Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass and Other Writings

"I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant." The opening of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass starkly exposes the dehumanizing nature of slavery, its victims prevented from knowing even how old they were. In this and two later autobiographies, Douglass tells how he overcame bondage and took control of his own life, a theme that appears also in The Heroic Slave, his one work of fiction which is generally regarded as the first work of extended fiction in African American literature. A tireless foe of slavery, Douglass nonetheless urged free blacks not to forsake America for Africa. In a famous speech, he claimed that they had done as much as anyone to create the United States, and deserved nothing less than the full benefits of American citizenship.… (more)