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Frederick Douglas

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Michael Meyer, editor. Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings. New York: Random House Inc., 1984. In the book Frederick Douglass: The Narrative and Selected Writings it is a mix of an autobiography about Douglass with selected writings from him added to it. There are many main themes in this book especially from his selective writings, which all tie in with some themes in The Portable Thomas Jefferson. Some of the things Frederick Douglass talked about were how slaves became how they were and for what reason, and also the path of freedom for Douglass. Also the effects those slaves felt being known as property and not as a human being, or being considered as one. Those are just a few of many things that Douglass talked about in this book. Douglass was born right into slavery, but then later achieved freedom, mainly by teaching himself and relying on himself rather than others. One of his first masters was probably one of the only men that Douglass listened to as a slave. His first master didn’t treat him exactly like a slave, he made him do slave things, but at the same time he educated him about things, like how to write and the alphabet. His second master was not the same at all. He didn’t educate him at all; he treated him like what most other slave holders tried to do with slaves. And that’s to treat them ignorance, and have them be ignorant. Slave holders mainly wanted to do that so the slaves would not succeed in society or be able to participate, because with ignorance, you really can’t get that far. This is one of the things that Douglass writes about in this book, with this ignorance that these slaves learn they don’t know their natural rights; all they knew about was slavery. These ties in with the Thomas Jefferson’s book, in that book, Jefferson points out that if you’re enslaved then all you know about is just slavery, which means you

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