“I did not know I was a slave until I found out I could not do the things I wanted.” - Frederick Douglass. This quote shows how unjust slaves were treated by their masters. The slaves were not given opportunities to experience the world outside of slavery. In Frederick Douglass’s autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, he expresses his feelings while enslaved and on his journey to freedom. Although some people don’t suffer and have such eventful lifestyles, Frederick Douglass did and experienced so much from boy to man, enslaved to free, and illiterate to literate.
Frederick Douglass had barely seen his mother when he was young and he experienced more loss in his life as he got older. “I never saw my
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“We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine. There were horses and men, cattle and women, pigs and children, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination.” (pg. 37) All the slaves were being subjected to farm animals during the valuation. It was heinous how the masters treated all the slaves. The masters had different reasons for punishing, whipping, and discriminating against the slaves. “The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom were perpetually before me. I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State.” (pg. 82) After Douglass had been through much pain and suffering, he had escaped through the underground railroad up North. He was a free man who didn’t have to refer to anyone and was able to do whatever he wanted to pursue with his life. Frederick Douglass must have felt like a new person after escaping because he could start his life over and forget his past, though it’s hard to let go of something that’s made you who you are. Douglass was punished sometimes more than the other slaves at one plantation since he was mulatto child, but he was able survive