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Example research essay topic: Time In His Life Bondage And My Freedom - 2,267 words

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My Bondage And My Freedom The book My Bondage And My Freedom was written by Frederick Douglass. It was first published in 1855 by Miller, Orton and Mulligan, located in New York City and Auburn, New York. This is the story of an African-American who lived the experience of American slavery, escaped from it, and attached himself to the cause of freedom and the helping of his people to achieve freedom. Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a slave on a plantation in Tuckahoe, one of the worst sections of Talbot county on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. He changed his name upon his escape from slavery to avoid being recognized as a fugitive slave.

The land where he was raised was virtually worthless, decay and poverty were everywhere. The area was surrounded by a white population who was of the lowest class-economically, educationally as well as socially. These people had virtually given up on life. (page 34) Because his mother, Harriet Bailey was a slave, the laws and customs required Frederick to take the same status. He did not know his father since the idea of fatherhood had been done away with in slavery.

It is believed that his father was white and was either one of the masters or overseers of the plantation. Douglass did not know exactly how old he was but he deduced that he was born in 1817. He said, I never met with a slave who could tell me how old he was. Few slave-mothers knew anything of the months of the year, nor of the days of the month. Slaves kept no family records (page 37) Douglass did not have to deal with the cruelest part of slavery the total lack of almost any family. The idea of family was almost nonexistent as it was believed to be a detriment to the system of slavery.

One of the tactics was not to let anyone form any attachments or have any sense of belonging. Douglass was one of the few slaves children to be raised by his maternal grandparents, his grandmother. His grandmother, Betsey Baily, was a slave and his grandfather, Isaac Baily, was a freeman. (page 35) Douglass s mother, Harriet Baily, was hired out as a farm hand to a farm owner, Mr. Stewart, who s property was approximately twelve miles from his grandmother s home. Because of the distance and severity of the work, he very seldom was able to go to see his mother. In fact, he never saw his mother at his grandmother s home. (page 53 - 54) Although this left a hole in his life, Douglass had a fairly good existence until about the age of sever or eight.

Living here, with my dear old grandmother and grandfather, it was a long time before I knew myself to be a slave. (page 38) At this point in his life the fact that he had been born a slave and was scheduled to be a slave for the rest of his life was incomprehensible. (page 45) The reality of slavery first reared it s ugly head when Douglas was about seven or eight years of age. His grandmother took him on a journey to the old masters home that was called the great house. Here, for the first time, he was introduced to his brother Perry and his two sisters Sarah and Eliza. Then another first in his life hit him very hard; for the first time in his life he found that he had been deceived. The person who deceived him was the person he trusted the most, his grandmother.

She was gone. She had left without even so much as a good-bye. He had been disposed of, like so much debris. While he was watching the other children play, his grandmother secretively slipped off and went back home, leaving him with his first exposure to the loneliness of slavery. (page 47 - 50) During the next year, Douglass started to question the very nature of slavery. Questions began to pop into his head: Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves and others masters?

Was there ever a time when this was not so? (page 89) These were very difficult questions for a boy of only eight or nine years and the answers he received were not very satisfying. He was told that God had ordained the black person to be the slave and the white person to be the master. This answer was very unsettling because he knew some white men who had no slaves and he knew black men who were free. It made him study the question even more. During the next two or three years Douglass saw the true face of slavery. He became a witness to the most repugnant aspects of slavery.

He witnessed the flogging of some slaves to within an inch of their lives. He saw a white overseer kill slaves for what seemed to be a minor offense. He understood the value the slave owners put on slaves when he heard on many occasions that it was worth but half a cent to kill a nigger, and a half a cent to bury him. He began to understand the elementary parts of slavery and he developed a deep hatred of the slavery system.

Douglass spent the first eight to ten years of his life at or near the home plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. Captain Anthony was Douglass master. He was feared and referred to by slaves as the old master. Douglass was sent to Baltimore by Captain Anthony, to be the servant of Mr. Hugh Auld.

Hugh Auld was the brother of Thomas Auld, who was married to Lucretia, Captain Anthony s daughter. Douglass looked forward to going to Baltimore; he had heard of many great things in the big city. He also realized that in Baltimore he would escape the brutal work of a being a field hand. Being a field hand for the rest of his life would most likely have been his fate if he had remained on the Lloyd plantation. Baltimore also provided him with a view of human possibilities and afforded him opportunities for improvement that would have escaped him in the farming regions of the Eastern Shore. He left the Lloyd plantation with a great deal of joy.

Douglass new mistress, the wife of Mr. Hugh Auld, was Mrs. Sophia Auld. She took his to his new home in Baltimore where his new duties were to take care of and look after her son Thomas Auld. Although still a slave, here he experienced life at its finest. He was fed, wore clean clothes, was respected and was loved by his new ward.

He gladly returned this love and respect. This was his first taste of freedom, even though it was limited. It was at this time that he first began to think that slavery could not hold him. He felt, that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace. (page 14 Douglass begged Mrs. Sophia Auld to teach him to read and write. She agreed and taught him the rudiments of literacy and thus became the agent of his enlightenment.

From that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. (page 147) Hugh Auld, upon learning of his wife s activities, severely scolded her by saying: Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now if you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. (page 146) Being a dutiful wife from that point own her attitude changed as she took the path set by her husband. The lessons stopped and there was a new distance between Douglass and his mistress. It was to late. Mr.

Auld s words were true and the die had already been cast. Douglass was on the road to forever being unfit to be a slave. Douglass would receive the rest of his education from the streets and from wherever he could beg or steal it. Douglass was well on his way to becoming a literate slave. His examination of the institution of slavery would bestow upon him the firm belief that liberty was the natural condition of humankind and a God given right. He had also gained essential knowledge that would eventually enable him to write his own pass to freedom.

Now he began not just to despise being a slave but to despise the whole concept and the objectives of slavery. He recognized that slavery had turned his gentle and understanding mistress to a person who would look down upon him as a person and go to extremes to stop him from feeling a part of the family. Slavery had turned Douglass and his mistress from friends, almost family, into enemies. Nothing else foliated this change, just slavery. (page 161) Within the next five years things were turned upside down in Douglass s life. At the age of about thirteen he found religion under the leadership of a white Methodist minister by the name of Hanson. (page 166) This added some meaning to his life. In addition, Hugh Auld, in his endeavors to make Douglass a more valuable property, oversaw the young slave s instruction and employment as a ship s caulker.

A caulker was a valuable tradesman in the ship making industry. While on the job he still found find ways to learn to write. (page 171) The unexpected death of Richard Auld, Captain Anthony, Mrs. Lucretia Auld, and Andrew Auld within a five year period changed Douglass life again. Douglass was now in the custody of his former master and childhood ward Thomas Auld. Thomas Auld was now married to a lady named Rowena. Douglass made the following observation about the marriage: I found Thomas and Rowena a well-matched pair.

He was stingy and she was cruel. Here for the first time in several years he felt the pain of hunger. (page 187) The return to the brutal conditions strengthened his resolve to make an attempt to escape. There can be little doubt that Douglass gained a perspective on life in the city that reprogrammed him, making him forever, as Mr. Hugh Auld had predicted unfit to be a slave. Douglass was returned to the Eastern Shore as a result of a family disagreement between Hugh Auld and his Brother Thomas Auld. Douglass, now a teenager was at best, an obstinate field hand.

After a number of severe whippings within a period of less than nine months, Thomas Auld, his new master decided he could not get the services from Douglass that he needed. He determined that Douglass, now a teenager, had to be broken. (page 203) Douglass was thus hired out to Mr. Edward Covey. Mr. Edward Covey had a reputation of being a relentlessly stern trainer of young slaves.

For the first time in his life, Frederick Douglass was a field hand. (page 207) During the first six months Douglass had been whipped with either sticks or cow-skins every week. Mr. Covey had be unmerciful in his efforts to make Douglass a docile and timid slave. Douglass states: If at any one time of my life I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. I was broken in body, soul and spirit.

In the dead of winter, Covey demanded that Douglass remove his clothes to receive a beating, but Douglass refused. For the first time in his life, Douglass stood up to his master. A dramatic wrestling match ensued. This was one of the most important episodes in Douglass life.

He would no longer submit to total blind obedience, he would stand up for himself if the situation was severe enough. Douglass gained the upper hand and subdued Mr. Covey. (page 214) This experience brought him to the resolution that he records as follows: I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact. I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping, must also succeed in killing me. (page 246) Physical liberty and spiritual dignity became goals for which Douglass was willing to pay with of his life. His service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day, 1834.

All of this happened to him when he was approximately seventeen years old. Douglass made a dangerous and unsuccessful attempt to escape slavery. After he was captured, he spent the next week in prison with nothing but depression in his mind. He felt he had no future. Much to his surprise, Thomas Auld had him released from prison and said that he was going to send him to Alabama to a friend of his who would emancipate him in eight years.

When no one from Alabama came to get Douglass, his master told him he was going to take him back to Baltimore to learn a trade, and if he behaved he would be emancipated at age twenty-five. (page 302 303) Even though he had no faith in Mr. Auld s promise, he was more than delighted to be heading back to Baltimore. Knowing full well that a second failed escape attempt would lead to unimaginable consequences, Douglass was still determined to escape slavery. On Monday, September 3, 1838 he left Baltimore, slavery, and his ho 33 a


Free research essays on topics related to: bondage and my freedom, hugh auld, time in his life, frederick douglass, rest of his life

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