Summary Of Narrative Of The Life Of Fredrick Douglass

Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave The book Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave was written by Fredrick Douglass. It was first published the Anti-Slavery Office around 1845. Afterwards, it was published by Penguin Books in 1982 in New York. The Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, an American Slave is a fascinating and bold story. In the historical bold story, we learn about important events that make up some of our history. This book gives me another perspective of the lives slaves had and their struggles as slaves. The book has a lot of information from the first moments of Douglass life, his life as a slave, learning to read and write, and events that led to Douglass new free life.
Although, Douglass didn’t really know how old he was as a kid while living as a slave. Fredrick Douglass mother was Harriet Bailey and his father was a white man. As an infant Douglass was separated from his mother and Bailey was hired somewhere a bit far from Douglass. Although, Douglass’s mother and Douglass were separated; Bailey would come see him during the night. This didn’t happen for too long because at the age of seven, Douglass’s mother died. Once Douglass became old enough to work, he did start working. He had two masters, one of them was Anthony. Anthony was very evil and a “monster”. He wouldn’t hesitate to hurt any slave with a cowskin or hurt any women. Anthony was a cruel master, who wouldn’t mind hurting anyone. Douglass would remember his aunt Hester getting beat by Captain Anthony during the
Douglass was heading to Baltimore. They had to get through the Miles River for them to reach Baltimore. Once they got there, Douglass was greeted by his new “family”, Mr. and Mrs. Auld. This was the first time Douglass felt he has seen nice warm kind white faces. This is also where he met the mistress named Sophia Auld. After warming up a bit with Sophia, she started teaching Douglass the alphabet. Once Douglass learned the alphabet, Sophia taught Douglass how to spell three to four letter words. This is when Mr. Auld found out when Sophia was teaching Douglass. Mr. Auld forbid Sophia in teaching him anymore educational things. Mr. Auld said “… That it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read”. Mr. Auld also said “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master- to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. … if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy”. This made Douglass think about his new life in the