Fredrick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818, he spent his youth being sold from plantation to city, then all over again. At a point during his youth, he realized that slavery was wrong, and eventually once becoming aware of the north, he planned to one day escape captivity and be free. His determination was strong, so strong that he would one day escape captivity and establish a legacy of work in the North, that made him one of the core members in the fight to abolish slavery in the middle of the 1800’s. He is know historically for his publications and speeches in the fight for abolition, being a convincing and proactive voice which comes from first hand experiences in what life is like for slaves and slave owners. The purpose of publishing the text, Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave, was to put into context the details of Douglass’ life, which include his feelings and tribulations, during his journey as a slave and escape to freedom. His conviction to reveal this story, was not hindered or halted by the fact that he would be exposing himself to the public, which often for an escaped slave would be a dangerous situation. The book was first published in 1845 when Douglass was twenty-seven, at this time slavery was legal, and the book that he had just published was incriminating evidence full of names, dates, and times, which make it very easy for someone to find him and return him to captivity by law.…
Douglass makes it clear that in order for the slaves to gain their freedom they must become more educated like their masters. Masters were afraid of having slaves who were literate because it could be very dangerous and the slaves might get the idea that they were equal with their masters. Mrs. Auld accidently made the mistake and began teaching Douglass how to read and write, but then her husband soon found out and scolded her for doing such rash things and forbade her from doing so ever again. Douglass was saddened at this when he says, “Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress… Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with a higher hope… to learn how to read” (143). The fact that Mr. Atul didn’t want Douglass to learn how to read just makes Douglass realize the kind of power education has. And after Mr. Atul stops his wife from teaching him any further, Douglass just tries that much harder to learn how to become literate on his own. Douglass also shows how essential education is in another…
Douglass shows how slavery turns people who are good and kind, into things of pure evil. Douglass shows in his book how slavery is corrupting and changes people, and he shows this through Master Hugh’s wife, Mrs. Auld. Mrs. Auld was a woman who “never had a slave under her control previously to [Douglass],” and “[Douglass] was utterly astonished at her goodness.”(Douglass 19) Douglass shows how she was pure and had a good heart that was in the right place and Douglass compares her to an angel, but the “fatal poison” of slavery was “in her hands,” and she soon her “cheerful eye” because of the “influence of slavery, soon became red with rage” and her “angelic face gave place to that of a demon.”(Douglass 19) Change was inevitable because of her need to conform to the way people treated slaves. According to her husband the way she treated slaves was “unlawful and unsafe,” (Douglass 20) and she needed to treat them like others treat slaves, which she did. She went against her beliefs, and “[conformed] to the patterns of [the] world” (Niv Bible, Rom. 12:2) and treated slaves like dirt. She was transformed into something different once she tasted of that poisoned apple that is slavery, and turned from who she was, a good person, into some new creation of evil, a demon and a devil, which is the image of pure evil and trickery.…
According to the narrative of Frederick Douglass, during the 19th Century, the conditions slaves experienced were not only cruel, but inhumane. It is a common perception that “cruelty” refers to the physical violence and torture that slaves endure. However, in this passage, Douglass conveys the degrading treatment towards young slaves in the plantation, as if they were domesticated animals. The slaves were deprived of freedom and basic human rights. They were not only denied of racial equality, they weren’t even recognized as actual human beings.…
Douglass’s autobiography is one of a personal fate and the other a documentation of the horrors of slavery. With his first recollection of his childhood, being the relentless whipping of his aunt Hester and the horrified of shrieks he heard with every blow of the whip. Living in Baltimore for about seven years he went with no hunger, then only to return to a plantation as an adult to suffer the gnawing pain of hunger. He knew the difference of what it was like to be treated with kindness and to live in the callous bondage of slavery. Douglass sought to bring a sense of order to his life by writing his journey from slavery to…
In the excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Douglass’s sad tone helps the reader understand the effect that his literacy had on his thoughts and feelings toward slavery. Douglass describes how his mistress had given him “the inch” that he needed to learn to read and how he used bread to convince the little white children to teach him. He soon found the knowledge of how horrible his enslavers were. “In moments of agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity” (Douglass 120-121). This quote describes how he is depressed because he had learned the truth of his enslaves and wished that he would forget the truth. Although learning to read was a great ability he had acquired, it was a curse that led…
My groups presentation I think overall went very well. Our goal was to present on the life of Frederick Douglass, but putting more emphasis on his later years. We had a rather larger group of people who were not very familiar to each other, but we were all able to coordinate times, and make it work for the better. Having a larger group, I think we were able to find a lot of information, in fact, maybe more than we needed. The amount of information that is out there about Frederick Douglass is incredible. It was one of the reasons that we were fortunate enough to present on such an interesting person. We broke the paper up by each covering a different part of his life. Kevin covered his early life, until the point on Douglass's life where he met William Loyd Garrison. This is when Douglass's public speaking career started, this was covered by Reece. I myself focused on Douglass's life outside of the U.S.. Brendan focused his concentration on the literary work of Douglass, and Drew researched his affiliation with U.S. Presidents and other political/authority figures.…
To quote the famous Frederick Douglass, “if there is no struggle, there is no progress…” and I assure you, there was struggle that resulted in not only progress for him, but for the nation as a whole. Frederick Douglass did many things that were deemed as impossible during his time period under the circumstances which the nation was under. To tell you more about this man I will be giving you a brief introduction into his personal life and into his remarkable achievements as a world renowned American abolitionist, author, and orator. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in February of 1818, although no one knows the exact date, was born on the eastern shore of Maryland to a slave woman.…
I am so glad that I finally have the chance to write you again. Unfortunately, I have been really busy with this new book I am reading. Well, calling it new may be a bit inaccurate. The book is called Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. It is an autobiography by Frederick Douglass that was published in 1845, which makes it over 170 years old. Going into reading this book, I expected it to narrate the atrocities that occurred in the Antebellum Period, but I could not prepare myself for the level of detail that Douglass used. He described rural slave culture on his former home in Talbot County, Maryland as cruel and ruthless, with detailed descriptions of beatings, murder, and even sexual abuse (Douglass 1). He recounts, for instance, how one overseer named Mr. Gore murdered a slave named Demby for not listening to his warning about getting out of a creek. Even after moving to Baltimore, Douglass still encountered abuse in the city. The only difference was that the cruelty was better hidden and rarer. The worst abuse that Douglass ever saw, in fact, victimized two slaves named Henrietta and Mary in Baltimore. Throughout the book, Douglass established a disparity between the treatment…
Frederick Douglass was a slave at one point in his life fortunately he was able to escaped and once he became a freeman, he was known as one of the most influential African American of his time, Douglass main goal after he escaped slavery was to promote freedom for all slaves, he published his first newspaper in Rochester, new York , called The north start it got its name because for run-away slaves they would follow the north star to freedom.…
“ Better to die fighting for freedom then to be a prisoner all the days of your life.” - Bob Marley There are many articles that can describe how many slaves felt during this time period. Some of the articles are “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass An American slave” by Frederick Douglass and “Speech to Ohio Women’s Conference: Ain’t I a Women” by Frances Dana Gage. Both of these articles have similar thoughts but they also have some differences. Some of the similarities are in both articles the talk about how they wanted to be free. The Civil War was a shift in American history and changed the future of slavery and freedom.…
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818. He was born "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" to a slave mother and a father that he never knew. He spent years upon years in slavery hoping there was a way out. As a slave, Douglass was not allowed to have much of a childhood.…
While reading the Narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, I received an inside look on Frederick Douglass’ life as a slave and how he was mistreated. While serving his time as a slave, Frederick took this opportunity to learn how to read and write. The concept of this essay is to see if learning to read and write impacted or changed Douglass life in a positive or negative way. I will be answering to this quote in chapter 6, pg. 20 “… she very kindly commenced me in learning to spell words of three or four letters…Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her… that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read.”…
Frederick Douglass thought it was worth writing this quote because it symbolise how he became someone for all the free slaves and his community. It means that without his hard work as a slave nothing of what he has done would mean so little to everyone else.…
Underneath the racial hierarchy possesses the truth behind why slaves are subjected to harsh labor work. Slaves worked hard from morning till night cooking, cultivating, and relentlessly laboring. Moreover, if they did not behave, they would undergo terrifying predicament such as being tortured in front of their peers as a way to discourage rebellion. Although African Americans were known as minorities, they had played an important role in the American Revolution. Slaves had helped the Patriots win and shaped what is now “America”, yet no benefits were given. When the British created myriads of tax laws, to earn more money because of debt, the Patriots started to believe that they could gain their independence again. Believing these dreams, the Patriot told the slaves that they could be “free” at last , if they helped fight.…