Frederick Douglass Physical Surroundings Essay

Culture, Physical, and Geographical surroundings play a big role in Frederick Douglass.
The first example of surroundings in Frederick Douglass is the culture. Most slaves grow up not knowing when their birthdays are, the time, or even the date. “The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege” (19). Douglass never knew of his birthday or even the date most days. Although he knew of his mother he only got to see her for four or five hours at a time every now and then. Douglass ended up adopting Valentines day for his birthday because his mother called him “little valentine”. She soon died when he was seven years old and he did not get to attend the burial. Slaves did not have the privilege of learning to read or write because if they did they would become educated and their owners did not like that. Owners kept personal information about the slaves from them to keep them uneducated. Slaves have to keep all the faith they possibly can because if they don't then their world seems unliveable.

Slaves endured an extreme amount of physical abuse. Some were whipped daily while others were starved. Slaves don't get to eat much each day. They were given a food allowance once a month. Some days they might not eat at all because they made their owners mad or they were being punished for doing something wrong. Also, slaves were given minimal clothing once a year, and wore them dirty more often than clean. “There were no beds given the slaves, unless one coarse blanket be considered such, and none but the men and women had these” (27). Along with little clothing they were only given rough blankets instead of beds to sleep in. The torture that they suffered would be indescribable