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Frederick Douglass An American Slave Reflection

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Moin Uddin Ahmed Professor Gabrielle Educational Justice 1 September 2016 The book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, by Frederick Douglass book is based on Frederick Douglass narrating his life story as being a slave. Slave wasn’t treated as a human, they were treated as a “Property” to the white people. Also, slaveholder didn’t give enough food to the slave and they made their slave work throughout the year, even in the Winter season with just wearing one shirt. Furthermore, slaves did not have the right to go to school or learn how to read or write because white people were worried what if the black people overpowered them. When Douglass’s master Colonel Lloyd sent him to the Baltimore to work for Mr.Auld. His mistress, …show more content…

However, when her husband heard she was teaching him how to read and write, he got very anxious and screamed her, “If you teach… once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master” (Page 29). This illustrates that If Douglass becomes an educated man, then he’ll be smarter than the slaveholder and he’ll not obey his master. After Mr. Auld screamed at his wife, she started changing and as the time goes, she even got worse than him. She stopped teaching him how to read and write, and she abused him for not fulfilling the work as the way she wanted. As the time goes, his desire for learning increased and he started reading books. After long time, he has succeeded in reading and now is the time for him to learn how to write properly. His mistress, taught him how to write few words and he would re-write those words and he would also write over what his Master Thomas wrote in his notebook. After long time, like reading, now he succeeded in writing. When I was reading chapter five and six of this story, I found a big difference between our young generation in the United States and Douglass childhood, now we are forced to go school by our

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While working on the plantation, Douglass was taught how to read by his slave master’s wife. However, the lessons stopped per the request of his slave master, yet, that did not stop him from continuing to learn how to read. At the age of sixteen, he was sold to a “slave breaker,” named Edward Covey, who was a very harsh slave master. After spending less than a year under Covey’s control, he tried to escape with a group of slaves, but was later caught by authorities and was

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From a young age, Douglass wanted to learn to read and write, as he knew it would get him closer to freedom. The wife of Douglass’ master had begun teaching him to read and write,

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Our first reading of EN101, Fredrick Douglass’ “Learning to Read,” helped our class to better understand the privilege of being a writer. Douglass lives in Hugh Auld’s household for roughly seven years. During this time, he is able to learn how to read and write, though Mrs. Auld is hardened and no longer tutors him. Slavery hurts Mrs. Auld as much as it hurts Douglass himself. The mentality of slavery strips her of her inherent sympathy for others, making her hardened and cruel.

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At one put when Mrs. Auld wasn’t having a good day. She separated Douglass into a lonely place. Where he doesn’t have a book or anything that has to do with learning. Even sometimes She would send someone to check on him if he is hiding a book or reading something that could be knowledgable. Douglass showed Mrs.Auld slavery and education were incompatible with each other.

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After explaining Auld’s origin as a slave owner, he goes on to say that “adopted slaveholders are the worst.” What Douglass meant by this is that people who come into possession of slaves didn't know how to use their power properly, and being newly thrusted into a position of power, became extremely cruel and unkind. New slave owners felt that they had to exert power forcefully to assert their dominance and to show that they can't be walked over. These “adopted slaveholders” were the worst because they created an environment in which slaves had to walk on eggshells as their masters would be cruel one minute and cowardly the next. Auld enforced his rules either rigidly or lax; at times he spoke with the “firmness of Napoleon,” at other times, he could be “mistaken for an inquirer who had lost his way.”

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613 Words | 3 Pages

His mistress Sophia Auld, Hugh’s wife, was very kind with Douglass and even taught him to read and write because she has never had any slave before. However, Mr. Hugh then discovered this and ordered his wife to stop teaching Douglass. Not only Mr. Hugh but also other

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1580 Words | 7 Pages

Douglass got a new viewpoint on slavery when he moved to Baltimore and lived with his new master Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia, who taught Douglass the alphabet for a while until her husband reprimanded her. Douglass learned the rest of the alphabet and how to read from his white friends in town and practiced everyday by himself. He had a fascination with abolitionist newspapers and continually read The Columbian Orator. This was a major turning point in Douglass’s life, reading about abolitionists and free slaves gave him the strength and hope he needed to one day escape and become the man he is. He now had a greater

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Auld is what started Frederick determination of learning as he got older (3). Soon Mr. Auld found out about him learning and stopped it because he was afraid. So the lessons with Mrs. Auld stopped and Frederick had to learn else where with the white children as well as some of the blacks (3). While being moved from the Aulds he tried to teach the other slaves as an effort to make them more educated of what was going on (3). After that a 16 year old Douglass was moved to another slave owner by the name of Edward Covey (Biography.com Editors).

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He caught the president’s eye about how his life changed many people. When the president mentions him Twittersphere quickly lit up. Douglass was listening that such education would “spoil” his boy’s education, “forever unfit him to be a slave.” The words sank into Douglass’s heart and says that it stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering and called into existence an entirely new train of thought (Charles 1). He divided his book into five chapters corresponding to periods in life as a writer (Mezurek 1).

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Annotated bibliography Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. New York: Dover Publications, 1995. Print.

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Douglass begins his letter with his intent, an elaborate and formal appeal to Douglass’ real audience: readers of the North Star to bring forth the atrocities caused not only by Auld but by slavery as a whole. Throughout the letter, Douglass refers to his treatment by Auld; further driving his point that slavery is terrible and that slaves deserve the same basic rights as those who own slaves. Douglass is quick to speak about his own experience as an escaped slave and his success outside of Auld’s ownership to help solidify that point further. Douglass occasionally does this specifically to belittle and call forward Auld’s actions, even referring to himself as more intelligent (Douglass 102). Throughout the letter, Douglass’ common theme is one of anti-slavery and often directly attacks Auld’s actions.

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1568 Words | 7 Pages

“I have observed this in my experience of slavery, – that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom.” Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, this autobiography was published in 1845. Frederick a prominent abolitionist figure was the first black “public intellectual.” At a time where many slaves were illiterate and prohibited to learn how to read and write, Douglass, despite being forbidden to do so by his master (Hugh Auld), managed to learn to read and write. His narrative has very astounding vocabulary which impressed many people.

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498 Words | 2 Pages

According to Mistress Hugh, “education and slavery were incompatible with each other” (Douglass, 33). Although Mistress Hugh had stopped teaching Douglass how to read, the seed of knowledge had already been planted. In the years that followed, his hunger for knowledge did not dissipate. Douglass devised various methods to learn to read and write in very clever ways.

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1574 Words | 7 Pages

Douglass uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling his audience how unfairly Douglass is treated and how white men or slaveholders take control of the life of a slave because in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass on page 1 paragraph 1 it says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” What this piece of evidence is demonstrates is that Frederick Douglass did not even now his own birth and that he had to guess on what his master said and that his master knows more what Frederick knows about his life. Another way that Douglass’s uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling their audience how unfairly Frederick and many other slaves were treated because because in the Document “‘ Pro Slavery Arguments South’’ on paragraph 6 it says,”Southern slaveholders pro-slavery arguments defended the interest of the plantation owners against attempts by abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to institute a more equal social structure.”

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684 Words | 3 Pages

If Ms. Auld didn’t teach Douglass how to write his path to freedom wouldn’t have even started. “After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further” (40). When Douglass got older and wanted to be a free slave his knowledge came in much handy to help his friends and even himself to escape. “The week before our intended start, I wrote several protections, one for each of us” (78).

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