Why narrative of the life of frederick douglass is important

He also published an abolitionist newspaper for 16 years A statue of Frederick Douglass on display in the U. Capitol complex. Born in Maryland in , Douglass, like many enslaved children, was separated from his mother at birth; he resided with his loving maternal grandmother until he turned seven.

At the age of eight, he became a servant in the home of Hugh Auld in Baltimore. In defiance of the codes that explicitly forbade teaching enslaved people how to read, Mrs. Auld taught Douglass the alphabet, unlocking the gateway to education—which he would extol the rest of his life. Over time Douglass surreptitiously continued to teach himself to read and write, all the while strengthening his resolve to escape the confines of slavery.

He defied the law in not only learning to read and write, but in teaching other enslaved people to do so. I know its value by not having it. In an effort to break his spirit, Thomas loaned Douglass to Edward Covey, a sadistic local slave master with a reputation for cruelty.

Covey mercilessly beat and abused the teenager until one day Douglass decided to fight back, knocking Covey to the ground. Covey, tempered, never mentioned the encounter, but he also never laid hands on him again. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free.

In September of Douglass, disguised as a sailor and with borrowed free papers, managed to board a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. He continued on to New York and ultimately, New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he settled, a free man. He married Anna Murray , a free woman of color who he had met and fallen in love with while in bondage in Baltimore. The couple had five children.

The Douglasses made a commitment to eradicating the evil of slavery. Frederick Douglass addressing an audience in London in He fled to England after his published autobiography brought him to national attention, raising the risk that his former master would try to reclaim his escaped slave. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an autobiographical publication prepared by one of the most important American abolitionists of the nineteenth century. As the Narrative explains, Douglass was born into slavery but escaped in He became a key figure in the abolitionist movement as an orator and newspaper publisher.

He befriended many notable figures of the day: not only fellow abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and John Brown but also President Abraham Lincoln. Toward the end of his life, Douglass even served as an ambassador to Haiti. We can identify at least two important purposes that Frederick Douglass had in writing his autobiography.

Interestingly, Douglass also had a more particular purpose. At age fifteen, Douglass is sent back to Colonel Lloyd's plantation to work for Hugh's brother, Thomas Auld, a ship captain. Here he is once again "made to feel the painful gnawings of hunger," and he begins to resist the tyranny of slavery more forcefully p. A few months later, Auld hires Douglass out to Edward Covey, a Methodist with a reputation for "breaking" recalcitrant slaves p.

After a difficult year in which he is beaten, runs away, is recaptured, and finally battles Covey in a lengthy fistfight, Douglass is hired out to another landowner, William Freeland, to work as a field hand. Surviving his servitude under Mr. Covey seems to steel Douglass' desire for freedom, as his description of their fistfight reveals: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man" p.

Douglass does not provide the full details of his escape in his Narrative , for he fears that this information will prove useful to slave owners seeking to thwart or recapture future runaways. He later provides an explanation of his escape in both versions of Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. However, in his first autobiography Douglass does reveal that he is able to plan his escape when Hugh Auld allows him to work for wages at a Baltimore shipyard.

Upon reaching the North, Douglass describes his sensations as "a moment of the highest excitement I have ever experienced. I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions" p.

By the end of his Narrative , Douglass has resettled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, changed his name which, until this time, was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey , and married Anna Murray, a free black woman to whom he became engaged while still enslaved in Baltimore.