Douglass does not hold back on his views on the slave-owner’s' interpretation of Christianity in his book; “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”. When talking about Thomas Auld, he explained that his master had experienced a religious conversion but did not change for the better but instead he found greater sanction for his cruelty through religion. Covey was also known as a religious man, but we also learned about his deceit, treachery, and brutality that he commits throughout his lifetime. At Freeland's farm Douglass states how pleased he was that the non-religious man were better masters. Such slaveowners were capable of the worst things imaginable. In the Appendix, Douglass explained that he was not non-religious, but that Christianity was far different than the Christianity of the South. They were contradicting their own religion and using it as a loophole to commit such atrocities. Throughout the work it is clear that Douglass locates the hypocrisies of religious slaveowners with examples of them contradicting their own views and religion.
Captain Thomas Auld was seen as one of the cruelest masters Douglass has had. He was Lucretia Auld’s husband and Hugh Auld’s brother, and he did not grow up owning slaves, but gained them through his marriage to Lucretia. The narrative includes how Thomas Auld converts to Christianity and instead of becoming a better person, it somehow causes him to become even more cruel. "Religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and the basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others" (57). Someone would think that being more religious would allow someone to get a better understanding of human beings and help them to be better people. Auld, on the other hand, only uses his newfound piety to justify his cruelty to his slaves. The point that Douglass is trying to make is that slaveowners would interpret Christianity in the wrong way and somehow find a way to make the slave’s lives even worse...