Up from Slavery

Washington’s life story was told during the mid to late 1800’s into the early 1900’s, in the time when the Emancipation Proclamation had gone into effect. The Emancipation Proclamation was one major event in history that forever changed our country. All slaves were free and had to go find a new place to live and a new place to work.

     By centering on his own personal story, Douglass is able to capture the attention of his audience. With a more detailed description of events taking place, the reader is trapped into that time period, being able to live out the experience with Douglass. Frederick Douglass’ quest for freedom almost becomes a quest for the reader as well. The tone set during this section of the narrative shows Douglass to be much more in charge than he was as a child. A confident slave, Douglass anticipates his freedom, yet also creating a freedom for himself while still enslaved.

Another common form of slave resistance was theft. Slaves pilfered fruits, vegetables, livestock, tobacco, liquor, and money from their masters. The theft of foodstuffs was especially common and was justified on several grounds. First, slave rations were often woefully inadequate in providing the nutrition and calories necessary to support the daily exertions of plantation labor. Hungry slaves reasoned that the master’s abundance should be shared with those who produced it. Second, slaves

It is also suggested that Washington was a good man as at the beginning of “the early 1770s, he rarely bought a slave, and he would not sell one”. In addition to this, the author explains how the “slaves were to be freed at his wife’s death”. However I am sure that these excuses could not justify his behaviour to Black Americans today. Similarly, can George Washington really be considered a hero, or just an immense hypocrite who owned slaves whilst signed the Declaration of Independence, declaring, “all men were created equal” (11). Another way that was intended to preserve him as a hero is that he was a “disapproving owner” (12) and that he would have liked slavery to end but he didn’t personally feel politically driven to put an end to it.

Published in 1845, ‘Narrative of life of Frederick Douglass an American slave written by himself’ is still the most highly acclaimed American autobiography ever written. It was published seven years after Douglass escaped from his life as a slave in Maryland. It describes his experience of being slave and his psychological insights into the slave-master relationship. The main focus is on ‘How he learn to read and write ‘and ‘the pain of slavery.’ The goal of this paper is to bring more insight analysis of his narrative life through the most famous two chapter’s in which he defines, “How he learn to read and write” and “The pain of slavery.” To achieve this goal, the paper is organized into four main sections. First, author background and

Throughout Douglass's autobiography, he described what slavery does to white people. The stories he told are true yet so inconceivable that many readers were shocked how

Washington’s biggest accomplishment was when he was trying to win the sympathy from the white south with the “Atlanta Compromise” Washington stated, "In all things

In chapter seven of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass is finally aware of his approximate age, and is burdened with the thought of being a “slave for life.” At the age of 12, it is not very encouraging to be given the description of a “slave for life.” Douglass uses his newfound reading and writing skills to cleverly comprehend the book The Columbian Orator, and the speeches from the Catholic emancipation it contains, in his favor. The book Douglass discovers does a good job of supporting his invalidation of slavery as well as providing him with knowledge and reasonable arguments.

Frederick Douglass was a wise and brave man that grew up in the American slave system. He knows first hand the hardships of being owned by someone and having no way to escape that kind of life. After escaping from slavery he decided to write a book on the hardships of his life. In the book he describes the life of the slave and the many aspects that are not usually learned. These aspects describe the life of a slave in a point of view that is not usually looked at; the point of view of a slave.

become a free man. Douglass wrote this narrative to inform the public of the truths of slavery and his

The allusions within Douglass’s speech highlights his theme that every person should get the same rights regarding their independence.

Booker T. Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery describes his life as a slave and his rise to a successful orator and

He ate foods that were provided because he was a slave. Some of the foods that he ate were berries, rats, roots, lizards,

Washington, who had faith in the future of his race in the country, believed that hard work, patience, and self pride would build their character and eventually earn them their civil rights. This is evident in Washington's The Future of the American Negro. He shows the "impatient extremists" within the Negroes of the North whose "ill-considered, incendiary utterances tend to add to the burdens of our people in the South rather than relieve them." ("Washington," Discovering Authors)

Booker learned at an early age the importance of doing things for himself. Another story from the book shows what helped to build Booker's character. While at school he noticed that all of the people were wearing caps. When he confronted his mother about this she explained they could not afford to buy him a store bought cap. But she told him that she would work something out. Washington's mother took two old pieces of cloth and sewed them together to make him a cap. For the rest of his life, he would remember that cap as an important lesson in his life. Washington states: The lesson that my mother taught me in this has always remained with me, and I have tried as best I could to teach it to others. I have always felt proud, whenever I think of the incident, that my mother had the strength of character enough not to be led into the temptation of seeming to be that of which she is not-of trying to impress my schoolmates and others with the fact that she was able to buy me a "store hat" when she was not.Later, the young Washington took a job at the home of a Mrs. Ruffiner as a house servant. Many boys before him, in the same job, lasted had only a few weeks because of her demands. Ruffiner was very strict and expected the best out of the boys that worked for her. She demanded that they be clean and well behaved. This stayed with Booker for the rest of his life. He notes, "Even to this day I never seen bits of paper scattered