Frederick Douglass Could Not Read as a Slave
By Elizabeth Stice, PhD, History News Network
In the past few years, alarm virtually the pass up of the liberal arts, especially the humanities, has become a constant refrain. At the academy level, they are often seen as being in competition with task skills and employment prospects. But as Marilynne Robinson has reminded us, the liberal arts are not but part of the heritage of American college education, they have long been considered an "education appropriate to free people." One of the clearest applied examples of that tin can be found in the life of Frederick Douglass.
Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818 and would never know his exact nascence date. He was separated from his female parent at an early historic period and had little knowledge of his father. He witnessed and experienced the horrors of slavery. But he would escape that slavery, become a prominent abolitionist, and even one of the best orators of his time. What did Frederick Douglass identify as the turning point in his own life? It was learning to read.
In his autobiography,Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass thanked Providence for the early lessons he received, as a kid, on the alphabet and a few basic words from his mistress, Sophia Auld. The lessons soon stopped, when Mr. Auld learned what his wife had done. He warned her that Douglass would be "ruined" in this manner and that if he learned to read, "in that location will be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave." Douglass overheard these comments. Equally he subsequently wrote, "from that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom." He continued on that pathway fifty-fifty as Sophia Auld turned against him, becoming cruel and striving to keep him from reading. Douglass began to bribe other boys his age to assistance him with his lessons and eventually acquired a copy ofThe Columbia Oratorwhen he was effectually twelve. "Every opportunity I got, I used to read this book," he later wrote. Together with the Bible, information technology was his window on the world beyond slavery. He began to dream of liberty, and eventually, to plan his escape.
What did reading do for Douglass? Information technology fabricated him hate slavery more ever. He writes, "that very discontentment which Principal Hugh had predicted would follow my learning to read had already come up, to torment and sting my soul to unutterable anguish." Ability to see his own status from other perspectives made him live to other possibilities. Like whatever kid with a book, his mental horizon expanded. Specifically, readingThe Columbia Oratoralso taught him rhetoric. Douglass read speeches and debates and became accomplished himself at debating slavery. His victories in debate strengthened his own convictions. His facility with language also fabricated him a leader, one who taught others to read and attempted to help others escape. And when he did escape, those same rhetorical skills fabricated him an accomplished public figure and a leader in the abolitionist cause.
Were nosotros to wait at young Frederick Douglass and provide assist for him on his road to liberty, well-nigh of u.s.a. today would non proposeThe Columbia Orator. We might suggest learning to read, but speeches, dialogues and dramas would not be the recommended handbook for a would-be runaway slave. Instead, nosotros might requite him a book on navigation past the stars, instructions on foraging and tracking, or a skilful map. We might offer food. Nosotros might recall about job training. And Douglass did need supplies and practical skills, for the escape itself and to support himself later in the north. But his turning point with reading and his love ofThe Columbia Oratorshows us the significance of the seemingly intangible and "unnecessary" skills offered by the humanities.
The slaveholding earth saw Frederick Douglass solely in terms of his market value and his productivity every bit a worker. Slaveholders were never hesitant to ensure that slaves had job skills. Working was essential to beingness a slave. Douglass worked in childcare, labored on a subcontract, and learned to work caulking in the shipyards so well that he was bringing in six to seven dollars a week for his main. These skills would once more be useful to Douglass later on he had run away. But every slave had job skills. Many slaves even worked the same jobs as paid laborers. Many of these skills were valuable and much in life is learned through work. But there was no necessary connection between job skills and freedom. Slaveholders did not fright teaching slaves how to work. They feared teaching them to read.
For Frederick Douglass, reading ignited a burn within, broadened his horizons, strengthened his sense of self and his decision to notice freedom, and equipped him to share his narrative with the globe and competition the powerful pro-slavery narratives of his era. If Douglass did not have his reading, writing, and speaking power, the world would not know his story, which described the reality of slavery and testified to the dignity of his humanity. Equally abolitionist Wendell Phillips wrote about Douglass' autobiography, this was finally the lion writing history rather than the hunter.
The slavery that Frederick Douglass knew was not a metaphor. It would be wrong to advise an equivalency between his condition and that of American workers or university students today. And in that location was much more thanThe Columbia Oratoron Douglass'south route to freedom. But the power of the humanities in his life speaks to their significance. He was born into adversity but learned the value of reading at a immature historic period. He was a boy who could non put a book down, fifty-fifty when owning that book might cost him dearly. He grew into a man who could agree and defend his convictions. As a master of oratory, he became a powerful and influential voice for the truth, distinguished both nationally and internationally. The liberal arts alone did not liberate Frederick Douglass from slavery merely they gave him mental access to the earth fifty-fifty while he was enslaved and, afterwards he escaped from slavery, they propelled him to a speaking role on the world stage.
Editor's note: This article was first published by History News Network.
Elizabeth Stice, PhDis an associate professor of history at Palm Beach Atlantic University.
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