I have discovered many things from this narrative. To hear of the horrible ties that comes with slavery. The most important issue, I feel, is not knowing details about ones own life. Douglass explained in his narrative that he was withheld many details of his life. Throughout his entire write up, he could never tell exactly how old he was, due to the fact of never knowing the date of his birthday. He also barely knew his own family. He had only seen his mother maybe four or five times in his life, and every time that he had was only for a short period of time. He didn’t even know who his father was. The most he ever knew a

bout his dad was that he was a white man. He had no idea, though he heard many rumors that it was his mother’s master. He had other family, who he hardly ever got to see. His knowledge was always trying to be limited, whether it was about family, or about grammar. Because he was a slave, he was never allowed to read. This was because owners feared that if slaves learned to read and write, they would develop a unique sense of self and start to revolt. Slaveholders felt that the less their property knew, the less trouble.

Other than the beatings, and the lack of rights, slaves still had to put up with “mind games” that “proved to slaves that they could never really make it if they ran away to freedom.” One thing is that slaves couldn’t trust anyone. Some masters hired spies to see what slaves thought of them, or to hear about any plans to run away. Other times slaves would just do it to get rewarded by their master. No matter how much you behaved, or how close to freedom you think you were, you were always reminded that you were a slave. Douglass’ mistress started to teach him how to read and spell. After his master discovered this, he was no longer allowed this. Just as soon as he started making progress, he was forced to stop, even though he secretly continued to teach himself. Other times, he would think he’d be doing well, and move up in the world, soon to find out he would be divided up as property with farm animal and possessions. Sometimes is a slave did well enough, he would get paid for his work, but he was still a slave, paid or not. Even when a slave became free, he or she would still be jailed, like Fredericks grandmother. She served the whole life. She one day moved into a small hut into the woods by herself. Where she could support herself all alone in the cold with no one to help her. She was just waiting to die. Even if a slave was completely free, he or she had to be careful of the Fugitive Slave Law. Once again because being accused was the same as being convicted.

Douglass was always a strong man who would not be broken by anyone. He was once sent to a man named Mr. Covey. Mr. Covey was a slave breaker and he was going to try to break Frederick. After Douglass lasted there for about nine months, he started to get very tired and also sick. He collapsed a few times and all Covey would do was kick him to get up. Then Covey hit him hard o

Some topics in this essay:
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