Frederick Douglass: The Struggle For A Slave

Frederick Douglass once said, “If there is no struggle, there is no progress” (“West India Emancipation Speech”, 1857). His whole life based around this quote. Douglass was born into slavery and it took control of most of his life, until he decided to do something about it. He became a free man and was one of the most influential abolitionists ever. Douglass’s life had been filled with whippings, betrayal, deaths, and his struggle towards freedom. A typical life for a slave was not that of Douglass. His life was not of the norm of a regular slave. Although, many slaves can say that they went through the same hardships, Douglass’s story tops them all. His life was made atypical by where he grew up, how he became literate, how he learned a trade, how he fought his master, and how he became free. Frederick Douglass grew up in Talbot, Maryland. Most slaves at the time worked in the south. He was not doing some of the same labor as someone farther down south would. His work involved of taking care of his master’s son. When he was a young boy he was sent to Baltimore. Douglass explains that when he was sent to …show more content…
Douglass was one of the lucky ones to make it to the north. He was working for his master Mr. Hugh in Baltimore. Maryland is one of the border states with the north. His escape was made easy due to the fact that he was not in the Deep South compared to many other slaves. He escaped into New York to find freedom and married Anna Murray in 1838 (“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass”, 19). The people who lived in the Deep South would escape slavery mostly by finding a group of free blacks in the city or go into hiding in the wilderness (Lecture, History 250, 4-7-16). However, free blacks were not treated the same as white people. Many could marry and own property, but they had few civic freedoms and rights, and they had to always carry papers to prove that they were free (Lecture, History 250,