American sense of independence and created the false image of black childlike dependence on their white masters. That combined with the fact that most African Americans were born into slavery disallowed them any experience of freedom or of Africa by which they may make comparisons to their situation of total bondage. Again, this takes us back to the problem to what extent African Americans were able to retain a sense of individuality and worth. If Elkins' postulation is correct, it would be hard to believe that any identity at all could be retained under such harsh conditions. However, in the accounts of Frederick Douglass and other slaves it is obvious that there was indeed evidence of individuality, which included the religious subculture developed by African Americans, and the fact that Frederick Douglass as well as other slaves had escaped or aspired to escape the perils of slavery. Therefore, I would assert that it was merely the fact that whites so desperately tried to keep blacks from achieving the freedom enjoyed by whites, which served as the example by which blacks were able to derive their notion of equality. After all, it was written in the Declaration of Independence and the Bible that humans were created equally and had the right to pursue happiness. The notion of human equality existed in theory but not in practice; whites had it, slaves wanted it. I would also argue that African Americans knew this and that is how an African American subculture and any other evidence of individuality developed and afforded them the notion of equality. Hence, these developments arose out of the African American's need to survive psychologically. By the time of the movement toward abolition had developed, there was an obvious schism of opinion about slavery, which had developed between abolitionist whites, slaves and white slaveholders. People like Frederick Douglass who preached abolition of slavery, only had to nurture the alr...
