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Frederick Douglass Injustice

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Fredrick Douglass, an Abolitionist writer and escaped slave, has come to be one of the forefathers of the anti-slavery movement in mid-19th century America. In his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: an American Slave, he showed his audience in grotesque detail the injustices and tortures of slavery. Douglass was born in Talbot County in Maryland, where as a child he owned by a cruel man named Captain Anthony. Throughout his life as a slave he is juggled between a few masters, all in the same family. When Douglass is given to Captain Anthony’s son-in-law, Hugh Auld, he moved from the horrible plantation to city life in Baltimore, Maryland. This is where his journey to escaping begins, of which the actual escape doesn’t happen until …show more content…

When Sophia began teaching Douglass his alphabet however, she was quickly reprimanded for it by her husband. He said it would make Douglass “discontent and unhappy” (p. 62) as well as it would “spoil” (p. 62) him. This quote perfectly sum’s up Douglass’s view on this injustice: “These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering, and called into existence an entirely new train of thought. It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark and mysterious things, with which my youthful understanding had struggled, but struggled in vain. I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty--to wit, the white man's power to enslave the black man.” (p. 62) While he was still a child their at the Baltimore house, he was confused as to why he could not learn to read. As an adult, he then understood that it was again a tactic to keep slaves in line. In keeping them uneducated, slaves would be unable to form any written argument against slavery, or learn new ways to combat it. It even kept them in the dark of the abolitionist movement, which was often written about in the newspapers. This act was the slavers way to keep slaves in the dark of their true

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This was a feat that now only grew their want for knowledge, but also grew the want for freedom. When Mrs. Auld taught Douglass to write her husband interrupted and conveyed the common belief that teaching a slave to read would ruin him or her. “If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master,” Douglass quoted his livid master (Douglass 1196.)

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Lastly, the slaves were not supposed to be able to read or write, they were denied an education. However, in the city the slaves were able to trick white boys into teaching them or mistresses would secretly educate them. Douglass used this strategy to learn how to read and write while living in the city, “I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write” (Douglass 79). It took Douglass a while to learn basic human necessities, such as reading and writing.

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He described her, as a woman who treated him the way one human being has to treat the other. However, his master immediately put a stop to it because in his view learning to read “would forever unfit him from being a slave.” Douglass took this lesson to heart where he says it “only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn.” At this moment he learned that education is what ruin slaves and education and slavery are not linked together. This encouraged him to work toward becoming free by learning to read and write using several strategies that included offering bread to the white children in exchange for reading lessons and observing the writings of the men he worked with.

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In Frederick Douglass’ passage, “Learning to Read and Write”, his mistress’ decision to halt his education creates an obstacle that he overcomes through creative acts. Ever since Douglass was a child, he was separated from his family to become a slave for life meaning he wasn’t offered an education unless their master wanted to. In Douglass’ case, his master decided to teach him until the purpose of slavery caught up to her, “ the first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct [him]” (17). Without his mistress’ help in instructing him, Douglass didn’t have an obvious opportunity in an education instead, he began to read at any chance given to him. With the urge Frederick Douglass had in wanting to learn and read more, he had

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This in the long run would hurt her more and benefited him. Douglass learned, “From that moment on [and] understood the pathway from slavery to freedom” (Douglass, 20). Slaves were not allowed to read and/or write, but some

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