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What did Frederick suffer from most as a child in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave?
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As a child, Frederick Douglass suffered most from the cold due to inadequate clothing and shelter. In his narrative, he describes enduring harsh winters with only a coarse linen shirt, leaving him exposed to the elements. Without proper bedding, he resorted to huddling in a corn bag on the cold floor, leading to severe frostbite and cracked feet. This lack of protection was a common cruelty faced by enslaved children like Douglass.
As an enslaved black child, Frederick Douglass suffered many cruelties; however, in his autobiographical novel, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Douglass recounts how he most suffered from being bitterly cold. As a enslaved child, Douglas was not afforded housing security and was exposed to the winter elements. He was also not properly clothed and was forced to wear rough and uncomfortable bags to keep him from freezing. Slave owners horrifically believed they had a right to own another human being. As such, enslaved people were often subjected to enduring the extremes of each season with little to no protection. Enslaved people were also often cruelly made to work regardless of the severity of the weather. In Frederick Douglass's recounting of his childhood, he details how he suffered from hypothermic conditions and stages of frost bite.
It was the cold which caused Frederick the most suffering when he was little.
Frederick Douglass recalls that as a child, he was seldom whipped and "suffered little from any thing else than hunger and cold". He says that he "suffered much from hunger, but much more from the cold".
Fredrick remembers that children on Colonel Lloyd's plantation were kept "almost naked - no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing...but a coarse tow linen shirt, reaching only to (the) knees". In the winter, he felt he "must have perished with cold", and, on the coldest nights, having no bed, he used to steal a bag which was used for carrying corn to the mill. He would huddle in this bag on the "cold, damp, clay floor, with (his) head in and feet out". Frederick remembers that his feet would become so cracked from the constant exposure to frost that painful, ugly gashes would form, large enough so that a writing utensil might fit in them (Chapter V).
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