Resistance to slavery is the subject of both Frederick Douglass, in his 1845 autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, and Mary Rowlandson, in her 1682 Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. The two authors had entirely different experiences--but in both of their narratives it becomes clear that the power the slaveholder exerts over the captive's mind is as important as the physical control he or she can exert over him or her. Indeed, it is often control over the mind--rather than the short-term gains of punishment--that is the object of the physical abuse of slaves. This abuse extends not just to whipping, restraining and beating slaves, but to overworking and underfeeding them, providing insufficient clothing and shelter, and creating the inherent stress of being forced to contain so much anger. Even though Douglass' slavery was, barring incredible luck, for life and Rowlandson's was potentially temporary the methods used to subjugate them were similar in many respects. In the long- or the short-term, therefore, it is extremely difficult to force a human being to surrender most of the traits that make him/her truly human. This can be done, but it requires years of intense, unrelenting savagery. The smallest ray of hope, however, can make it impossible to enslave all of an individual's mind, heart, and soul. Rowlandson had some hope from the beginning that she might be ransomed, and she never gave in completely. And, as Douglass' masters discovered, it only took a small break in the routine brutality to provide him with the opening he needed to make escape the guiding principal of his early life.
Douglass was born into slavery in the South and could only hope for much of his youth that he would eventually be able to escape. Rowlandson, on the other hand, was captured, as an adult, in the brutal raid that she describes so vividly, and could hope that if sh...