Frederick Douglass Stereotypes

In the Narrative of the life Frederick Douglass the reader learns that the ins and outs of slavery in the south from the first person perspective of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Frederick is born into slavery and works throughout his adolescent years. In this time Douglass retains the thought of freedom although he does not act upon it until later in his young adult life. This narrative reveals the truth about slavery in the form a recollection from his time as a slave all the while commenting on racial stereotypes and religion.

Early in life Frederick questioned his status with in the world. He recalls a time when he could not understand why all the white boys knew there ages and he did not. There was no documentation of his birthday and he could understand why, as demonstrated in the quote, “ I could not tell why I was deprived of the same privilege.”(Douglass 30). The privilege being the knowledge of age in which Frederick had no idea. He held on to this notion of equality his whole life, continuing to the institution of slavery and everyone upholding it. Frederick fought every day for his freedom.

Frederick disproves many common stereotypes about black slaves at the time starting around the age of 8 Frederick arrives in Baltimore to begin working for the Auld.

Mrs. Auld, a first time slave owner, offers to teach him the alphabet. Soon she begins to understand the unwritten rules of residing as a slaveholder and at the command of her husband immediately stops lessons. Mr. Auld reasons that teaching Frederick would, “‘…do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontent and unhappy.’” (Douglass 83). Upon overhearing this Frederick understands that to be free he must learn as much as possible to be able to be equal or surpass the white man. Mrs. Auld unknowingly started the series of event the allowed Frederick to escape to freedom and participate in anti-salve movement within the

north.
A few years later Frederick was moved to St. Michaels and made an interesting observation about religion, the more religious the slaveholder or overseer the crueler they were. Douglass remembers the area around St. Michaels was heavily populated by ministers of the Reformed Methodist Church. Douglass states his theory very bluntly as shown in this quote, “For all the slaveholders I’ve met religious slaveholders are the worst.”(Douglass 162). These religious men gave constant whipping, harsh verbal abuse and even killed the slaves excusing their behavior because God cursed Ham so all slave should be punished. There would be no reprimand for those guilty of taking a life so insignificant largely due to the blurred lines of church and state. Guided by the harsh interpretation of God’s word these slaveholders believed that this was God’s will making them all the more dangerous.
Frederick Douglass educates the reader about his personal experiences as a slave, his challenge of stereotypes, and observations of religion in order to show a factual loot at slavery in the hope of abolishing slavery and all its evil doings. 40 years after publishing his book Fredericks goal was achieved when congress passed the 13th amendment in 1885. It was because of him and many others that America is what it is today.