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A 5 page research paper essay that considers the themes of this work. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass has been regarded as a highly important and significant book since its publication in 1845. In the antebellum era, Douglass's Narrative dispelled the notion perpetuated by Southern slaveholders that slavery was a benign institution that benefitted blacks by exposing them to civilization and Christianity. As an escaped slave, Douglass's testimony opened the eyes of Northern white readers and helped to advance the cause of Abolition. Bibliography lists 2 sources.
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5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: D0_khfcthem.rtf
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that slavery was a benign institution that benefitted blacks by exposing them to civilization and Christianity. As an escaped slave, Douglasss testimony opened the eyes of Northern white readers and
helped to advance the cause of Abolition. Within the course of his text, Douglass describes the people who impacted his life, that is, his various owners, as well as
the family members with whom Douglass was allowed to have contact. This includes his grandmother Betsy Bailey who raises Douglass after his mother Harriet is sold to a plantation 12
miles away soon after his birth. Despite this distance, his mother, several times when she could gain permission, walked between the plantations in order to try to maintain contact with
her son. As this suggests, there are many important themes that contribute to the lessons that can be learned from this important historical work. Ignorance as a tool
of slavery: When Douglass is given to Hugh Auld and his family as a gift, Aulds wife Sophia, who has never owned a slave, is initially kind and begins teaching
the young Douglass how to read, but these lessons are stopped by her husband, who maintains that learning to read makes slaves hard to manage. In this point, Auld is
completely justified, as Douglasss Narrative makes it clear that keeping slaves as ignorant as possible was a key factor in maintaining the institution of slavery. Douglass describes how slavery
systematically tried to strip away every aspect of human society that conveys to people that they are human beings. For example, in the opening pages of his Narrative, Douglass comments
that he is unsure of his precise age because "slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs" (Douglass 1). In other words, slaves were treated as
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