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Reasons Why Slaveowners Did Not Educate Their Slaves

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Education helps people improve completion of their tasks. For instance, education enables all mathematicians to solve for solutions and all great surgeons to perform their surgery because of their knowledge of the human body. However, in this autobiography, Douglass recounts that slaveowners did not want to educate their slaves. If education of slaves would enable them to be more helpful, why would slaveowners choose not to? This was because educating a slave was untraditional, and could cause a slave to rebel against their owner or commit suicide. One reason why slave owners did not educate their slaves was because it was untraditional, and therefore would make a slave disobedient. Slaveowners in the early 1800s kept to traditional methods of treating a slave because of the belief that slaves were meant to be obedient and get work done. For example, Hugh Auld, one of Douglass’s masters, states to his wife, Sophia Auld, on page 42, “a nigger should know nothing but to obey his master- to do as he is told to do…if you teach that …show more content…

For example, on page 42 of the narrative, Hugh Auld states about a slave and education, “As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him disconcerted and unhappy.” Hugh Auld’s belief was proved true when Douglass felt depressed after learning that he was being taken advantage of, and that he could be free in the North, instead of being a slave. For example, Douglass states “as I writhed under it, I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing….I often found myself regretting my own existence, and wishing myself dead” (pg.48). Therefore, slaveowners did not educate their slaves because they wanted to prevent slaves from feeling hopeless about their lives, like

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486 Words | 2 Pages

Douglass for example emphasized the importance of education for slaves. Douglass is a first had observer of the strategy of slave owners to keep their slaves ignorant. By keeping slave uneducated they are unable to express the horrible things that happen to them to the world. Hugh Auld forces his wife to stop teaching Douglass to read (auld stopping teaching quote) , so Douglass teaches himself. For him learning to read was a major turning point in his quest for freedom and it enabled him to put out his book, which would inspire many to turn against slavery.

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169 Words | 1 Pages

Slaves could become regular citizens with knowledge, reducing the power of the almighty white man. A second reason is that if slaves learned to read, they could feel as if they did not need

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844 Words | 4 Pages

Fredrick Douglass overhears this, and realizes that getting an education can actually lead him to freedom, and leaving slaves uneducated is a strategy to enslave blacks. He is then determined to learn anything he

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814 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass must have been aware of this because in his narrative, he actively opposes the idea. He describes the masters as people who would “much rather see [the slaves] as engaged in degrading sports, than to see [them] behaving as intellectual, moral, and accountable beings”(48). At a very young age, Douglass learned from the kindly Mrs. Auld how to read, and eventually how to write. He later began a school on the day of the Sabbath for other slaves who desired this knowledge. In Douglass narrative, he proves that unlike the slave owner’s perceptions, African Americans could be “scholars” that “ardently [desired] to learn”(48).

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582 Words | 3 Pages

Slaves obtaining knowledge or an education were then viewed as unmanageable. One can see that through Frederick Douglass’s gain of education; Slavery began to look more than an imprisonment and his mind would not cease to think. With this depressing state of mind, Douglass would begin to plot for ways to obtain his education. Despite living in a country were teaching slaves was unpardonable, Frederick Douglass began to incorporate various ways for his education. He would hide in a separate room and would be suspected by his mistress that he could be reading a book.

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1036 Words | 5 Pages

Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. The foundation of America is freedom. Freedom from Britain. However, the freedom is limited to white males who own property. When colonists started to immigrate to America, they wanted to escape from under the rule of Britain.

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753 Words | 4 Pages

Frederick Douglass’s narrative provides a first hand experience into the imbalance of power between a slave and a slaveholder and the negative effects it has on them both. Douglass proves that slavery destroys not only the slave, but the slaveholder as well by saying that this “poison of irresponsible power” has a dehumanizing effect on the slaveholder’s morals and beliefs (Douglass 40). This intense amount of power breaks the  kindest heart and changes the slaveholder into a heartless demon (Douglass 40). Yet these are not the only ways that Douglass proves what ill effect slavery has on the slaveholder. Douglass also uses deep characterization, emotional appeal, and religion to present the negative effects of slavery.

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392 Words | 2 Pages

African-American slaves were forbidden to obtain the knowledge of being able to read or write, stemming from the fear of white masters that educated slaves will overpower them. Douglass managed to learn to read by bribing poor and hungry white boys into teaching him in exchange for bits of bread. Douglass illustrates his thirst for literacy through “[The] bread [he] used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give [him] that more valuable bread of knowledge” (pg 23). This reveals how much Douglass valued education and took advantage of all the knowledge he had access to. Today’s youth, especially the ones belonging to a minority

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973 Words | 4 Pages

Because of this, he successfully creates a contrast between what the slave owners think of and treat the slaves and how they are. Douglass says that slave’s minds were “starved by their cruel masters”(Douglass, 48) and that “they had been shut up in mental darkness” (Douglass, 48) and through education, something that they were deprived of, Frederick Douglass is able to open their minds and allow them to flourish into the complex people that they are. By showing a willingness to learn to read and write, the slaves prove that they were much more than what was forced upon them by their masters.

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601 Words | 3 Pages

Douglass endured lots of whippings, along with many other slaves, during his years with Master Auld. “They have been entirely deprived of the power to read and write. You have kept them in utter ignorance” ( Frederick Douglass) Frederick Douglass believed that God created all people equal.

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1727 Words | 7 Pages

With all the knowledge he was gaining, he began to comprehend everything around him. The things he was learning fascinated him, but the “more [he] read, the more [he] was led to abhor and detest [his] enslavers”(Douglass 35); however, that should not be viewed as a negative affect but a positive one. No one should want to be deceived for their entire life. This hatred that he built up motivated him to continue to further educate himself. As a result, he later motivated other slaves to earn an education by having “[availed] themselves to [an] opportunity to learn to read” (Douglass 69) by Douglass teaching them every Sunday.

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836 Words | 4 Pages

Human slavery requires ignorance, just as an individual’s freedom, from oppression, requires knowledge attained by education. To maintain order and control over slaves, slavery demands ignorant slaves; thus, keeping slaves ignorant prevents slaves from recognizing the empowering value of education and education’s ability to liberate slaves from the effects of ignorance. Frederick Douglass’s pursuit of education helped him discover the dark, hidden truths of slavery in his article, “How I Learned to Read and Write.” Thus, the pursuit of education inspires a desire for freedom. The desire to learn generates determination and motivation.

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1638 Words | 7 Pages

They came because they wished to learn. Their minds had been starved by their cruel masters. They had been shut up in mental darkness. I taught them, because it was the delight of my soul to be doing something that looked like bettering the condition of my race”, Chapter 10 page 23 . Even as Douglass comes to the realization that to educate his fellow slaves a price had been paid he had continued to see the progressional popularity of his “school” due to the fact that every human has the natural desire to learn.

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1067 Words | 5 Pages

The level of education of the slaves on the plantation allow them to be manipulated by their masters. In many situations during the 1800s when slavery was prominent we can see that education holds power in society. Slave masters were educated and due to this, they were able to exert control over the slaves on the plantation. Douglass was self-educated and was able to analyze slave behavior and see slavery occur firsthand as a slave himself. In the book, we can see how the slave’s ignorance is actually bliss from the perspective of Douglass, how information like knowing how to read was withheld from the slaves and why and why slave-owners preferred non-educated slaves to educated ones.

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1080 Words | 5 Pages

In Frederick Douglass’s narrative essay titled “Learning to Read” he recalls his journey to literacy. Throughout the essay Douglass reveals how he learned to read and write, despite the fact that education was strictly prohibited to slaves. Initially, Douglass learned how to read through his mistress, but he later learned from the little white boys on the streets. As for learning to write, he often times observed ship carpenters and replicated the copy-books of his Master’s son. Frederick Douglass did not have the same opportunities students have today, yet despite his adversities, Douglass was able to become a literate slave, and ultimately free himself from slavery with the power of

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