Angelica Pearson: Life of Fredrick Douglas

Blog: Narrative of Life of Frederick Douglas

Frederick Douglas was born into slavery and lived from 1818-1895. He was born in Maryland and died at age 77 in Washington D. C. Frederick Douglas was a slave from 1818-1838, and he taught himself to read and write even though it was illegal for a slave to be taught and it was punishable by death. He escaped to freedom in 1838 and in 1841 he attended an Anti slavery convention in Massachusetts. After he escaped he got married to a free American slave named Anna Murray who he met just before he ran away to freedom.

The book was written during his life as a slave about the terrors he suffered in slavery.
At the time the book was published in 1845, Frederick lectured about his life in slavery for the anti-slavery movement. Frederick also spent 2 years in Great Brittan and Ireland and gave several lectures there, mainly in churches and chapels.

During the pre-Civil War period, Frederick published a series of newspapers called the North Star. He also was outspoken about the lack of education for freed black children in New York and New England. Frederick was in his 40’s during the Civil War. He disapproved of John Brown’s plan for rebellion at Harper’s Ferry, but continued with the Abolitionist movement. Frederick met with President Lincoln in 1863 to discuss treatment of black soldiers. Six days after the war ended in 1865, Lincoln was shot and killed in Ford Theater. Frederick Douglass was there in the audience at Lincoln’s Memorial because Lincoln was his friend and helped all the slaves to freedom.


In the first chapter, his mother Harriet Talbot died when he was young and that is common for slaves; they lose their parents at a young age to death or slave trade. Parents were either sold or they died from a disease because he said that the slaves were sleeping in close quarters and it was easy to catch something. Separation of parent and child by selling to others was very common at this time and it was common that they never saw each other ever again. After Frederick’s mom died, most of his family was still alive but scattered on different plantations. He was lucky that he had one aunt that still lived on the plantation with him. Frederick was moved to a second plantation and he did mention that he had a cousin there to live with.



In the book it sounds like he lived in New England because he mentions at one point that the slaves went looking for oysters. At some points Frederick talks about a boat transporting him to a new plantation. He also talks about lumber that someone was going to use to make a boat and how he learned how to read and write the letters cut into the logs.

At the plantations there were a couple slaveholders that would keep an eye on the slaves and also whip them when they were bad. In the book, there was one really mean man and his name fitted his punishments. His name was Mr. Severe and he had a very colorful vocabulary, no heart visible in an X-ray, and a temper worse than a rhino’s. The slaves were happy when he died and he lived the way he died, saying bad words. There was a much nicer slaveholder at the plantation after him that had a less colorful vocabulary and a heart.

The slaves got a yearly allowance of clothes but the kids did not get clothes for a while. The slaves did not even have beds but they got blankets that were not very good looking. They also got food but they did not get a table to eat it on and it probably was not very good. Frederick did say that at his second master’s plantation the Colonel died there, then his son died some time after the father’s death, then his daughter died sometime after her brother’s death. The daughter was nice to Frederick so he sounded sad writing the book when he remembered it at the time he was writing the book. In the Afterword he is remembered in black history as a “culture hero”.

This was near the time Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad led slaves to freedom. Frederick Douglas probably sang this song “Follow the drinking gourd, follow the drinking gourd”. It really is a map to the Underground Railroad and the drinking gourd is the Big Dipper. At the time it was illegal for a slave to marry another or have a ceremony. The bride and groom had to hop on a broom and they were married. The slaves could not even go to church because they would pray to be released and the plantation owners would have no one to run the plantation for free.

The book was pretty good and when I read about Frederick Douglass on the Internet it sounded as if he was almost like Martin Luther King Jr. I think that after he ran away from slavery when he was 20 that he had a better life than a slave his same age. I am glad that he ran away and that he knew how to read and write. Otherwise this book would have never existed and I would not have known what slavery was like for a young person.