Why Did Fredrick Douglass Wite Learning to Read and Write
The book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is an eloquent memoir written by Frederick Douglass. In it, Douglass shares the hardships he endured as a slave and his heroic escape to the gratuitous state of Massachusetts. One function of his story that I plant especially fascinating was how he taught himself how to read and write, and how he used those two skills to impact the lives of millions.
Permit's get-go from the commencement
Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland effectually 1818 and had a life that was anything but piece of cake.
Douglass was separated from his female parent earlier he was a yr old (a common practice by slave owners during those times). She was moved to a farm that was 12-miles abroad and Douglass only saw her iv or 5 times before she got ill and passed abroad.
As a slave, Douglass was treated poorly. He was often overworked and underfed. He was given almost no clothing and slept in a sack to stay warm, "In the hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked...I had no bed," Douglass wrote in his memoir.
Ane would think growing up in an unjust world would break a person, but Douglass survived, and would soon thrive.
When Douglass was eight-years-former, he was sent to alive with another chief in Baltimore.
His new master's wife had never had a slave before and taught Douglass the alphabet before the master found out and told his wife that such an activity was illegal. Non just was information technology unlawful, just the chief added that if a slave learned to read, "It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master."
That moment was an inflection signal in Douglass's life and those words would change his destiny forever. "These words sank deep into my centre...and called into existence an entirely new train of thought," Douglass wrote.
""From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.""
Learning How To Read
Douglass knew that reading would lead to his liberty, and although he had lost his instructor, he was adamant to acquire how to read: "I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read."
So how did he do it?
Douglass carried a book with him anytime he was sent out for errands, and if he had extra time, would make friends with young white boys and ask them for lessons.
""The plan which I adopted, and the i by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers.""
Sometimes the boys would offer lessons for costless, and other times Douglass would pay them for lessons with bread.
""This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry piffling urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable staff of life of knowledge.""
After learning how to read, Douglass came beyond a book containing speeches past Richard Sheridan. Sheridan's work produced in Douglass a deep dearest of liberty and hatred of oppression. He read them over and over again, and became inspired to get involved in homo rights.
""I read them over and over again with unabated interest...What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. "
Learning How To Write
In one case Douglass learned to read, he prepare out on to larn another valuable skill, writing.
He first learned how to write while working at a ship-g. He watched carpenters write on timber the office of the ship the piece was intended for, and copied it downwardly.
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"L." was for larboard.
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"S." for starboard.
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"A." for aft.
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"F." for forwards.
"I immediately commenced copying them, and in a brusque time was able to brand the four messages named," Douglass wrote. After learning those four letters, Douglass once again sought out white boys for lessons, this time for writing.
Douglass told white boys that he could write as well as them, however, they wouldn't believe him and told Douglass to prove it. Douglass would then write the letters he knew and tell the white boys to write messages that they knew. Thus learning new letters every fourth dimension he played the game.
""In this way I got a practiced many lessons in writing, which information technology is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way.""
Not merely was Douglass clever, he was as well resourceful.
" "During this fourth dimension, my copy-volume was the board fence, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump chalk. With these, I learned mainly how to write.""
He also waited until everyone had left the house to practice writing in his master's son's former spelling books.
""When left thus, I used to spend the time in writing in the spaces left in Master Thomas's copy-volume, copying what he had written. I continued to do this until I could write a hand very similar to that of Master Thomas.""
All in all, information technology took Douglass seven-years to teach himself how to read and write.
""I lived in Master Hugh's family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning how to read and write.""
Teaching Others How To Read
But it wasn't enough that Douglass had taught himself these valuable skills, he wanted others to have the power of reading also. He created a potent desire in his swain slaves to learn how to read and taught lessons every Sunday.
""Instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whiskey, we were trying to learn how to read.""
Slaves from neighboring farms found out about the lessons and Douglass's class grew from a handful of individuals to well-nigh xl people.
""I had at ane fourth dimension over xl scholars, and those of the right sort, ardently desiring to learn....They were great days to my soul. The work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest engagement with which I was e'er blessed.""
Douglass was making a positive influence on his local customs, just he had bigger dreams in heed.
Life as a free man
He planned an escape and successfully made it to New York, and so up to Massachusetts. As a literate, free man living in the North, Douglass continued to educate himself and networked with others working for the abolition of slavery.
He read The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper, and became more than acquainted with the anti-slavery motility. He attended speeches by William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, and eventually Garrison became a mentor to Douglass.
Douglass would go on to get a national leader of the abolitionist motility, a respected American diplomat, a counselor to 4 presidents, a highly regarded orator, and an influential author. He accomplished all of these feats without any formal education.
In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , which became a bestseller. Douglass stood every bit a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual chapters to function equally independent American citizens. Even many Northerners at the time constitute it hard to believe that such a smashing orator had in one case been a slave.
Douglass ends his book past saying, "Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little volume may do something toward throwing light on the America slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds."
And by education himself how to read and write, Douglass was able to write his "little volume" and impact of the lives of millions and steer America towards a better society.
Source: https://alexandbooks.com/archive/the-incredible-story-of-how-fredrick-douglass-learned-to-read-amp-write
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