Fredrick Douglas: The Path To Freedom

Fredrick Douglas was a born into slavery. Like many slaves, he was unsure of his background birth date. Douglas slave-owner believed that educating a slave makes them unmanageable. Yet, Douglass finds himself learning to read with the help of local poor white children. As he learns to read and write , he becomes conscious of the evils of slavery and of the existence of the abolitionist, or anti slavery, movement. Although, Douglas struggles to free himself, mentally and physically from slavery he eventually escapes to the North. Douglas acknowledges that ignorance is used as a tool of slavery; knowledge as the path to freedom; slavery’s damaging effect on slaveholders; slaveholding as a perversion of Christianity. He focuses on the Dehumanizing
effects of slavery and education is the solution. Although they sat on different sides of the field Jefferson was a slave owner himself, who had bought slaves over the course of his life. However, Jefferson opposed slavery throughout his life. he considered it contrary to the laws of nature decreed that everyone had a right to personal liberty. He called the institution an "abominable crime," a "moral depravity," a "hideous blot," and a "fatal stain" that deformed "what nature had bestowed on us of her fairest gifts." Thomas Jefferson believed that God Almighty created the mind free. In the Declaration, the people used their education t break free from British rule, but then they force the slaves under the same conditions they were once in. He believed that all blacks needed a strong education. Both Douglas and Jefferson recognized the evils of slavery and the harm it did to mankind.