The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is a short book, but it has a very powerful message. The oppression faced by Frederick Douglass was horrifying, but he managed to overcome everything to become a hero. His life as a slave did not discourage him from giving up on freedom. I find that very inspirational. He helped many slaves gain freedom, including himself. He was separated from his family and taken to a man named Mr. Severe. He lived on this plantation for a good part of his life. He also lived with Colonel Lloyd who was a wealthy slave owner.
At the age of seven or eight Douglass leaves the plantation to go with his new master Hugh Auld. At first his life there is not that bad. Auld’s wife is very kind to him at first and starts to teach him the alphabet and some words, but when her husband finds out he gets upset and tells her to stop doing that because education ruins slaves. Douglass over heard that and realized that is how white men enslave blacks and understands what he has to do to gain his freedom. Douglass lives with the Auld’s for about seven years.
He learns how to read and write. He makes plans to escape with some other slaves, but he fails because someone betrays him. Douglass suffers a lot when he lives on Covey’s farm. He loses his motivation and considers suicide, but after he defends himself from Covey and wins, he gains his reasons back. In the end Douglass finally escapes to the North and ends up in New York City and gets married to his fiance and dedicates his whole life to plead the case against slavery. This great book relates to our study of American history because of two reasons.
The first one is because everything that happened to Frederick Douglass was in the United States. It is a part of our history. It shows us how much African-Americans suffered in our country that was supposed to be the land of the free. It shows how much our country has changed from about 200 years ago. The book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is only one example that we have from what happened about 200 years ago. There are certainly more examples, but Frederick Douglass’s story is one of the most inspirational stories; that and the book Uncle Tom’s Cabin too.
It is a part of American history because it teaches us about how the United States used to be very cruel to some people for no reason at all. It is very fortunate that we do not have issues like that anymore, but we still do have racism and that is another issue that must be handled, but probably will not ever be totally destroyed. The second reason to why this book relates to our study of American history is the major one and probably the most important one. It is because it deals with slavery. Slavery was once a major problem in our country and is something that will not ever be forgotten.
It is truly shocking what happened in the United States hundreds of years ago. People used to think that just because some people were a different color than all of them it gave them the right to enslave them, push them down, treat them horribly, and above all make them think that they were not even humans. That is probably the saddest thing; to make someone feel so low that they do not even consider themselves human. This book teaches us that slavery was once something right and important in our country, but fortunately everyone realized that it was wrong and they abolished it.
It relates to our study because slavery is something that has scarred our country for life and is an issue that cannot be forgotten very easily. My opinion of the book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is that it is a really great and amazing book about a man who overcame slavery. I would recommend this book to anyone because it is not boring at all like some people would think. The reason why a lot of people do not like to read is because they think that it is boring, a waste of time, and quite frankly they do not really care about books.
I used to think that also, but then my mind changed completely after I actually found a book that I would be interested in and would finish it. If someone is interested on the topic of slavery and would enjoy that topic then I highly recommend that book. It will open people’s eyes to how slavery really was and it also proves that anything is possible and that you can overcome anything if you set your mind to it. This book is very good and if people gave it a chance I know they would actually like it.
