Frederick Douglass and his Desire to be Free

As was the case with a few masters concerned about the spiritual welfare of their slaves, Sophia Auld began to teach Douglass his letters so that he could read the Bible for himself. This first stage ended abruptly when her husband informed her that teaching a slave to read was both unlawful and unsafe. Hugh Auld’s scathing commentary to his wife was the second stage of young Frederick’s journey to literacy, for it became the spur which drove him to continue through self-education the job begun by his mistress. According to Douglass, Auld told his wife, “If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be a slave. He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it.”

Douglass’s response to Auld’s diatribe illustrates the nature and importance of unintended consequences. He writes, “I instinctively assented to the proposition [that ‘knowledge unfits a child to be a slave’], and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. It was just what I needed, and it came to me at a time and from a source whence I least expected it.”

The final stage on the path to literacy, where Douglass himself completed the education begun by his owner, required the unwitting assistance of “my young white playmates, with whom I met on the streets.” In addition to their help with spelling, Douglass also engaged them in serious discussions such as the one recounted above. Although Maryland resisted a total ban on manumission, a policy pursued in many slave states, there was no legal mechanism by which slaves could achieve freedom without the voluntary action of their masters. In 1838, as a twenty-year-old, Douglass put his future in his own hands by escaping, with the help of false papers provided by a free Black sailor, from Maryland to Philadelphia.