Download The Life and Escape of Frederick Douglass: A Narrative of Slavery and Freedom and more Summaries English Language in PDF only on Docsity! The narrative begins with Frederick Douglass' birth to an unknown white father and a slave mother. Like many other slaves, he is unsure of his exact date of birth. Douglass is separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, soon after he is born. Douglas's mother was sold to a distant farm, and Douglass only saw her a few times before her death. His father is most likely their white master, Captain Anthony. Captain Anthony is the clerk of a rich man named Colonel Lloyd. Lloyd owns hundreds of slaves, who call his large, central plantation the “Great House Farm.” His first years on the plantation were marked with horrible encounters with the violence of slavery. Douglass describes that Slaves are overworked and exhausted, receiving little food, few articles of clothing, and no beds. Those who break rules—and even those who do not—are beaten or whipped, and sometimes even shot by the plantation overseers, the cruelest of which are Mr. Severe and Mr. Austin Gore. He also describes the way that his aunt was whipped as being particularly awful. However, Douglass’s life on this plantation is not as hard as that of most of the other slaves. Being a child, he serves in the household instead of in the fields. At the age of seven, his master chooses to send him to Baltimore, Hugh Auld, who lives in Baltimore. Sophia Auld, Hugh’s wife, never had slaves before, and therefore she is surprisingly kind to Douglass at first. She even begins to teach Douglass to read, until her husband orders her to stop, saying that education makes slaves unmanageable. Though Sophia Auld and Hugh Auld become crueler toward him, Douglass still likes Baltimore and is able to teach himself to read with the help of local boys. As he learns to read and write, Douglass becomes conscious of the evils of slavery and the natural rights tradition that decried slavery. After the death of Captain Anthony, Douglass is taken back to serve Thomas Auld, Captain Anthony’s son‑in‑law. Thomas Auld is a mean man-made harsher by his false religious piety. Thomas Auld considers Douglass unmanageable, so Auld rents him for one year to Edward Covey. After suffering under Edward Covey for the first six months, Douglass resolves to disobey him and fight back against Covey. The two men have a two‑hour fight and Douglass wins the contest and is never whipped again. After the time of Edward Covey, Douglass is sent to another farm William Freeland for two years, where he begins teaching his fellow slaves how to read and write. Despite the threat of punishment and violence they face, many slaves from neighboring farms come to Douglass and work diligently to learn. At Freeland’s, Douglass also forms a plan to escape with three fellow slaves with whom he is close. But at the last moment, someone betrays their plan to Freeland and Douglass and the others are taken to jail. Thomas Auld then sends Douglass back to Baltimore with Hugh Auld, where he takes up work in a shipyard. In Baltimore’s trade industry, Douglass runs up against strained race relations. White workers have been working alongside free black workers, but the whites have begun to fear that the increasing numbers of free blacks will take their jobs. The white workers at the shipyard gang up on Douglass and almost beat him to death. In his new apprenticeship, Douglass quickly learns the trade of caulking and soon earns the highest wages possible, always turning them over to Hugh Auld. Eventually, Douglass receives permission from Hugh Auld to hire out his extra time. He saves money bit by bit and eventually makes his escape to New York. Douglass refrains from describing the details of his escape in order to protect the safety of future slaves who may attempt the journey. In New York, Douglass fears recapture and changes his name from Bailey to Douglass. Soon after, he marries Anna Murray, a free woman he met while in Baltimore. They move north to Massachusetts, where Douglass becomes deeply engaged with the abolitionist movement as both a writer and an orator.
