Frederick Douglass (1707 words)

Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass has been told his whole life who he was, what he was, and
where he belonged. He was separated from his mother at a very young age. The
family that he knew where his fellow slaves, and most of them were not his real
family. He was led to believe that his father was his master, the man who would
whip him and treat him as property and not as a son. Now a freeman he must
become his own person. Frederick Douglass does not know if he likes chicken or
beef, in a sense. His whole life he was never been given the choice of anything.

He was told that he would eat chicken, and he probably never tasted beef. Now it
was time for him to become a freeman not only in the sense of the words but in
his heart and soul. When he tried to escape the first time, and then was found
out, he feared being left in the prison forever by himself. He feared being
killed, for trying to obtain his freedom. Frederick writes: “Immediately after
the holidays were over, contrary to all our expectations, Mr. Hamilton and Mr.

Freeland came up to Easton, and took Charles, the two Henry’s, and John, out
of jail, and carried them home, leaving me alone. I regarded this separation as
a final one. It caused me more pain than any thing else in the whole
transaction. I was ready for anything rather than separation. ” (304) There we
see that he feared being alone. Which tells us something about his character. He
was ready for anything, except being left in jail and separated from his
surrogate family. That is what these men were to him. They lived together as a
family, and living with another person or four other people you became
aquatinted on a personal basis. They ate, slept, and breathed each other for a
portion of their lives. When they decided to try to escape they were going to do
it together. They trusted each other because each of their lives was in each
person’s hands. They had to be very careful of the mannerism in which they
acted. The slightest wrong move or expression would send suspicion upon them,
and cause a whipping or the fear that they might be killed. When he left
Baltimore to make his freedom path to New York City, he was really alone. He did
not even know himself. When he arrived in New York, and was a freeman he wrote
home to a friend and tried to explain how he felt he said, “I felt like one
who had escaped a den of hungry lions.” (314) Later on he says, he was feeling
diminished and again he was lonely and insecure with his surroundings. He was
afraid to be seized by the masters again. So his wife and himself set off to
find work and a home. How would they know when it was there home or when they
would feel secure and at home? After arriving in New York, Mr. Ruggles told him
that he needed to decide where he wanted to live. How did he expect a slave who
has only been where he has been told to go, and I’m sure did not know where he
was half the time to make a decision on where he wanted to make home. However,
he makes a wise decision, he tells Mr. Ruggles that he wants to go where he can
make use of his trade, a chalkier. With a new wife, and only five dollars they
head out to start a life as free people. Even now as a freeman someone else is
deciding upon where they should go. He thought that he should go to Canada, but
was urged against. Even though Mr. Ruggles is helping them, maybe they should
have gone to Canada. It was Frederick’s suggestion, and it seems as though he
was intrigued by that idea. Then he was urged otherwise and decided upon a safe
place. The morning after Frederick and Anna arrived in New Bedford, he was told
he would have to pick a name, for the reason that there were so many Johnson’
s in Bedford. So what, there must be a hundred Smith’s and they don’t have
to change their names. Your name is a part of your identity, yet he is being
told that he must do something. He has not been asked whether