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Douglass’s analysis of Captain Thomas Auld reveals the unnaturalness of slavery. Auld doesn’t grow up owning slaves, and he only gains them through marrying into his wife’s family. Because Auld hasn’t been a slave-owner, he hasn’t learned to feel entitled to the respect of enslaved people in the same way hereditary slave owners do. However, he also desperately wants the authority and status bestowed upon him by owning slaves. This combination of insecurity, desire for power, and his own meanness makes him one of the worst owners Douglass encounters during his enslavement. Auld’s awkwardness as an owner proves that Auld, by virtue of being white, is not innately poised to subjugate Black people. The behavior of an enslaver is, instead, something learned. Worse, Auld’s firm belief that he is superior to Black people and deserves this power makes him more frustrated that the demeanor is not something he possesses by nature.

Douglass also uses Captain Auld to discuss how he believes slavery has perverted southern Christianity. He notes that Auld takes lines of scripture out of context to further justify his cruelty, twisting them to give his actions holy purpose. Anything from harsh physical punishment to abandoning a Black child to die can be sanctioned by God in Auld’s mind. While Auld invites preachers to stay at his house and feeds them lavish meals, he feeds his slaves even less than the notoriously cruel Mr. Covey does. The stark contrast between the goodness, erudition, and commitment to freedom Douglass attributes to his Christian faith and the naked hypocrisy and cruelty of Auld’s goes toward Douglass’s overall argument about the corrupting nature of slavery. To Douglass, slavery is such a corrosive institution that even the church, when sanctioning it, becomes an institution of ignorance.

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