of older people went beyond physical attributes because they had a wealth of knowledge and experience to share. The fact that slave masters could show so little regard and respect for Douglass's grandmother would be loathsome and despicable, and Douglass hoped this would help influence the northern whites against the institution of slavery. Furthermore, Douglass wanted to show the hypocrisy in the behavior of these masters. They considered their slaves to be less than human, yet they still desired and slept with their female slaves. This would prove to northern whites the invalidity of southern claims that "horses and men, cattle and women, and pigs and children all (held) the same rank in the scale of being." (27) If slaves were truly of less rank than animals, why would a slaveholder want to sleep with one? Surely he would not sleep with one of his farm animals. Northern whites would be appalled at the thought of desiring or sleeping with anything they considered to be on a lower level of existence than animals. Therefore, Douglass's northern audience would be revolted by southern slave owners. As mentioned earlier, slaves were considered to be on the same level of existence as animals. Douglass focused on this aspect of slave treatment by their masters to show how slaves were not considered to be human beings. Slaveholders considered the entire race of enslaved people to have less worth than any white person. One way the slaves were treated as animals was how they were fed. Their food was "put into a large wooden tray or trough andthe children were then called like so many pigsto devour the mush; some with naked hands, and none with spoons." (16) Slave owners described slave children as pigs because like pigs, the children were dirty, smelly, and they would push each other out of the way to get as much food as possible. The children were dirty and smelly because they were not cared for adequately by their masters, an...
