John Thompson was born a slave in Maryland in the year 1812, one of seven children he grew up in the lifestyle of slavery, later on in life he escapes slavery to become a free man. He wrote an autobiography of his life, that in my opinion, gave a great insight to life as a slave.

Slavery was an evil system, not only because innocent people were treated as possessions of another man, but also because many of them were treated in an unjust manner, and some were beat without a  cause.  There was not a universal way that all of the slaves were treated, it changed from owner to owner, but some of the owners had to have been complete mad men to have the capability of treating a human being in the way that they did.  Thompson describes one young man, a hard worker and huge asset to the owner, who was beat horribly without a valid cause, and during his recovery he said that next time he would kill the man and be hung at once so that he would not have to tolerate the brutal suffering of the beatings.  The man was suffering so badly that he was ready to die at once to put an end to it all.  Later on, Thompson writes of a time that he was prepared to do the same thing, but the cruel owner died in a fire, Thompson saw this as the providence of God.

As Thompson describes in his autobiography, the slave owners who whipped without a valid cause had much more retaliation from the slaves, while the owners who took good care of their slaves had much more cooperation.  When negative sanctions were imposed the slaves did not have good relationships with their owners, but when positive sanctions were imposed the slaves had better relationships and put more effort into their work.  It makes sense in situations that we see on a day-to-day basis, a boss that listens to ideas of the employees and makes effort to work with them will gain the highest possible performance from his or her employees.  The boss that makes everybody hate their job will get only the required performance of his or her employees.  When a parent makes time to listen to their child and truly help their child, the child and parent will both be less stressed and achieve a much higher level of happiness.  Positive sanctions will usually create a better result.  Negative sanctions will usually create tension and retaliation, this I believe, was Thompson’s perspective.

While slavery as a whole is wicked, Thompson believed that treating the slaves like actual people, and giving them the required respect, they will in return give a more efficient performance.  This, in my opinion, is true in many other aspects of life.  If you treat a man well, he will perform much better than if you impose negative sanctions without cause.

“What would I do in my autobiography that is different from what Darwin did?”

Charles Darwin was no doubt one of the most important men of the 19th century, his theories on natural science changed the world forever.  While he was a smart man, his autobiography was not what I would consider a model for my autobiography.  If I did not know who Charles Darwin was,  it would have been much more difficult for me to read his autobiography, it was not a page-turner, and he did a poor job describing why things were relevant, or especially important to him.  In my opinion, his autobiography was good, but not great. 

I was not really effected by Charles Darwin’s autobiography, this is not to say that his autobiography did not effect anyone, it just had very little effect on me.  His autobiography did not reveal what it was like to live in the 1800’s, nor did it reveal the culture he grew up in.  I want my autobiography to help someone understand what it was like to live in my era, or in my culture, but I also want to leave the legacy of a ‘history’ to my future children so that they can get an idea of where they came from.  Darwin wrote nothing of his wife or children, and he wrote little of the rest of his family, I plan to write about my parents, siblings, future husband, future children, and any other friend or family member that had an effect on my life.  Also I hope my autobiography can serve as an inspiration to someone, or in some way help someone solve problems they may be facing.

As I said previously, Darwin did a rather poor job describing what was relevant, but more importantly he did not describe why specific things were relevant.  He did make it clear that there were events that shaped his life, and he discussed these, but not in detail, and he did not explain why these events were monumental.  In my future autobiography I hope to make the reader understand what was relevant, and why it was relevant.

Also, I want to make sure that my autobiography is lively and exciting while still remaining accurate, I believe that it should be a page-turner.  Darwin did not always do a very good job of grabbing the attention of the reader.  When people read my autobiography they will hopefully have the ability to follow along with the narrative, and remain excited to continue reading.  Between now and the time that I write my autobiography, I will gain a lot of writing skill, and I will hopefully have the skill to keep the reader engaged.

As you can see, there are several things that I plan to do differently in my autobiography than Charles Darwin did when he wrote his.  Something huge that Darwin completely left out of his autobiography, was his beliefs, in my opinion, this is a mistake.  I want to be sure to write about my beliefs, I want to include all of the things that shaped me, and why they shaped me.  Darwin’s autobiography is not a good model for my autobiography, I will do many things differently in my autobiography.