upon a fallen tree-trunk. Bru the Bear sat on his haunches before the King; Rango the Gray Ape stood with his muscular arms folded, and Loo the Unicorn reclined, much as a horse does, between his fellow-councillors. With one consent they remained silent, eyeing with steadfast looks the intruders, who were making their way into their forest domain.
“Well met, Brothers!” said one of the strange beasts, coming to a halt beside the group, while his comrade with hesitation lagged behind.
“We are not brothers,” returned the Gray Ape, sternly. “Who are you, and how came you in the forest of Gugu?”
“We are two Li-Mon-Eags,” said Ruggedo, inventing the name. “Our home is in Sky Island, and we have come to earth to warn the forest beasts that the people of Oz are about to make war upon them and enslave them, so that they will become beasts of burden forever after and obey only the will of their two-legged masters.”
A low roar of anger arose from the Council of Beasts.
“Who’s going to do that?” asked Loo the Unicorn, in a high, squeaky voice, at the same time rising to his feet.
“The people of Oz,” said Ruggedo.
“But what will we be doing?” inquired the Unicorn.
“That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about.”
“You needn’t talk! We’ll fight the Oz people!” screamed the Unicorn. “We’ll smash ’em; we’ll trample ’em; we’ll gore ’em; we’ll—”
“Silence!” growled Gugu the King, and Loo obeyed, although still trembling with wrath. The cold, steady gaze of the Leopard wandered over the two strange beasts. “The people of Oz,” said he, “have not been our friends; they have not been our enemies. They have let us alone, and we have let them alone. There is no reason for war between us. They have no slaves. They could not use us as slaves if they should conquer us. I think you are telling us lies, you strange Li-Mon-Eag—you mixed-up beast who are neither one thing nor another.”
***END QUOTE*** The scene actually goes on for a couple more pages, but you get the idea.
In one sense, this is terrible writing. L. Frank Baum is writing here like either he's on a caffeine high, or like he's sleep deprived and is just putting whatever comes into his head to fill up his word count.
But, on the other hand, there's a kind of fascination here with this bizarre Loony-Tunes world. I mean, a crazy forest where the animals are constantly getting into shenanigans? Ruled by a Jaguar King who is being advised by a paranoid maniac unicorn? Yeah, sure, I can stick around to see where this is going.
Odds and Ends
* This is yet another Oz book in which L. Frank Baum worked in some brief tie-ins with some of his previous fantasy books. (Queen Zixi of Ix, John Dough and the Cherub). So yet another reason why the series really should be called "The Expanded Universe of Oz".
* The idea that no one can die in the Land of Oz has proven to be one of L. Frank Baum's worst ideas. He can't keep it consistent, and he doesn't know how to introduce any kind of danger without breaking his own rules.
[Notes: This is a parody of the hymn The Heavenly Union. I encountered it at the end of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. It's slightly unclear from the text , but I don't think Frederick Douglass was the actual author of this parody--I think he was just borrowing it.]
There may be a typo on that website. Line 3 of the second stanza reads "I grieved me so that I must die.", but that probably should say "It grieved" instead of "I grieved". However, when recording the video, I went with "I grieved" because that was what my source said. (At the time I was recording, I figured it must be antiquated English. But upon further reflection, I'm now fairly sure it must be a typo.)]
We are now in the final 3 wrap up episodes, in which Mike Duncan takes us from the death of Lenin to Stalin's consolidation of power in just 3 episodes.
And this episode did not disappoint. Another fascinating episode.
I've got a lot of random thoughts about things in this episode, so I'll just list them below.
* One of the things I remembered from my history classes at college was the professor saying that the Bolsheviks were ardent students of the French Revolution. And this really comes through in this episode, in which Mike Duncan recounts how Trotsky and the others were debating the legacy of the French Revolution.
It's also, as Mike Duncan says, a nice little way to bring his podcast full circle.
I remember another thing the professor said was that the Bolsheviks were fearful of another Napoleon , and they were all on the who was likely to become the next Napoleon and seize power. However, they thought that Trotsky was likely to be the next Napoleon, and this blinded them to the threat of Stalin.
Mike Duncan never said this in those same exact words, but I don't think it's far off from the story he's been telling.
* Speaking of France... It's interesting that Mike says that Bukharin got himself into so much trouble because of how his words "enrich yourselves" translated into French. I wonder how well the Bolsheviks spoke French? I'm guessing it was pretty common in Russia at that time? After all, War and Peace, which was written within the lifetime of some of the older Bolsheviks, was written half in partly in French, right? And the Russian reading audience at the time presumably could understand it.
* The Chinese Communist Party comes up briefly in this episode, and Mike Duncan makes a joke about how we should all take a big collective sigh that he's not going to be covering the Chinese Revolution.
I do admit to being disappointed myself. (I would have loved to hear his take on the Chinese Revolution.) But I can totally understand why he doesn't want to do it. To cover everything would take him so many episodes. Which is why he joked about being on episode eight hundred something.
This is yet another activity that comes from an idea bank at my school. As the idea was originally written, it reads:
Before the reading activity, create a document or slideshow containing a single slide. On it, write a list of target items that you want learners to search for. These could be names, numbers or anything of value in the text. Your list should contain about five items. Before reading, flash the list of the words up on the board and show students for about 5-10 seconds, then hide the list. Learners then race to search the text for each item. The first student/pair/group to find all five is the winner. Alternative: include one or two words in your list that are not present in the text. When finished, get the winning team to share their strategies for scanning and finding the words quickly.
(Somewhat similar, perhaps, to the Scanning Race Game that I posted about previously).
I adjusted this slightly. First of all, I adjusted it to include questions that require scanning, rather than just scanning for the exact same word.
This is yet another activity I got from an idea bank at my school. As it was written up on that idea bank, it originally read:
Choose a short text that can be copied into a word document for editing. It should have a good number of reference words. Before the activity, edit the document by changing the reference words into their referents. Share the text with learners and ask them to read. They should notice that without the reference words, the text is repetitive and lacks fluency. Ask learners to improve the text by changing repetitive parts of the text with appropriate reference words. When done, show the learners the original text and compare them.
I actually found this a bit difficult to prepare, in part because it seemed that in most of the texts that I looked at, a lot of the pronouns were either exophoric reference or were dummy pronouns. I don't know--possibly I gave up on the original idea too easily. But what I decided to do instead was to just delete all the pronouns from the text, and then have the students work to identify and write in the missing pronouns.
I debated leaving a space for the students to write in the missing pronoun, but then decided that would be giving too much away. So instead I just double spaced the reading, so that the students could have room to write the missing pronoun above the line. (I also enlarged the text onto A3 size paper to give the students even more room to write.)
As with the Faulty Printer activity, I turned this into a competition. Students were divided into groups, and each group was given one text to edit and write in the missing pronouns. Then I had them correct each other's papers, and give each other 1 point for each correctly placed pronoun.
At the end of the activity, the scores were very low. (Some groups only got 1 or 2 points.) But student engagement was pretty high throughout the activity, so that was good.
As with a lot of these types of activities, I suspect the novelty was a factor. I suspect they would tire of this activity soon if I did it multiple times, but as one time activity, they had fun with it.
According to my school, this activity is designed to focus students on identifying text fluency and the purpose of reference words.
Addendum: Since originally posting this, I have done this activity a second time, and this second time I was using a text that lended itself more to the original description of this activity--i.e. "changing the reference words into their referents." That lesson was Unit 3 Reading 2: Bird by Bird p.72-78 from Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 4 (Second Edition). The activity is on Google Docs here: docs, pub
As always with a list like this, the reader should use his own judgement. There are a few activities on this list that I have some issues with (this will of course depend on your own classroom methodology), but there are other activities on this list that I've been trying out in my classroom recently, and I have been having good results with.
I will report in the future on which of these activities I've tried out, and how they worked for me.
This is an idea I got recently from an idea bank at my school. I tried it out in one of my classes and it worked well. In my class, I used it with Unit 7 Reading 2 from Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 5 (Second Edition), and the sample worksheet that I made reflects that, but it can also be adapted to any number of readings.
The directions I got from my school were that the students are given a copy of the reading where the final 2 cm of each line is missing. (This could be easily done by with a photocopier, and folding the sheet slightly.) To make it humorous, it's suggested that you tell the students a story about how the photocopier or the printer has malfunctioned. (Hence the name for this activity: Faulty Printer). The students then work together to predict or guess what the missing words are.
I adjusted this slightly to remove some of the ambiguity around it. I thought it might be confusing for students if they did not know how many words were missing from each line, so I changed it slightly so that instead of deleting 2 cm from each line, I just deleted the final word. I was lucky that I had an electronic copy of the reading text, which made this relatively easy to do.
Although even in this case, there were some headaches with the spacing. I found I needed to first put line breaks in at the end of every line on the Google Document (i.e. hit the "enter" button after each line) before deleting the final word in order to keep the lines consistent on the question sheet and the answer sheet.
In my classes, in order to increase engagement, I did this activity as a competition. The class was divided into teams. Each team was given one worksheet (which I enlarged onto an A3 size paper) , and had to work together to guess the missing words. Then, they exchanged their papers with another group, and each group was given a copy of the answer sheet. They then marked the points for each other, and the team with the most points wins.
Despite this being a rather sedentary activity, my students worked well on this. I think they enjoyed the detective work and guessing element, and I think they also enjoyed the competitive element. No doubt it also helped that I used this activity only once this term, so the novelty was a factor. (I'm not sure how they would react to doing this activity multiple times, but as a one time activity, it proved to be a nice change of pace.)
According to my school, this activity is supposed to focus on sentence analysis skills and predicting skills.
I also did this activity after the students had already read the whole reading for gist. But I had them close their books after we completed the gist reading task. I was counting on the fact that the students wouldn't remember the sentences perfectly after the gist reading, and so there would still be an element of challenge in this activity. And this proved to be correct.
This is an idea I got recently from an idea bank at my school. I tried it out in one of my classes and it worked well. In my class, I used it with Unit 7 Reading 1 from Q: Skills for Success: Reading and Writing 5 (Second Edition), and the sample worksheet that I made reflects that, but it can also be adapted to any number of readings.
This works best with a reading text that has numerous paragraphs, and preferably those paragraphs are numbered. I assigned one paragraph to each student.
According to the direction from my school, each paragraph is meant to be assigned to a pair or a group, but in the case of this particular reading, there were enough paragraphs for everyone in my class to get one one by themselves.
Because I had access to an the reading text on an electronic format, I ended up just printing it on a separate sheet of paper and cutting it up so that each student was given a slip of paper with their paragraph on it. But if you can't do this, you can just as easily assign them the paragraph number.
The students then write a short heading for their paragraph. That heading should be between one and 5 words in length. (No more than 5 words.) The heading should encapsulate the main idea of that paragraph.
When the students are done, they give their paragraph heading to me. I think stick it up around the room somewhere.
When all the headings are complete, the students then walk around the room with their textbooks, reading the headings and matching the headings to the appropriate paragraph. (I made a worksheet for them to do this on. It does involve them re-writing the heading on their worksheet, but hopefully this shouldn't be too much of a burden since all the headings will be 5 words or less.)
When everyone is finished, they return to their seats.
I conducted feedback by walking around the room and collecting the paragraph headings. I then read them out aloud, and the student who had written that heading told the class what paragraph it matched with.
According to my school, this activity is meant to focus on identifying detailed ideas in paragraphs.
I experimented with this activity in my class and found it worked very well. I'm not sure how the students would react to it if I did it every day, but as a one-time activity, they found it a fun change of pace. There was a minor hiccup in the feedback when one student forgot which paragraph heading he had written, but other than that, it worked pretty smoothly.
In my class, I also did this activity as the second reading activity in the class. The students had already read the text one time for general understanding before we did this activity, which I think helped to make it go smoother.
Write a short heading or subtitle for your section. It should be no more than five words in length. It should summarize the general idea of the section. It must not indicate the paragraph number.
Walk around the room. Look at the summaries. Write the summaries next to the paragraph number
Frederick Douglass has been on my list of "historical people I'm vaguely interested in, and keep meaning to read up on" for years now.
I don't remember hearing a lot about Frederick Douglass during my school days. Of course, I recognized the name. (Frederick Douglass is one of those names that everyone recognizes.) But I don't remember learning anything about his biography at school.
Sometime during my mid-20s, I started to become more interested in Frederick Douglass's life story. My memory is a little bit hazy, but I think this started as an off-shoot of my interest in John Brown. While reading up on John Brown's life on Wikipedia, I started reading about Frederick Douglass's association with John Brown, and then I got curious about Frederick Douglass himself and started reading his Wikipedia page.
[...wow, that was 15-16 years ago now. I suppose it's kind of pathetic that it took me that long to finally get around to reading a book on Frederick Douglass. But then, I'm a slow reader, and only manage to read a handful of books every year. So sometimes it does take me several years to work my way around to reading up on an area of interest.]
So that made me all the more curious to read this book.
And then in October, I was browsing Book Street here in Ho Chi Minh City, and saw the Collins Classic version of this book, and decided to snatch it up. (see video of the book haul HERE). My reading list was full at the time, so I waited until I had a free slot, but then finally started the book in April.
Background Information
Frederick Douglass lived a fascinating life. Go over to Wikipedia and check out his bio. The dude had an absolutely fascinating story. He started life as a slave. He escaped and became a celebrity in the abolitionist movement in both Britain and the United States--going around and giving speeches to huge crowds. He had some association with John Brown, and although Frederick Douglass ultimately decided he didn't want anything to do with Harpers Ferry, the fallout from Harpers Ferry still resulted in Frederick Douglass having to temporarily flee the country. During the Civil War, he was an active supporter of the union and met with Lincoln. After the Civil War, he was active in reconstruction era politics.
There is a really interesting story to be told about his life.
And Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass's autobiography, so you get to hear his story in his own words.
[The publisher's introduction from Collins Classics informs me that slave memoirs were a popular genre at the time, and were often ghostwritten by white writers. But because Frederick Douglass was already a well-known orator when this book was published, and because Frederick Douglass had developed his own distinct rhetorical style which was also the same style that this book was written in, it was clear that Douglass had written this book himself.]
This books is actually the first of three autobiographies that Frederick Douglass published during his life. This book (the book I'm reviewing now) was published in 1845. Douglass later expanded on this material and included more details in a second autobiography published in 1855: My Bondage and My Freedom. And then finally, near the end of his life, he published in 1881 Life and Times of Frederick Douglasswhich apparently includes his account of not only his slave life, but also an account of his activism and political activities post slavery.
Of these 3 autobiographies, it sounds like the final one would be the most interesting. That one would include Frederick Douglass's retelling of all the great historical and political events he was involved with (according to Wikipedia, it includes his relationship with John Brown, Lincoln, Grant, etc). I'll have to remember to try to track down that book down someday.
But upon further research, it turns out that, despite being the shortest, the 1845 autobiography is the most famous of the three. It was hugely influential in the abolitionist movement back in its day, and because of that huge influence, it is the book that Douglass is best remembered for today and that is now regarded as part of the canon of Western Literature. And, no doubt, that's why this autobiography (and not the other two) is the one widely available in bookstores nowadays, and why I happened to stumble upon it when browsing the book displays here in Vietnam.
It's a short little book. (The Collins Classics edition that I read is only 122 pages). And only covers the life of Frederick Douglass up until he escaped from slavery. (In other words, it's a memoir of his slavery years, and not his abolitionist years.)
Summary of the Plot
The version I got (Collins Classic) starts out with a brief publishers introduction giving some of the background, and then we move into not one but two prefaces, both original to the 1845 publication, written by William Lloyd Garrison (W) and Wendell Phillips (W), respectively. (William Lloyd Garrison was a name I recognized, Wendell Phillips was not, but according to Wikipedia they were both famous abolitionists.)
Then on page 15, the narrative proper starts.
Frederick Douglass was born as a slave in Maryland. (Garrison and Phillips both note in their prefaces that Maryland was actually not the worst place to be a slave--the deep south was supposedly far worse. So if what Frederick Douglas is describing sounds horrific, just imagine what the slaves in Georgia and Mississippi were experiencing!)
Douglass describes how slavery affected him right from the beginning--being separated from his mother at a young age, not knowing when his birthday was, not knowing who his father was, etc.
For the first few years of his life he was under the care of his grandmother, and separated from the really harsh realities of slavery, but he observed the other slaves (including his aunt) being brutally whipped by the master. (The narrative is not only an account of the brutalities that occurred to Frederick Douglas personally, but also all the brutalities he witnessed on the plantation.)
Frederick Douglass was somewhat unique in that he moved around a lot as a young slave. (I think this is unique, right?) He was sent off of the plantation to the city of Baltimore to become the house-servant of a family, and there he had a much easier time of it than the slaves at the plantation. (And also began to learn to read and write).
But eventually, he was returned to the plantation.
Douglass is deemed to be unmanageable as a plantation slave. (Perhaps his time in Baltimore made him unaccustomed to plantation work.) And he is sent to live for a year on the plantation of Mr. Covey, who had a reputation as a "Negro-breaker". But after enduring several beatings from Mr. Covey, Douglass finally stands up to him and refuses to be beaten. Covey, astonishingly, backs down. (Mr. Covey could have had Douglass hauled in before the authorities, and it's somewhat puzzling that he didn't, but Douglass surmises that Mr. Covey would have lost his reputation as a Negro Breaker if he had had to get the authorities involved, and that is why he did not.)
After this, Douglass begins to plan how to escape. Although the actual details of the escape are omitted from the narrative, because back in 1845 Douglass didn't want to make public any details about how slaves were able to escape.
I now come to that part of my life during which I planned, and finally succeeded in making, my escape from slavery. But before narrating any of the peculiar circumstances, I deem it proper to make known my intention not to state all the facts connected with the transaction. My reasons for pursuing this course may be understood from the following: First, were I to give a minute statement of all the facts, it is not only possible, but quite probable, that others would thereby be involved in the most embarrassing difficulties. Secondly, such a statement would most undoubtedly induce greater vigilance on the part of slaveholders than has existed heretofore among them; which would, of course, be the means of guarding a door whereby some dear brother bondman might escape his galling chains. I deeply regret the necessity that impels me to suppress any thing of importance connected with my experience in slavery. It would afford me great pleasure indeed, as well as materially add to the interest of my narrative, were I at liberty to gratify a curiosity, which I know exists in the minds of many, by an accurate statement of all the facts pertaining to my most fortunate escape. But I must deprive myself of this pleasure, and the curious of the gratification which such a statement would afford. I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations which evil-minded men might suggest, rather than exculpate myself, and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother slave might clear himself of the chains and fetters of slavery. (p.99 in my edition)
Also largely absent from this book is Anne Murray, who Frederick Douglass met and fell in love with while he was still a slave, and how helped Douglass escape, and then married him after he escaped. (See Wikipedia.) I'm guessing that the omission of Anne Murray's role was for her own protection at the time.
Extended Quotation
The overseer’s name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.
This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one night,—where or for what I do not know,—and happened to be absent when my master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go out evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in company with a young man, who was paying attention to her belonging to Colonel Lloyd. The young man’s name was Ned Roberts, generally called Lloyd’s Ned. Why master was so careful of her, may be safely left to conjecture. She was a woman of noble form, and of graceful proportions, having very few equals, and fewer superiors, in personal appearance, among the colored or white women of our neighborhood.
Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had been found in company with Lloyd’s Ned; which circumstance, I found, from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offence. Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time a d——d b—-h. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. She now stood fair for his infernal purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of her toes. He then said to her, “Now, you d——d b—-h, I’ll learn you how to disobey my orders!” and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen any thing like it before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred on the plantation. (From Chapter 1)
The Reading Experience
I guess the first thing to note is that the prose is very easy to read.
You can't always take that for granted with a 19th century book, but in this case it is. Hopefully the above quotation illustrates that well enough. It's written in a bit of an older style, but you quickly get used to that after a couple pages, and then it flows smoothly enough.
It is also both enraging and depressing to read. (And again, hopefully the above quotation illustrates this.)
Because this book is so small and portable, I had been using this book as my lunch-break book at work, but it can be pretty depressing lunch time reading.
It can also make you very angry to read.
I suspect I speak for most people when I say that reading about these horrible cruelties makes your blood boil with outrage. It is, of course, an entirely irrational reaction. After all, the injustice committed is a fact of history, and is now beyond our power to remedy. Everyone connected with the horrors of slavery died 150 years ago, what good does it do to get angry about it?
And yet, for whatever reason, we humans react with anger when reading about these great historical injustices. Why is that? I guess it's just another one of those strangely irrational characteristics of human nature.
But although this book can be both enraging and depressing, it's never boring. In fact, the book can be quite gripping. When Douglass is describing one of the confrontations between a master and a slave, or when he's describing some sort of cruel punishment, you feel like you can't put the book down. (More than once, I lingered over this book after I finished eating my lunch, reluctant to put it down until I had finished the chapter.) There's a macabre fascination with the horror and the tragedy on display in this book.
The publisher's introduction to my edition (Collins Classics) informed me that in the 1840s and 50s, slave memoirs (both real and fictional) were a popular genre with the reading public. Nowadays we are only familiar with the most famous ones (Uncle Tom's Cabin, 12 Years a Slave, and of course Frederick Douglass) but apparently the market was flooded with many more of them at the time. But, as Collins Classics informs:
Many of these slave narratives were also tied into the American Romantic movement and audiences demand for sensationalist stories, so their prevalence didn't always have humanitarian or politically-minded roots. (p.viii)
In other words, people read these books as much for the sensationalist entertainment as for the humanitarian reasons. As terrible as that is, I do have to admit to kind of seeing the appeal.
This is a short little book, but it will really get you thinking about a lot of things. While reading this, I found myself thinking about human nature, religion, society, etc. I'm not going to attempt to write down all my rambling thoughts here, but I will jot down a few jumping off points that could easily be long discussions.
But, one can also read in William Lloyd Garrison's preface a tired attitude from someone who has been arguing for too long against people who refuse to acknowledge the basic facts:
So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims. They do not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the banishment of all light and knowledge, and they affect to be greatly indignant at such enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, such abominable libels on the character of the southern planters! ... Skeptics of this character abound in society. In some few instances, their incredulity arises from a want of reflection; but, generally, it indicates a hatred of the light, a desire to shield slavery from the assaults of its foes, a contempt of the colored race, whether bond or free. (Preface p.7-8)
You can tell them every fact you want, but they just keep choosing to ignore the facts!
Reminds you of the extreme polarization of today, doesn't it?
Yet another reminder that human beings don't base their political beliefs on rational discussions or facts. It was as true in 1845 as it is today.
* There's also a lot to be said in this book about Christianity. A point Frederick Douglass makes throughout the book is that Christianity did not make the slaveholders any more kind to their slaves. In fact, the more Christian a slaveholder was, the more cruel he was.
This is a point which actually comes up repeatedly. For example in chapter 9:
In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting held in the Bay-side, Talbot county, and there experienced religion. I indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane. I was disappointed in both these respects. It neither made him to be humane to his slaves, nor to emancipate them. If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest pretensions to piety. His house was the house of prayer. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was soon made a class-leader and exhorter. His activity in revivals was great, and he proved himself an instrument in the hands of the church in converting many souls. His house was the preachers’ home. They used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he stuffed them. ...
...I have said my master found religious sanction for his cruelty. As an example, I will state one of many facts going to prove the charge. I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture—“He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.”
Master would keep this lacerated young woman tied up in this horrid situation four or five hours at a time. I have known him to tie her up early in the morning, and whip her before breakfast; leave her, go to his store, return at dinner, and whip her again, cutting her in the places already made raw with his cruel lash. The secret of master’s cruelty toward “Henny” is found in the fact of her being almost helpless. When quite a child, she fell into the fire, and burned herself horribly. Her hands were so burnt that she never got the use of them. She could do very little but bear heavy burdens. She was to master a bill of expense; and as he was a mean man, she was a constant offence to him. He seemed desirous of getting the poor girl out of existence. He gave her away once to his sister; but, being a poor gift, she was not disposed to keep her. Finally, my benevolent master, to use his own words, “set her adrift to take care of herself.” Here was a recently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, and at the same time turning out her helpless child, to starve and die! Master Thomas was one of the many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the very charitable purpose of taking care of them.
And again this point comes up in Chapter 10:
I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,—a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,—and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.
In his many debates with religionists, Christopher Hitchens was frequently pressed to admit that there were some circumstances in which Christianity could be a moderating or improving influence on a situation. Hitchens never conceded the point, and argued that Christianity always made people worse.
And here is Frederick Douglass back in 1845 making the same exact point. You think Christianity makes slaveholders more humane? No, it made them more cruel.
But it's important to remember Frederick Douglass was not Christopher Hitchens. In fact, after he escaped from slavery, Frederick Douglass actually became a Christian preacher.
Frederick Douglass is however aware that he has given a very hostile account of Christianity throughout his narrative, so he tries to clarify this in the Appendix:
I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land....
He goes on for a few more pages about this, but you get the idea.
There is a whole long discussion to be had about the nature of Christianity in theory and in practice, but I'm not going to get into it in this particular review. (I'm supposed to be keeping these things short, after all.) All I'll say is that this book makes you think a lot about these things.
10 out of 10 Stars. It's hard to find much fault with the book. Perhaps I could take a star off for being depressing. But this kind of book needs to be depressing. Maybe I could take a star off for being too short. But then, this was as long as it needed to be for its purpose. 10 out of 10 it is.
