Frederick Douglass Slavery And Freedom

Slavery and freedom have multiple meanings for different people, but being free from enslavement does not necessarily free one from a slave mentality. The book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, takes place around the early 1800’s in Talbot County, Maryland and begins with him explaining little information about his birth and parents. Throughout his autobiography, Douglass illustrates the advantages slave owners took in using enslaved women to expand their slave population, the strict religious beliefs that affected slaves lives, and the brutal abuses him and others slaves experienced. When Douglass is seven or eight years old, he is sent to Baltimore to live with the Auld family to take care of their son, Thomas. While in Baltimore, …show more content…
Douglass receives partial freedom from his responsed action in fighting Mr.Covey, in which he remembered his master succeeded at breaking him saying, “I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eyes died..” (38). Douglass explains the breakage of his own identity in which he was something far of different from what he personally saw himself as. His natural resilience was broken, his ability and want to be educated vanished, and his own piece of excitement was taken away from him. Mr. Covey who has a known reputation for breaking slaves of their physical and mental state had gotten to Douglass who was truly broken inside. This vulnerable state that Douglass was in, caused him to find any means of a way out of Mr. Covey’s reach. After finding Sandy Jenkins who was an ex slave provided him with a magical root in which it was meant to protect Douglass from any harm. Douglass successfully fought Mr. Covey, making his master almost afraid of his own reputation of breaking slaves due to Douglass’ unsuspecting retaliation. Douglass looking back at the results of his fight thinking, “It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and …show more content…
One way Douglass views freedom as being independently motivated is by using education to freeing one’s mind from the evils of slavery. Another example of how Douglass views freedom as being independently motivated is by being free from fear. Lastly, Douglass believes that by being a leader one must trust no one but themselves for certain success. These three ideas could suggest Douglass’ own interpretation of what one needs to reach freedom. This idea may grant you freedom, but will not necessarily free your mind from the aspects of one’s own experience even after emancipation. The destruction of slavery has and will continue to influence the way we as individuals think about the world