My Bondage and My Freedom Author:Frederick Douglass Born and brought up in slavery, Frederick Douglass (1817?-1895) witnessed its horrors and experienced its cruelties, but went on to gain his freedom and world-wide recognition as an abolitionist lecturer, newspaper editor, and one of the most important men behind the American anti-slavery movement. — Indeed, no study today of the abolitioni... more »st movement, the Civil War nd Reconstruction periods can be considered complete without a discussion of the role played by Douglass.
Douglass wrote three autobiographies, of which the 1855 edition (unabridged and reprinted here by Dover Publications) is the most detailed on his life as a slave. In it, the reader is not spared the fullest and most graphic descriptions of the cruel and inhuman treatment of slaves, and the total disregard for them as human beings.
Douglass begins with his earliest childhood and the painful separation from his grandmother (his only family); slave life on a Maryland plantation; the excitement and danger of teaching himself how to read and write; his growing awareness and frustration while living in Baltimore; and his almost total demoralization under his cruelest master, Covey, the slave breaker. From this lowest point, his life takes a turn, as he fights back for the first time, attempts an escape, suffers its consequences, tries again and succeeds,
In the second part of his story, Douglass, now a fugitive, settles in New Bedford, Massachusetts; joins the anti-slavery movement; travels to the British isles and enjoys his first taste of freedon without prejudice; and returns to America to pursue his work as spokesman for his oppressed people. In addition to recording his sufferings and his protest, with remarkable accuracy as to dates, places, people, and events, Douglass also provides a keen analysis of the efect of slavery on children, mothers and fathers of slave families, and on drivers, overseers, masters, and their families.« less