Many have different definitions on a slave and a man. I have found that even I do not have the same definition as my peers, or even of Frederick Douglass himself.
In my definition, a slave is one who has no rights, no freedom, is submissive, and can do only what they are ordered. To be disobedient will result in a beating or whipping. In a sense children are slaves. They are monitored very closely and always told what to do. In the same respect the entire populous is a slave. All are responsible to a higher authority. One has their boss to report to, and all, ultimately, report to the government. Even the government has to report to someone; the people are their “slave owner.”
A man is one who can (potentially) own land, vote, and earn a living for his family and himself. A man is also one who can think for himself and make decisions based on rational thinking. Another trait of a man is the ability to read and write.
From this experience Douglass made the decision to read and write. Douglass uses children to help him to learn to read and write. An example of this is when he is living with Master Hugh’s family: “The plan which I adopted, and the one which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers” (23).
Douglass feels that he is a slave until his fight with Mr. Covey. One of the biggest things that makes one a slave is accepting the life one is given not trying to better it. What I tried to show is that Douglass is a man early in his life. The only problem is that he was born black, and into slavery. If Douglass had inherited his fathers skin color and not his mothers, he would have been treated more as a free man than as a slave. Even though he would still be a mulatto, he would not have had to deal with the hardships of being a man without freedom.
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