Reading Notes W 8: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Part A

The notes for this week were on Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave which is an autobiography of Fredrick Douglass. Douglass tells the story of his life from slavery to becoming a well-educated black abolitionist. He starts out talking about how he is different than other slaves that he knows when he is born and who his parents are. His mother was a slave by the name of Harriet Bailey, who was a field hand who eventually died when Douglass was seven years old. Also that his father was probably his first white master, Captain Anthony.  He talks about a term mulatto which simply means a mixture of races, he implies that mulatto slaves are the result of white masters raping black slaves. He talks about the harsh and inhuman conditions of being a slave. when he became a free man in the North, he heard whites talking about that the singing of slaves is evidence of their contentment and happiness. Douglass disagrees with this stating that slaves sing in order to relieve their sorrow much like tears relieve an aching heart(p.240-242). He also talks about how the slaved responded when they were asked about there conditions, as well as how they felt behind closed doors. He talked about an experience when this new overseer gore killed a slave Demby for not listening to him and how killing a slave is not considered a crime by the courts nor by the community in Maryland. A white slave owner by the name of Mrs. Auld was the one who taught Douglass how to read even though many though if Douglass was educated it would ruin him as a slave. Learning how to read changed how Douglass looked at the world and how badly blacks were being treated, he also came across the abolitionist movement reading in the newspaper. When he became older he struggles to figure out his purpose and what he should do after learning how to read. In 1835 Douglass began to think seriously about escaping, which ended in a failer and prison. Sometime later Douglass successfully escapes to the North. After some time adjusting to his freedom, he came across anti-slavery convention on August 11, 1841,  where he spoke for the first time about the horrors of slavery and how it needs to be abolished and then the rest was history.