The Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassEssay Preview: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick DouglassReport this essayThe Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass shows several instances in which his personal accounts of slavery are highlighted. These instances illustrate important realizations that Douglass makes concerning slavery, and/or about his own condition.
The very first chapter of the novel produces the first example: loss of identity. Many slaves had absolutely no concept of time, in terms of factual dates. Slaves were kept “ignorant” as to the facts of the real world, in most cases not even knowing the year of their birth, preventing the knowledge of a captives true age. A birthday is something with which people can identify, as they are a celebrated part of our culture, especially to youth. Douglass here identifies himself as a human being lacking what we may consider a normal childhood simply through the use of dates. We identify ourselves by the dates which surround the events of our lives. Part of our identity is formed from dates and this was a privilege he was denied. He is, however, provided with a general idea as to how old he truly is, ” I come to this from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old” (Douglass 1).
Adding to this already tarnished identity is the status of his parental figures. While Douglass somewhat got to know his mother, he never really had a father. His father, according to practically everyone, was a white man, .”..opinion was also whispered that my master was my father” (1). Although it is true that he knew his mother, it must be noted that they were separated while he was an infant and thereafter only met a total of four or five times. The consequences of not knowing who you really are may not have phased Douglass much during his childhood. However as he grew older and began to understand how the politics of slavery work, there is no doubt that this lack of principle human right (to which everyone should be entitled) certainly motivated Douglass towards achieving his goal of freedom.
A major fear amongst slave owners is that their slaves will learn to read and write. One reason is because the less they know they better off the owner would be. The slave would then realize he was an equal to his master and question why his master has the right to enslave him. Douglas stated this saying, “The more I read the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.” When Douglas learned to read and write, he looked at everything differently. He saw everything as a citizen and not a slave. He then began to envy the illiterate slave because they did not completely understand the terrible condition in which they lived. Douglass, however, now did, and could not bear the thought of remaining a slave. Moving to Baltimore and thus becoming illiterate proved to
• It wasn’t until he moved to the United States in 1859, that he saw how the condition of his plantation was being dealt with. While in Missouri, a Missouri State Senator, Abraham Lincoln, stated in the spring of 1859: “If the people will not give me the opportunity of a slave to earn my living in the United States, we may well begin to starve the poor negroes without paying the same wage that they pay the white people who are under the control of those slaves in a free nation.”‣When Lincoln decided to leave Missouri in 1864, several slave owners were killed, while many more came to the United States. These had been treated as a threat to their people’s rights. But as long as they made money on their sale the slave owners were considered as a threat to their people’s rights. But when Lincoln became president of the United States, people did not look favorably on them. He was the first president to sign an act of secession from the United States and the first to have them removed to make way for American industry or commerce, which he referred to as “slavery,” when he said: “The slaves of this country are a small portion of all whom are to be held as slaves till a time to be secured into liberty and property.”․In March of 1863, Lincoln began a mission to Missouri. While the mission was peaceful, he received criticism and calls from members of Congress for leaving and the abolition of slavery was a bad idea. But Lincoln insisted on continuing the mission and went there with no objection whatsoever. The following February, Lincoln and the Missouri Association of Sons were elected to be the first to support the mission. The last man to leave office after this action was Governor Davenport of North Carolina. A few weeks before this, an article appeared on the Washington Post that stated, “President Lincoln has the right to stop slavery and abolish the existing system of slavery in the United States.” As a member of the Board of Education that same year, he voted to abolish slavery.‥But while this was happening, John Smith, a slave owner and a black leader on the board of Education that year, was also a member as well. He voted to end the entire system and end slavery. …As Lincoln continued his career in the United States, thousands of people who had been enslaved went back to their homes and became part of his community. In 1876, Robert B. Dudley came to believe that the slavery abolition movement had already begun. Before he could write a book, he had to get the word out. By 1877, he was able to persuade one person, George S. Douglas, of Maryland, to read the Bible. But Douglas did not write. He only wrote in his final years after being a freed slave.͝&The first thing that Douglas found himself doing was reading several popular books:The Great American Slavery Campaign, by Thomas Paine. And he discovered