Discussions of Douglass" lineage and family also bring up another interesting argument: "The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father" (pg. 48). It was apparently not an uncommon practice for white masters to commit adultery with some of the female slaves in their charge, probably in most cases simply to further add to their slave holdings; in a sense, a master could take the easy route and add free workers, serving "the double relation of master and father" (pg. 49). That the masters could so easily do such a thing further shows how little regard they held for slaves.
The role of song within the slave community was an important one to note when discussing slavery in America. To most, singing a song is a sign of happiness, or at the least, contentment not so for the slaves. As Douglass describes it, "they breathed the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish." (pg. 57-58) Song, for the slaves, was a way of lamenting their role and position, as well as a way of crying out to God for some sort of relief from the pains they had to endure. This description of the role of song in the slave community ran counter to conventional thinking on the subject; indeed, when Douglass later escapes to the North, he finds those who believe that the songs of the slaves are a sign of their happiness at their lot in life, while the reality couldn't be further from this.
Douglass serves under many different masters and overseers throughout his life as a slave, and he (and the reader through him) comes to learn from these experiences that not only is the slave dehumanized in the institution of slavery, but quite often the master as well. Observe his experiences with Mr. Severe, one of the first overseers he encountered in his young life: "I have seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for their mother's release.