Whose Writing Did Douglass Copy In Order To Learn To Write His First Letters?

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 free country of Massachusetts. Ane part of his story that I found especially fascinating was how he taught himself how to read and write, and how he used those ii skills to impact the lives of millions.

Let'southward outset from the beginning

Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland around 1818 and had a life that was anything merely easy.

Douglass was separated from his female parent before he was a year 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 4 or five times earlier she got sick and passed away.

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 virtually naked...I had no bed," Douglass wrote in his memoir.

I would recall growing upward in an unjust world would break a person, but Douglass survived, and would soon thrive.

When Douglass was viii-years-erstwhile, he was sent to live with some other master in Baltimore.

His new main'south wife had never had a slave before and taught Douglass the alphabet earlier the master found out and told his wife that such an activeness was illegal. Not but was it unlawful, but the master added that if a slave learned to read, "It would forever unfit him to exist a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master."

That moment was an inflection point in Douglass's life and those words would change his destiny forever. "These words sank deep into my middle...and chosen into being an entirely new train of thought," Douglass wrote.

""From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to liberty.""

— Frederick Douglass

Learning How To Read

Douglass knew that reading would lead to his freedom, and although he had lost his teacher, he was adamant to learn how to read: "I set out with loftier hope, and a stock-still purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read."

So how did he do it?

Douglass carried a volume with him anytime he was sent out for errands, and if he had actress time, would brand friends with young white boys and inquire them for lessons.

""The programme which I adopted, and the one past which I was nigh 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.""

— Frederick Douglass

Sometimes the boys would offer lessons for free, and other times Douglass would pay them for lessons with bread.

""This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would requite me that more than valuable breadstuff of knowledge.""

— Frederick Douglass

Afterward learning how to read, Douglass came across a book containing speeches by Richard Sheridan. Sheridan's piece of work produced in Douglass a deep dearest of liberty and hatred of oppression. He read them over and over once again, and became inspired to get involved in man rights.

""I read them over and over over again with unabated involvement...What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. "

— Frederick Douglass

Learning How To Write

One time Douglass learned to read, he prepare out on to larn some other valuable skill, writing.

He first learned how to write while working at a ship-thousand. He watched carpenters write on timber the part of the send the slice was intended for, and copied it down.

"L." was for larboard.
"S." for starboard.
"A." for aft.
"F." for frontward.

"I immediately commenced copying them, and in a curt time was able to make the four letters named," Douglass wrote. After learning those iv letters, Douglass once over again sought out white boys for lessons, this fourth dimension for writing.

Douglass told white boys that he could write besides as them, however, they wouldn't believe him and told Douglass to evidence it. Douglass would then write the letters he knew and tell the white boys to write letters that they knew. Thus learning new letters every fourth dimension he played the game.

""In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never take gotten in whatsoever other fashion.""

— Frederick Douglass

Not only was Douglass clever, he was besides resourceful.

" "During this time, my copy-book was the board argue, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump chalk. With these, I learned mainly how to write.""

— Frederick Douglass

He also waited until anybody had left the firm to do writing in his master's son'southward old spelling books.

""When left thus, I used to spend the time in writing in the spaces left in Main Thomas's copy-volume, copying what he had written. I continued to practice this until I could write a paw very similar to that of Master Thomas.""

— Frederick Douglass

All in all, it took Douglass seven-years to teach himself how to read and write.

""I lived in Master Hugh'due south family virtually seven years. During this fourth dimension, I succeeded in learning how to read and write.""

— Frederick Douglass

Teaching Others How To Read

But information technology wasn't enough that Douglass had taught himself these valuable skills, he wanted others to accept the power of reading too. He created a potent want in his fellow slaves to learn how to read and taught lessons every Dominicus.

""Instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, battle, and drinking whiskey, we were trying to learn how to read.""

— Frederick Douglass

Slaves from neighboring farms found out about the lessons and Douglass's class grew from a handful of individuals to nearly 40 people.

""I had at one time over forty scholars, and those of the correct sort, ardently desiring to larn....They were great days to my soul. The piece of work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest date with which I was always blessed.""

— Frederick Douglass

Douglass was making a positive influence on his local community, but he had bigger dreams in mind.

Life equally a complimentary man

He planned an escape and successfully fabricated it to New York, then 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 acquainted with the anti-slavery move. He attended speeches by William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of The Liberator, and eventually Garrison became a mentor to Douglass.

Douglass would get on to become a national leader of the abolitionist movement, a respected American diplomat, a counselor to four presidents, a highly regarded orator, and an influential author. He accomplished all of these feats without whatsoever formal education.

In 1845, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , which became a bestseller. Douglass stood as a living counter-example to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual chapters to function as contained American citizens. Even many Northerners at the fourth dimension establish it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave.

Douglass ends his book by saying, "Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this little book may do something toward throwing calorie-free on the America slave system, and hastening the glad 24-hour interval of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds."

And by teaching himself how to read and write, Douglass was able to write his "little book" and bear on of the lives of millions and steer America towards a better society.