Incidents and American Slave

These two stories are significantly different from each other. Harriet Jacobs tells of not only the hardships she endured as a slave, but her master's mission in trying, and almost succeeding, to break her spirit and separate her from the man she loved. Frederick Douglas's tells more of the horrifying experience he endured as he watched and heard his aunt be mercilessly and repeatedly beat with a whip. Though these stories differ far from each other, they are the same in one aspect; they were made with a purpose. They were made with the purpose to inform, not only of the trials they endured individually, but the trials the slave population endured as a whole, as a people. They were also made with the purpose of not only to inform, reveal to other's the horrors inflicted by slavery in hope that one-day the terrible and horrifying practice of trading humans like cattle would end and that everyone would be treated equally as portrayed by the idea of the Declaration of Independence.
Another way in which these two pieces are similar is through their preface. The one for American slave was written as a testimonial to the words of Frederick Douglas spoken to the abolitionist, and the uproar in response to making sure he became and stayed a free man. The one for Incidents was also written as a testimonial to the inspiration the author of the preface felt from Harriet Jacobs. They were also written by Caucasian authors, as an act of validating the words that flowed from the mind of the author of the different stories to the paper on which they wrote. They were written also to the one's in the north that needed a little a push to get on the band wagon with the abolitionist, and make aware of the cruelty of slavery in the ongoing effort to get the horrible practice dismantled.