Frederick Douglass: Overcoming Obstacles

Auld. He started to learn the alphabet and as well form words. Throughout this learning experience with Mrs. Auld he had the opportunity to learn and become educated. He came to a realization that many slaves both men and women were deprived from this form of privilege because their slave holders believed that literacy would cause for the slaves to rebel and act against them. Although Mrs. Auld had great intentions to help Frederick but her husband on the other hand was against his education.

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. Douglass’s master forbade his wife from continuing to teach Douglass the alphabet because his master

Douglass states that he does not know the reason why he decided to stand up for himself. However, his self esteem and value most likely increased subconsciously as an outcome of his education on slavery. After the exhausting altercation, Covey showed a sign of defeat for the first time. Covery did not punish Douglass for the insurrection and stopped trying to whip him for the rest of his ownership. If he punished Douglass it would be a confession of his failure to break a slave, his reputation would be ruined.

Though they lived during the same time period their perspectives were very different from each other because of their role in their current society. In Fredrick Douglass book he was a slave since he was a child. He and his family were all treated poorly by their owners on a plantation. Many examples of this poor treatment are shown throughout the book such as “After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope. and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose.

Slavery coincides with ignorance, just as education coincides with freedom. Slavery relies on ignorance to maintain order and control over slaves; thus, preventing slaves from recognizing the empowerment of education, and the ability it possesses to equip them in the pursuit of freedom. Frederick Douglass’s pursuit of education helps him discover the hidden truths of slavery in his article, “How I Learned to Read and Write.” Thus, Douglass’s pursuit of education inspires his desire for freedom. The desire to learn generates determination and motivation. While still a young slave, Douglass’s master forbids his wife from continuing to teach Douglass the alphabet because it did not align with the common worldview that educated slaves had no value to their masters.

. . By purchasing so great a number, the slaves were so crowded that they were obliged to lie one upon another. This caused such a mortality among them that without meeting with unusually bad weather or having a longer voyage than common, nearly one half of them died before the ship arrived” (Alexander Falconbridge's Account of The Slave Trade, Module 5). Usually, the master of other plantations were nice but not my master.

Frederick Douglass was an African American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. Douglass wrote the novel “The Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass” which depicted his life as a slave and enticed his ambition to become a free man. This novel helped form the big abolitionist movement. In the chapters of this novel, it explains important details like how he first learned to read and write, stays at different plantations, later in life events, leading up to his freedom. Douglass opens up the novel with a description of his family background.

He soon became one of the first black leaders in the 18th century. He decided to attack slavery and suffrage. His brilliance and determination of shaping America became a inspiration to many more Americans. He became a public speaker for Anti Slavery and started shaping America into a place of equal rights for black and women. He was in the society of abolitionist as a speaker and leader for 3 years until going to the civil war.

In the autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass” written by himself is a book about an American slave on his extremely challenging journey to freedom. In the book, one of the main themes “Education is the key to freedom” is communicated throughout the course of the book. It is illustrated clearly when Douglass looks on his departure from Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. It is also conveyed when Mr. Auld scolds his wife about educating their slaves. Finally it is communicated when Douglass holds a sabbath school for his fellow slaves.

The white man’s happiness cannot be purchased by the black man’s misery.” Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, or better known as Frederick Douglass, was an African-American who supported the abolition of slavery in the nineteenth century. Slave-born of an unknown father, Frederick Douglass taught himself how to write and read- even though it was a crime for black people to learn- and became one of the most eloquent orator, and writer during the nineteenth century. With his great passion of wanting to demolish slavery, he gained thousands and thousands of black people, and even white people, who supported him in the abolition of slavery. His antislavery not only reached the United States, but even Great Britain. Abandoned first by his mother and then by his grandmother, then passing through very

The documentary on Big Sugar by Brian McKenna supports Mintz’s ideas by revealing the dark side of working on the plantations, and the terrible working conditions that the labors (or slaves) back then had to suffer. They went hungry while working a 12-hour day to in order to earn just $2. Mary Prince, a West Indian slave said that: I have often wondered how English people can go out into the West Indies and act in such a beastly manner. But when they go to the West Indies they forget God and all feelings of shame, I think, since they can see and do such things. They tie up people like hogs – moor them up like cattle, and they lick them, so as hogs, or cattle, or horses never were

Slaves were introduced to unknown diseases and suffered from malnutrition long before they reached their destination. Many of the Africans preferred death over slavery. As Olaudah Equiano mentions, some men that were traveling with him jumped to the ocean to reach death, but did not succeed. The death of the Africans meant economic loss for the traders, so maintaining them alive before selling them, was a rough

Three African American civil rights leaders helped change history by educating blacks. After reconstruction Ida B. Wells, Booker T. Washington, and WEB Dubois all educated blacks so that today we can have African Americans in higher authority positions like President Barack Obama. Booker T. Washington and WEB Dubois taught older blacks while Ida B. Wells taught children.

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. Thus, in The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass is able to represent slaves as dehumanized property with the sole purpose of working their masters land until the day they die. Douglass also successfully represents slaves as intelligent people who wish to learn and begin to see the world for themselves, not through the eyes of a slave master.

The voyage they took in the boats was dreadful(Slavery in America). The Africans were crammed into the smallest of spaces with many other people for days at a time without seeing sunlight(Slavery in America). Then when they got to America they were forced into service. (Slavery in America) If they disobeyed their owner they were beaten or whipped (Slavery in America). The Africans were slaves for life and if they had children, their children were slaves also(slavery in America).