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Frederick Douglass Research Paper

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Frederick Douglass Research Paper
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM

Frederick Augustus Washington Baily (Frederick Douglass), was born a slave on the Holme Hill farm on Tuckahoe Creek, Talbot County, in Maryland in February 1817. His mother Harriet Bailey was also a slave but he didn't know who was his father. Mr. Douglass suggests that “his white master may have been his father”. He mentions having seen his mother a few times at nights in Aunt Katy's kitchen. Ms. Hill was assigned to work in a field about twelve miles away and was not allowed to stay with her son. She only saw him only furtively during rare visits at night. Frederick was initially raised by his grandparents Betsey and Isaac Bailey, Betsy was a good nurse and Isaac was a capital hand at making nets for catching shad …show more content…
Douglass hears and understands this message, but Auld's words convince him of the crucial importance of literacy. "In learning to read, therefore, I... owe quite as much to the opposition of my master, as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress". In order to attain literacy, Douglass …show more content…
Captain Anthony's death necessitates a division of his human "property," and soon afterwards, Hugh Auld sends Douglass to work at his brother Thomas Auld's plantation on the Maryland's Eastern shore. When Master Thomas "Considered too "independent", teenage Frederick was placed in the care of Edward Covey, a man who had a reputation as a fierce slave-breaker. Covey beat him mercilessly and without justification. Douglass considered the turning point in his life to be the moment when he resisted Covey's beating. Covey couldn't break his spirit, and, for the first time in Frederick's life, a white man backed down. “My term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day,
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