Frederick Douglass was an African American slave in the 1800s who endured many excruciating ordeals at the hands of slave owners and society oppressive environment that surrounded him. Throughout his years as a slave, he slowly learned to read and write, a talent that eventually allowed him to escape to the North and write his own tale. His account details the events of his life, including all of his different masters, the fellow slaves he knew, the many calamities he or others faced as a result of slavery, as well as his escape to freedom. One of the many themes presented in this story is that of education versus ignorance, and Frederick Douglass's story was so fascinating because it provided a first-hand commentary on ignorance as a form of slavery, education as the key to enlightenment and freedom, and how the ignorance of the slave owners themselves gave way to a completely inaccurate understanding of the mentality of the slaves. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay Slaves, including Douglass himself, began life already deprived of their identity. As Douglass so eloquently said: “I have no precise knowledge of my age, having never seen an authentic document containing it. By far most slaves know as little of their age as horses know theirs, and it is the wish of most masters, to my knowledge, to keep their slaves thus ignorant” (Douglass 1). In addition to not knowing their age. or birthday, many slaves did not know their heritage. Slave owners often impregnated their female slaves, resulting in mulatto children who, more often than not, were not informed of their parentage. Even if a slave was born to two slave parents, part of the family was often sold and the child never knew his parents. Information as simple as a date of birth and family further widened the divide between slaves and whites. Douglass even mentions that when he was a child, “white children could know their ages [and] I could not say why I should be deprived of the same privilege” (Douglass 1). The pervasive ignorance that was imposed on black slaves continued. in adulthood. If there was one thing slave owners understood, it was that denying slaves the right to education – including reading and writing – was more effective than any punishment. physical to keep the oppressed slave where he was. Education held the key to a slave's education, and by depriving it, whites could more easily control the slave. One of Douglass's masters, Mr. Hugh Auld, unwittingly exposed this most important strategy for controlling slaves when he said: "To learn would spoil the best n----r in the world...[he] would be at never unfit to be a slave. He would immediately become unmanageable and worthless to his master. As for him, it could do him no good, but do him a lot of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy” (Douglass 29). These few short sentences from Auld revealed that ignorance was the key tool in retaining slaves. Statements that "he would not be fit to be a slave" and that the slave would be "discontented and unhappy" suggest that if a slave were to become educated, he would no longer be intent on carrying the white man's burden. , he would separate himself from the manifest injustice that is the institution of slavery, and he would in fact succeed ingain a certain sense of self-esteem and perception as a human being. Auld's prediction that a slave would become "discontented and unhappy" if he obtained an education came true. Once Douglass heard the authenticity of his Master's words, he immediately sought to learn to read and write, which also resulted in a curse. If Douglass had the opportunity to denounce slavery and see it for what it really was - a perverse intrusion on human rights - he also found himself, in his own words, confronted with a "a horrible pit, but without a ladder to get out” (Douglass 35). His enlightenment did not give up the keys to the chains that bound him or the map that would lead him to freedom. His education only increased his animosity toward the entire institution of slavery, and this is well demonstrated in his words: "The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my slaveholders . I could regard them in no other light than a band of successful thieves, who had left their homes and gone to Africa, and robbed us of our homes, and in a foreign land reduced us to slavery. I hated them as the meanest and meanest men” (Douglass 35). Although an education ultimately contributed to the success of his quest for freedom, it temporarily plunged him into a despair that nearly broke his spirit. persevere. The weight of knowledge he had gained about his position in the world was enormous, but he overcame it and was able to escape a world that had enslaved him from birth because of the color of his skin. Slave owners understood that by denying slaves education they were more easily controlled, but they did not understand much else about the mentality of slaves. There are many examples in Douglass's account that betray their poor understanding of slaves and their refusal to investigate further. For example, as Douglass writes, many Northerners and slave owners considered slaves' singing to be a testament to their happiness, but this is the opposite of the truth: "Slaves sing most when they are the most unhappy. The slave's songs represent the pains of his heart; and he is relieved by it, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears” (Douglass 12). That the slaves' lamentations were interpreted as sounds of contentment is yet another act of oppression, for no sounds made by the slave - their songs, much less their words - were ever truly heard. Reflecting on these songs of sorrow, Douglass said: "I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of these songs would do more to impress some minds on the horrible character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of philosophy on the subject would not do so. do” (Douglass 11). This quote does its best to reveal the extent to which all participants in the institution of slavery chose their ignorance over the understanding of the slave. Another example of this is when Master Auld of Douglass returned Douglass one percent of his earnings for his work that week, after taking the rest back for himself. It's easy to imagine Auld giving himself this stereotype of the good slave master, after all, he was choosing to give his slave a portion of what he earned, and his slave should be grateful. However, as Douglass writes, this turns out to have the opposite effect. He wrote: “I considered this a sort of confession of my right to everything. The fact that he gave me part of my salary was proof, in my opinion, that he believed I was entitled to my full salary” (Douglass 88). Here 108).