Autobiagraphy of Louis Hughes
Its hard for me to imagine the feeling of saying goodbye to my mother; and I can’t even think about the feeling each little boy or girl felt when they knew they were being taken away from their family, to a place that was most likely worst than the last.
“I ran off from her as quickly as I could after her parting words, for I did not want her to see me crying.”
I think that the worst part is that Louis Hughes felt the need to be strong, and that it was a bad thing to cry and let your feelings out. Reading this really allowed me to understand how slavery affected little boys Than after saying goodbye to his mother, Louis was sent to be auctioned off, today what would be a furniture auctions. At this auction there were differences in the amount that each slave was worth, some being a significant amount more valuable than another. In my opinion, putting a price on a human being is probably the most inappropriate part of slavery. Did people in the world honestly believe that this was humane? Although Louis Hughes felt that the McGee’s were not horrible people, for they gave him a Christmas present and he got to taste the egg nog, they still owned a slave.
The narrative really opened up my feelings towards slavery. Not only is slavery something that I’m taught in a classroom as something that occurred in history that was bad, but I feel for each slave that had to go through this. And its hard for me to think that one person could do such a thing to another. The only thing that goes through my head while reading this, is how often we are told in school that our differences are meant to bring us together and not divide us. While slavery allowed the world to think that one should be punished because of their differences, that the African-Americans hadn’t even chosen. I know I can’t blame each person for what they did, because at that point it was seen as something that was not wrong in the community. But at the same time, Huck Finn shows us that people did realize it was wrong, but no one took a stand for what they thought. If more people had done what Huck did than maybe a little boy like Louis Hughes would not have had to undergo such a horrible life.
After reading I realize that even one life saved from slavery makes all the difference. Yes, I guarantee many people after reading Huck Finn will say to themselves, what difference did it make that he tried helping one slave. But it made all the difference, each person that went against the law and helped a slave could have shown others that it was the better thing to do, as well as changing that one persrons life entirely.I feel that slavery could have been brought to a hault. If people stopped purchasing slaves it would have brought the slave market down, which would have brought the slave trade to end, or atleast hurt it financialy. If many things such as this had been done, slavery could have been ended by itself, without a war.
