Since the Declaration of Independence, America has been the land of the free. Every man is born with inalienable rights which cannot be separated from his being. When God created the world, he made man king over all animals and plants and America was the first country to realize this. Well, unless this man is of African descent. By simply having a different skin color, certain men no longer seemed to have this inalienable right to reign over the earth, plants and animals; rather, they were considered animals themselves. The institution of slavery seemed to alienate the inalienable, enslave world leaders, and dehumanize humanity. While most slaves experienced the dehumanization that slavery imposed on them, each slave experienced it in a unique and individual way. For Fredrick Douglass, dehumanization occurred physically, while for Harriet Jacobs, objectification occurred through mental oppression. Fredrick Douglass has always been a slave since the day he was born. Although his entrapment began somewhat mildly with basic chores and tasks assigned to him, the responsibilities of manhood were thrust upon him. On the plantation, he was just a boy but he had the weight of the world on his shoulders and, like Atlas, he could not escape his fate. As a young child, Douglass saw people beating until the blood formed rivulets that flowed like tributaries in early spring. Rather than preventing the master from beating the slave, the blood only encouraged the slave. Escaping the plantation is not only what changed Douglass' life, but it also saved her. The cruelties that existed on the plantation so dehumanized the slaves that the murder of one of them was considered mere destruction of property. This point is illustrated in Do...... middle of paper ...... very provoked in different ways. Douglass was treated like a tool and was physically controlled in a way that Jacobs did not have to endure. Jacobs, however, had to undergo emotional control that Fredrick Douglass was able to escape for longer aspects of his life. Slavery was a crippling system for everyone in the country. While these two authors may have ultimately managed to escape the grip of the system, many others did not and the dehumanization was much worse and crushed any idea of ​​the American dream. Works Cited Wood, Du, Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington. Three African-American classics from slavery, The Souls of Black Folk and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. Minneapolis: Dover Publications, 2007. Print. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Touchstone literary classic. New York: Prestwick House, 2006. Print.