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Fredric Douglass: A Life Of Slavery

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Around the year of 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland, Fredric Douglass was born into a life of slavery. Douglass was always determined to gain knowledge, this determination for an education allowed him to break from his chains and gain freedom. He spent most of his life facing obstacles because of the color of his skin. He taught himself how to read and write with old books in his “owners” house. By doing this it showed how driven he was, being able to break the boundaries placed on African Americans in the 1800’s. Fredric Douglass thought differently from many of the other African Americans of his time, he believed that he could change his future, he did not let the normality of slavery choose what his future would entail. There was no way …show more content…

He knew once he learned to read and write he had a greater chance at becoming a free man like he always dreamed. Just like every slave, Douglass was taken from his mother as soon as he was born so she could continue working. The masters had no empathy for the mothers, they only worried about their work being done. He never had a chance to really meet his mother, only a few times before her death. Douglass witnessed many things as a child that no child should have to deal with. He lost his mother at a very young age and was left alone with all the other slaves. He also witnessed his first whipping in his younger years which scared him for the rest of his life. Unlike many of the other slaves Fredric Douglass grew big and strong, to a point were at a time in his life the decided that he would never be whipped by any man. He would use all of his power to stop from being whipped, even if it meant becoming physical with his …show more content…

But I will never understand how someone could physical abuse someone, or work them to their death. Douglass’s story shows how hard it really was to live in this period as an African American, and the fact that he was able to use his paid to push him forward is incredible. I personally would have never been able to endure the life he had and I would have cracked under all of the physical and emotional pain. This autobiography shows the cruel truth to slavery that everyone wants to move on from and forget. But if you do not learn from history it will repeat

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The harsh treatment in which he had to endure dehumanized him and his people. His life as a captive left him no choice over his aspirations, he also lacked the right to choose his ethics. Mr. Covey the unjust slave keeper denied him of his rights and stripped him of the right of sleeping like a human. “I had no bed”(Douglass **).Treated like a savage beast was what he was forced to endure.

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The Struggles Of Frederick Douglass As a young man Frederick Douglass was struck with the inability to read nor write these troubles dawned on him due to his state of slavery. Frederick Douglass was born a slave, a slave will not read, a slave will not write, and a slave is not a human, these thoughts were planted in the head of his white owners cursing him to inequality and illiteracy. Imagine never being able to write a love letter or read a funny note, imagine never being able to put your ideas on paper and making them permanent. Frederick Douglass had a great mind, one that was chained up and held back by the slavery and illiteracy his forced lifestyle brought along.

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Fredrick Dougless says to five white little boys,” you will be free as soon as you are 21, but I am a slave for life”. Fredrick Douglass was born February 1818, enslaved. He was young and wanted to learn how to read and write for his benefit, so he did everything he could to do so. Only seven years after he escaped Douglass wrote three autobiographies, one of them being Narrative of the Life of FrederickDouglass. Learning to read and write and his victory over Mr. Covey was significant because if it wasn't for his need to read and write he would possibly have tried to escape earlier due to the fact that there would be nothing stopping him and winning sparked power and motivation in him.

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Fredrick Douglass was born enslaved,but he escaped to freedom. He became an outspoken opponent of slavery and a civil rights advocate. He lectured widely and even published his own newspapers. In this excerpt, I have learned the most important event that occurred in his life and why its important, the reason why he compared the enslavers to criminals, and the reason why he wished to be an animal. First of all, Fredrick mentioned in the excerpt the most important event in his life and why it matters.

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Fredrick Douglass learned that enslavers hated enslaved people knowing to read and write as they feared what the enslaved people could do this that information. Douglass heard Mr. Auld ban Mrs. Auld from teaching Douglass how to read because, as he states, “Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave” (Douglass Fredrick 38). Fredrick Douglass realized freedom was possible through learning, which inspired him to escape and learn more.

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Fredrick Douglass is one of the most famous abolitionists the United States has ever seen. The events that led up to his freedom of slavery were very interesting. In his Narrative you not only get to see the worst of slavery, but you can also feel firsthand what Douglass went through to get his freedom. As we all know slavery was something you could not just walk out of. Some slaves that try to escape even end up getting punished or killed.

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In “The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, Douglass narrates in detail the oppressions he went through as a slave before winning his freedom. In the narrative, Douglass gives a picture about the humiliation, brutality, and pain that slaves go through. We can evidently see that Douglass does not want to describe only his life, but he uses his personal experiences and life story as a tool to rise against slavery. He uses his personal life story to argue against common myths that were used to justify the act of slavery. Douglass invalidated common justification for slavery like religion, economic argument and color with his life story through his experiences torture, separation, and illiteracy, and he urged for the end of slavery.

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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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The legendary abolitionist and orator Frederick Douglass was one of the most important social reformers of the nineteenth century. Being born into slavery on a Maryland Eastern Shore plantation to his mother, Harriet Bailey, and a white man, most likely Douglass’s first master was the starting point of his rise against the enslavement of African-Americans. Nearly 200 years after Douglass’s birth and 122 years after his death, The social activist’s name and accomplishments continue to inspire the progression of African-American youth in modern society. Through his ability to overcome obstacles, his strive for a better life through education, and his success despite humble beginnings, Frederick Douglass’s aspirations stretched his influence through

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Frederick Douglass was able to stand up for what he believed in because he did not focus on the negatives of slavery. He was not a so called “normal” slave because he focused on education, versus working, which is what most slaves were forced to focus on. Douglass even took his slave life to another level when he attacked his master, Mr. Covey , an act of defiance and standing up for himself. Douglass notes that “it was a glorious resurrection” that was from “the tomb of slavery” , and after hitting Mr. Covey he felt as if he were in “the heaven of freedom” (Douglass). Douglass beats up his master, a clear sign of rebelliousness as well as courageousness.

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Douglass states: “The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and in a strange land reduced us to slavery” (Douglass 51). Reading and writing opened Frederick Douglass’s eyes to the cause of the abolitionist. He became knowledgeable about a topic that white slave owners tried to keep hidden from their slaves. Literacy would eventually impact his life in more ways than what he could see while he was a young slave under Master Hugh’s

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The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass’s autobiography in which Douglass goes into detail about growing up as a slave and then escaping for a better life. During the early-to-mid 1800s, the period that this book was written, African-American slaves were no more than workers for their masters. Frederick Douglass recounts not only his personal life experiences but also the experiences of his fellow slaves during the period. This book was aimed at abolitionists, so he makes a point to portray the slaves as actual living people, not the inhuman beings that they are treated as. In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, slaves are inhumanly represented by their owners and Frederick Douglass shines a positive light

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He became known as an inspirational person. Not many people are willing to go against what others believe, but Douglass was. His slave owner thought that it was “unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read” (Douglass 29), but that did not stop him from pursuing further knowledge. Education has a powerful effect that makes others fear that one has superiority over them one way or another. Slaves had their basic human rights taken away from them because slave owners wanted them to lack the ability to form an opinion on what was happening to them.

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The books he reads and knowledge he’s gotten has made him angry at other slaves with a lack of knowing what is going on. The life of slavery really just ruins your mind and thoughts, and makes you feel discouraged, but Frederick had the education piece in his life. In the text Frederick says, “I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead; and but for the hope of being free, I have no doubt but that I should have killed myself, or done something for which I should have been killed” (Douglass 54). With his newfound knowledge he starts to contemplate his existence. The hope of being free still pushes him, even if it may lead to death.

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