How Does Douglass Reflect The Role Of Self Education

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“If you teach that nigger how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave”. Slaveholders often discouraged the education of African Americans. Most white southern slaveholders were adamantly opposed to the education of their slaves because they feared an educated slave population would threaten their authority (“Self-taught”). I believe slaveholder kept slaves ignorant because they knew that an educated slave would cause a threat to the slave system. In this paper, I will use Fredrick Douglass narrative to discuss the ways which slaves were kept ignorant, the role of self-learning, and how Douglass set himself free. Illiteracy was one of many ways which slaveholders kept their slaves ignorant. Many slaves were kept ignorant by not having any accurate knowledge of their age. According to Douglass, “By far the larger parts of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant”. Unlike the white children, blacks were deprived of the privilege to tell their age. In addition to slaves not having any accurate knowledge of their age, some lacked the understanding of motherly love. According to Douglass, “It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to …show more content…

His mistress had taught him his alphabet and short words before his master had interrupted by her husband. “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master – to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.” Douglass master said. It was then when Douglass realized the mysterious things his youthful mind struggled to understand; he now knew what was keeping him from freedom. Douglass was now determined to do exactly what no slaveholder wanted him to do – learn how to

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