Janice Strasser-King

30 April 2004

The Power of Knowledge

“Knowledge itself is power.”—Sir Francis Bacon

            Francis Bacon’s statement, “Knowledge is power,” has been debated by those who believe that ignorance is bliss.  However, upon reading works by Frederick Douglass, a former slave, Zitkala-Ša, a Native American, and William Apess, also a Native American, one will find that the statement holds true that knowledge is power.  Upon learning to read and write and examine different truths and beliefs held by the dominant culture, these three writers were able to not only think independently, but they were also able to analyze and dispute these beliefs and also refute them using the very written language of the dominant culture.  With their acquired knowledge of and from the dominant culture, using language as their tool or weapon, these writers were able to expose and debase the very fallacies that once oppressed them.

            "Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions."

 -- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

             In the opening of his narrative, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass gives the reader insight as to how isolated he was from knowledge even about his own age.  Slave owners kept slaves ignorant of basic facts about themselves, such as their birth date or their paternity. He states, “By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant.”  He goes on to say “I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me” ( The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 339, 340 ; bk. 3).  By being deprived access or the means to attain knowledge, Douglass was kept in the dark and was expected to be subdued and content with ignorance.  This enforced ignorance robs children of their natural sense of individual identity.

            For slaveholders, starving their slaves’ minds was the most powerful form of oppression. As slave children grow older, slave owners prevent them from learning how to read and write, as literacy would give them a sense of self‑sufficiency and capability.  Upon discovering that his wife was teaching Douglass to read, , Mr. Auld reprimands her stating that it was unlawful as well as unsafe, and could only lead to mischief.  To use his own words, he states,

If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell.  A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do.  Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.  If you would teach that nigger…how to read, there would be no keeping him.  It would forever unfit him to be a slave.  He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.  As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm.  It would make him discontented and unhappy ( The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 364; bk. 3). 

Slaveholders understood that literacy would lead slaves to question the right of whites to keep slaves.  Slaveholders could only perpetuate slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant.  It is from Mr. Auld that Douglass learns the notion that knowledge must be the way to freedom. Knowledge helps slaves to articulate the injustice of slavery to themselves and others, and helps them to recognize themselves as men rather than slaves.

            With the knowledge he garnered from the Bible, Frederick Douglass saw just how erroneous the slaveholders classification of a slave was.  Barfoed quotes Douglass asserting that “the slave is a man, made in ‘the image of God’, a human being, who,  divested of all rights by the slaveholder –is reduced to the level of a brute - a mere ‘chattel’ in the eye of the law - placed beyond the circle of human brotherhood.”  From a 'Reception Speech' held at Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1843 Douglass affirms that

If you demand liberty to yourself, it says, grant it to your neighbour. If you claim right to think for yourself, it says, allow your neighbour the same right. If you claim to act for yourself, it says, allow your neighbours the same right. It is because I love this religion, that I hate the slaveholding, the woman-whipping, the mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the southern states of America. It is because I regard the one as good, and pure, and holy, that I cannot but regard the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. Loving the one I must hate the other; holding to the one I must reject the other (qtd in Barfoed).

            For the slaveholders, religion was a “garb” that they believed covered all the wrongs.  Douglass points out that slave owners such as Thomas Auld develop a perverted religious sense to remain blind to the sins they commit in their own home.  At the end of his narrative, Douglass makes a distinction between the slaveholders Christianity, or Christianity of this land and the Christianity of Christ. Douglass shows that slaveholders’ Christianity does not conform to that of Christ’s as evident by their self-righteous brutality.  It serves as merely a hypocritical show.  To make this distinction clear, Douglass points to the basic contradiction between the charitable, peaceful tenets of Christianity and the violent, immoral actions of slaveholders.  Douglass goes as far as to compare the “Christian” slaveholders to the Pharisees whom Jesus admonished for their hypocritical ways and deeds (The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 432; bk. 3).

            Further analysis of the Bible and, in contrast, the slaveholder’s religion, as he calls it, revealed gross hypocrisy on the part of the parishioners and the preachers.  Douglass writes “Ministers of religion come forward and torture the hallowed pages of inspired wisdom to sanction the bloody deed. They stand forth as the foremost, the strongest defenders of the 'institution'.”  He goes on to say “Instead of preaching the gospel against this tyranny, rebuke, and wrong, ministers of religion have sought, by all and every means, to throw in the back-ground whatever in the bible could be construed into opposition to slavery, and to bring forward that which they could torture into its support” (qtd. in Barfoed).

            In fact, as Douglass began to read and understand the Bible, he was able to deduce that the very logic and scripture the slaveholders used to justify slavery had in fact become nullified.  He reasons that “if their increase will do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the south must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters.” (The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass 342; bk. 3).  Douglass’ interpretation of the story of Ham, contradicts the slaveholders interpretation which was used to justify slavery.

            Ironically, with all his learning, Douglass very soon discovers that as Mr. Auld forewarning that knowledge can be both a curse and a blessing held some truth.  Subsequent to reading “The Columbian Orator” by Sheridan, a book about an emancipated slave, Douglass writes that he suffers grave torment and “unbearable anguish” (370).  He goes on to say that “it [his ability to read] had given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy…In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity…” (370). Paradoxically, it was also this knowledge that ignited hope for freedom within him.  And it was this knowledge that brought hope and liberation to others.  

            By keeping slaves illiterate, Southern slaveholders maintained control over what the rest of America knew about slavery.  Their logic was that if slaves cannot write, their side of the slavery story cannot be told.   However, Frederick Douglass went against the grain and using his writing as a tool, he brought the atrocities and hypocrisy of slavery and the dominant culture of that time to light, serving as a spokesman for the oppressed and helping to abolish this cruel institution.

“Only when we know a little do we know anything; doubt grows with knowledge.”
       --Goethe

            After learning English, or the white man’s language as it is referred to, Zitkala-Ša

is put off by it’s duplicity.  It was her mother who warned her not to trust the white man’s discourse, saying “Don't believe a word they say! Their words are sweet, but, my child, their deeds are bitter." (Zitkala-Ša 41).   In Zitkala-Ša’s culture, language is used  in a way that is empathetic, positive, communal and constructive; it functions to enhance and build a sense of dignity and worth in both the speaker and the listener. On the other hand, in the dominant culture, language, as seen through the eyes of Zitkala-Ša, functions to “erase and efface dignity, and it is fallen and untrustworthy, mutilated and painful” (Cutter 31).  However, as her people, her culture, and the oral tradition were fading fast, Zitkala-Ša picked up a pen and wrote about the negative influences of the dominant culture, using their language.

            For Native American writers in the nineteenth century, "the written word became a new weapon in the Indian's battle for survival" for language was used to strip them of their land and promote their cultural disenfranchisement (qtd. in Cutter 32). It was a pen, not a gun that was used to make and sign treaties and steal land. This pen that had been used against Native Americans was now being used as a source of power by them. Zitkala-Ša used language to discuss controversial issues like the enfranchisement of American Indians, Indian contributions to military service during World War I, corruption in the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and allotment of tribal lands.

            Understanding both its’ power and its’ deception, Zitkala-Ša states that "Language is only a convenience, just like a coat is a convenience, and it is not so important as your mind and your heart"(qtd. in Cutter 33). According to Dexter Fisher, English became a tool for Zitkala-Ša to articulate the tension she felt throughout her life between "her heritage with its imperative of tradition and the inevitable pressure of acculturation"( Zitkala-Ša 11). 

            At a young age, Zitkala-Ša had learned how to manipulate this duplicitous language.  She writes: "Within a year I was able to express myself somewhat in broken English. As soon as I comprehended a part of what was said and done, a mischievous spirit of revenge possessed me" (Zitkala-Ša 59). One day, for example, as a punishment she is told to mash some turnips and she does--until they are in a pulp and the bottom of the jar crumbles to pieces. Zitkala-Ša literalizes the command to "Mash these turnips," obeying the word to the letter, finding an outlet for her hostility in a deliberate linguistic misinterpretation.  In this same way, Zitkala-Ša has managed to use the language of her once oppressors to her advantage.

            Entitling an essay "Why I Am a Pagan," in which she depicts a tragically duped kinsman, Zitkala-Ša is bold in insisting upon Indians' rights to their own spiritual traditions (Hoefel).  The story, "The Great Spirit" in American Indian Stories, portrays the mystic of Indian spirituality.  Zitkala-Ša stands firm by her “religion.”  She is not duped, like so many Native Americans, by the deceitful language of the dominant culture which tries to suggest that her religion is merely superstition.  She has no response for a visitor who asserts that the “godly” men had taught him the “folly” of their “old” beliefs (Zitkala-Ša 105).

            Zitkala-Ša’s insistence on the dignity of Indian religion and exposure of Christian hypocrisy manifests itself in her activist life (Hoefel).  She asserts the superiority of Indian spirituality over the disregard for nature and the disrespect of other cultures.  The selections from "The School Days of an Indian Girl" expose the blatant injustice of stripping a child of language, culture, religion, and familiar surroundings.  The reader is moved by such scenes as the hair cutting incident (Zitkala-Ša 56).

            Zitkala-Ša actually terms Christianity “the new superstition” (Zitkala-Ša 106).  She even alters part of the Christian origin tale in the final segment of the first essay entitled “The Big Red Apples.”  In this segment, missionaries persuade Zitkala-Ša’s mother to allow her young daughter to go East to be educated. Like Eve, Zitkala-Ša is tempted by the forbidden fruit of this world, for she longs to know "if little girls may have all the red apples they want, when they go East" (42).  In Zitkala-Ša’s recasting of the Fall, Eden is represented by the land of her mother and the serpent is played by the missionaries who also represent the dominant culture.  Zitkala-Ša uses these Christian motifs against their creators (the dominant culture) to describe metaphorically the destruction of Native American culture.

            Like Frederick Douglass, reading and writing--acquisition of the white man's discourse--furthers Zitkala-Ša’s alienation, her sense of isolation and turmoil.  In “The School Days of an Indian Girl,” Zitkala-Ša notes “my mother had never gone inside of a schoolhouse, and so she was not capable of comforting her daughter who could read and write.”  She goes on to say “I was neither a wee girl nor a tall one; neither a wild Indian nor a tame one” (69).  Upon returning to her mother's world, she finds that her knowledge of English creates a communication barrier. In her autobiographical essays in The Atlantic Monthly and Indian legends in Harper's, Zitkala-Ša began publicly to express her estrangement from both cultures and her indignation over the treatment of her people by state and church. She articulated her struggle with cultural dislocation and injustice and thereby became an earnest bridge builder between cultures, using language as a tool to forge an identity encompassing both cultures (Hoefel).

“True friendship can afford true knowledge.

 It does not depend on darkness and ignorance.”-- Henry David Thoreau

            Taking a somewhat philosophical or Socratic approach, Willam Apess analyzes the inherent incompatibility of racial prejudice with the tenets of the Christian faith.  This is found to be a frequent theme in nineteenth-century slave narratives and life histories of Indian converts. Apess effectively focuses the essay on the equality of people of color with whites. This concept of equality of all people under God made Christianity very appealing to Indian converts and to slaves as was evident in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

            Apess argues that the dominant culture uses skin color to rationalize their superiority and dominance, thereby justifying their maltreatment of the more “inferior” people of color.  Using crafty and clever rhetoric, Apess goes right to the heart of the issue by highlighting specific tenets from the Bible.  He structures questions and weaves word in such a way that they appear to be traps.  Apess is masterful with the English language and the essay is very strategic.

            Apess first asks his readers the question “What is love, or its effects?”  He goes on to say “now, if they who teach are not essentially affected with pure love, the love of God, how can they teach as they ought?” (Apess 158)  It seems as if the student has now become the teacher and is questioning the teacher’s methods.  In short, Apess was asking his white neighbors to measure their own behavior against the democratic values and Christian ethic they supposedly embraced.  Apess concludes by stating a fact that most of the dominant culture tend to overlook for one reason or another.  He points out that Jesus, who grew up in both Africa and the middle east, was more than likely colored.  This must come as the ultimate blow because it is Jesus Christ that Christianity is built on and it is Jesus Christ who is the ultimate savior. 

“Knowledge and human power are synonymous.” --Francis Bacon

            As evident with these three writers, there is power in knowledge, literacy, and language.  Frederick Douglass was able to differentiate the slaveholder’s Christianity from the Christianity of Christ.  Zitkala-Ša was able to use the language skills she acquired from the dominant culture to dispel the false insinuations they were selling to her people.  William Apess, in an attempt to help his fellow Christians “come clean” and see their hypocrisy, brings to light the double standards the dominant culture holds in regards to religion, race, and equality.  Lastly, is should be noted that all three writers also share the frustration and discontentment that can also result from the acquisition of knowledge. 

Works Cited

Barfoed, Morten Krabbe, “Tribute Frederick Douglass.”  Barefoot-Webland.Com.  22 Apr. 2004             <http://www.barefoot-webland.com/FD/>.

Cutter, Martha J.  “Zitkala-Sa's autobiographical writings: The problems of a canonical search        for language and...”        Melus 19.1 (1994): 31-45.

Douglass, Frederick.  Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  Ed.  Henry Louis Gates, Jr.       New York: Signet             Classic, 1987.

Hoefel, Roseanne. "Zitkala-Sa: A Biography." The Online Archive of Nineteenth-Century U.S.          Women's Writings.         Ed. Glynis Carr. Online. Internet. Posted: Winter 1999.  23 Apr.             2004.             <http://www.facstaff.bucknell.edu/gcarr/19cUSWW/ZS/rh.html>

Zitkala-Ša. American Indian Stories. Lincoln: U of Nebraska P, 1985. 

Quotations

http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/f/francisbac149846.html

http://www.research.att.com/~jrex/faves/quotes/knowledge.html

http://www.stevedenning.com/Quotations_knowledge.html

http://www.wisdomquotes.com/cat_knowledge.html