Ingles

Frederick Douglass
He used the art of self-education to learn how to read and write during a time when it was against the law for blacks to learn this skill.
Frederick Douglass, born a slave near Easton, Md., in February 1817, died Feb., 20, 1895. He became the most famous of all black abolitionists as well as one of the greatest American orators of his day. He was sent to Baltimore where helearned ship caulking. Already schooled in the alphabet by his master’s wife, he taught himself to write by tracing the letters on the prows of ships. In 1838, with seaman’s papers supplied by a free black, he escaped to New Bedford, Mass. Five months later he came into contact with William Lloyd Garrison’s anti-slavery weekly, The Liberator, and in 1841 he was enlisted as an agent by theMassachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, which had been impressed by his oratorical skill.
Douglass’s speeches evolved from reminiscences of slave life to a denunciation of slavery and a call for immediate abolition. As his speeches became more polished, fewer people believed that he actually had been a slave. To dispel such doubts, Douglass published (1845) his narrative of Life and Times of FrederickDouglass. He then settled in Rochester, N.Y., where he founded his newspaper, the North Star. When the Civil War came, Douglass fought for the enlistment of black men in the Union army and assisted in recruiting the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Colored Regiments, which later won distinction in battle. As the war progressed, President Lincoln conferred with Douglass as a representative of his people. Duringhis last years Douglass served as assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission (1871), marshal (1877-81) and recorder of deeds (1881-86) of the District of Columbia, and U.S. minister to Haiti (1889-91). Douglass remained an active reformer literally until the day he died, when he collapsed after attending a women’s suffrage meeting.
Following is Mr. Douglass narrative on the power ofself-education.
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
I lived in Master Hugh’s family about seven years. During this time, I succeeded in learning to read and write. In accomplishing this, I was compelled to resort to various stratagems, had no regular teacher. My mistress, who had kindly commenced to instruct me, had, in compliance with the advice and direction of her husband, not only ceased toinstruct, but had set her face against my being instructed by any one else. It is due, however, to my mistress to say of her, that she did not adopt this course of treatment immediately. She at first lacked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness. It was at least necessary for her to have some training in the exercise of irresponsible power, to make her equal to the task oftreating me as though I were a brute.
My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slave-holder, she did not seem to perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and thatformer to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved itsability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamb-like disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me. She now commenced to practice her husband’s precepts. She finally became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself. She was not satisfied...