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Frederick Douglass Narrative Essay

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In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass was an African American slave. He eventually starts his own abolitionist movement. His mission was to gain freedom for himself and other slaves as he was an abolitionist. Douglass being a slave had a slave owner, but the thing is that Douglass has had multiple slave owners not just one or two. Mrs. Thomas Auld, the wife of Master Thomas Auld was a owner of Douglass for a while and is the first person that begins to teach Douglass. At first Douglass did not want to learn but as Douglass starts to think of how he can become a free man. He realizes learning to read and write is important, as the key for a slave to become a free man is education.
Unfortunately Mrs. Thomas Auld is not able to continue teaching Douglass how to read and write. One day while Master Thomas Auld was coming back from work in the city he sees his wife teaching Douglass the ABC’s. He says
“If you give a n--------- he’ll take an ell (unit of measure). A n--------- should know nothing but to obey his master – do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best n------- in the world . . . .if you teach that n--------- . . . how to …show more content…
Douglass is starting to understand that he can get to the level of the white man through educated himself. He begins to learn by himself. He does this by reading the newspapers daily and he also learns to read and write with the white kids who go to school. The white kids do not know that educating a black man is bad yet so, they would have writing and spelling competitions with Douglass. When Douglass would loose when the kids would correct him and teach him the proper way that their teacher had taught them at school. The kids like teaching Douglass what they have learned, and Douglass would often trade food to learn. Douglass is convinced the only way out of slavery is to learn to

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