Frederick Douglass Abuse

In the Narrative The Narrative of Frederick Douglass, written by Frederick Douglass writes of how he strove for the end of slavery and for the freedom of all African Americans. Though he endured a harsh reality of both abuse and discrimination, Douglass was able to escape and live onto be a prominent man in history. Douglass uses his intellect in order to debunk the mythology of slavery by writing the harsh truth of what African Americans endured. Frederick Douglass makes it a point in his Narrative to show the true side of slavery and rebuke its romantic image. Throughout the Narrative, Douglass shows the true pain African American slaves were forced to endure. In the fourth chapter of the Narrative Douglass writes of Mr. Gore, an overseer …show more content…
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery and worked for many masters throughout his lifetime. One especially prominent master was Mr. Auld. Mrs. Auld, his wife was new to the slave trade and treated Douglass as a normal human being, as opposed to a slave because she was not accustomed to the way one was supposed to act towards a slave. After Mrs. Auld taught Douglass how to read, her husband put a stop to the teaching. He claimed an educated slave was a dangerous one. Douglass made the claim that from the moment Mr. Auld forbade him to learn, he “understood the path from slavery to freedom was knowledge.”(47) Douglass and a multitude of other slaves taught themselves to both read and write, disproving the lack of literary knowledge amongst African Americans. In the Narrative Douglass meets many slaves throughout his life who were capable of holding a conversation with him, and smart enough to form an escape plan. Though none of the slaves are shown reading or writing, it is assumed that they have some extent of knowledge due to the fact they were able to collaborate an escape plan. Many slave owners of the time had the same mindset exhibited as Mr.Auld, they believed that allowing a slave access to literature and other forms of knowledge, they would become a “great deal of harm...and become discontented and unhappy”(47). Though, once Douglass learned the basics of reading, he could not …show more content…
For example, when a group of slaves planned on escaping slavery into freedom, there was always a risk that they would be ratted out. A majority of the time, slaves were turned on by one another out of fear of punishment. At one point in the Narrative Douglass tells of a time when him and a group of other slaves planned an escape. But, once they began to formulate their plan, they realised that their “right to be free was yet questionable -[they] were yet liable to be returned to bondage.”(90) They all felt this because they knew that the odds one of them would turn on the others was likely. As they planned their escape they ended up being ratted out by one of the others. Frederick Douglass was blamed for having planned the escape and was berated by one of the masters, “‘it was you that put it into the heads of Henry and John to run away’”(95). Douglass ended up being blamed for the alleged escape attempt because he was the new slave on the plantation and the most knowledgeable. A majority of slaves believed that their prospects were better as slaves because even if they escaped slavery, there was no guarantee they would survive or not be captured. The slave system was created in order to turn the slaves against one another and keep all of them in their respective places in