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How did Frederick Douglass learn to read?
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Frederick Douglass learned to read through the initial kindness of Mrs. Auld, who taught him the alphabet and how to form short words. Using bread as payment, Douglass employed little white boys in the city streets to secretly continue his instruction and help him become truly literate.
Douglass learns to read when he is sold as a young man to the Auld family in Baltimore. He is taught by Sophia Auld, his master's wife. Douglass is struck by her kindness, but even more so by her husband's angry reaction when he discovers what she is doing. Mr. Auld orders his wife to stop teaching Douglass immediately, claiming that educating a slave made them "unmanageable" and "forever...unfit to be a slave." Douglass regards his master's tirade as a crucial turning point in his life, one where he understood, for the first time, the "white man's power to enslave the black man." The "pathway from slavery to freedom," he further concluded, was through education:
It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would flow from teaching me to read. What he most dreaded, that I most desired...That...
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which to him was a great evil, ...was to me a great good, to be diligently sought; and the argument which he so warmly urged, against my learning to read, only served to inspire me with a desire and determination to learn.
Douglass thus set out to educate himself, with an eye toward gaining freedom. If keeping slaves ignorant was the key to keeping them docile, then he would rebel by learning to read, even though (or, as he observes, because) his master forbade it.
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How did learning to read save Frederick Douglass?
When Frederick Douglass is sent to serve the Aulds, he really finds a silver lining in the situation. Mrs. Auld has never owned slaves before, and her heart is still kind toward Douglass, because she had to earn her own wages before her marriage. When she learns that Douglass is illiterate, she begins giving him lessons, first teaching him the alphabet and then how to read words of three to four letters. At around this point in his instruction, Mr. Auld finds out what his wife has been up to and forbids any further instruction, telling her,
if you teach that nigger... how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.
These words transform Douglass's view of the world. He at once realizes that the power of literacy is the power of freedom. He understands that whites are able to enslave blacks by keeping them ignorant. Mr. Auld unknowingly lights a fire inside Douglass to accomplish what Mr. Auld forbids, because he knows this is his ticket out of slavery.
As he secretly becomes more literate, he finds that literature gives
tongue to interesting thoughts of [his] own soul, which had frequently flashed through [his] mind, and died away for want of utterance.
He is able to think about things more deeply and to consider ideas that were previously unknown to him, such as the term abolitionist.
Because of the initial efforts of Mrs. Auld, the way Douglass views the entire world is changed, and his path to freedom stands ready with a gate that was previously locked to him.
As a slave, Frederick Douglass was prevented from receiving an education out of fear that he and the other slaves would eventually become aware of their despicable conditions after reading moving pieces of literature and rebel or run away. However, Frederick Douglass was able to exchange items of food for brief lessons on how to read from poor, educated white children. Eventually, Frederick Douglass became one of the few slaves who learned how to read as an adolescent and immediately began reading The Columbian Orator, which is a collection of political essays. Frederick's mind was instantly awakened to his harsh life as a slave and literature provided him with arguments against his horrific condition. Frederick Douglass's spirit was also moved to loathe his dreadful condition, and he writes,
The moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery, and a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these documents enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved (53).
Learning to read also gave Frederick Douglass the ability to vividly articulate his arguments against slavery, which he used to help educate other slaves, who then agreed to run away with him. Learning to read also gave Frederick the ability to forge documents and better understand his masters. Overall, reading ignited Frederick's spirit, allowing him to escape from slavery, and provided him with the tools needed to formulate a successful escape from the inhumane institution.