Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Signet Classics)

An elegantly written story of Frederick Douglass early life, lessons, and struggles. Enlightening, and heartfelt.

As the title implies, this short work is the narrative of Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave. He wrote it by himself, a significant fact in that his prose is so eloquent and his pathos so powerful that it seems impossible for a former slave to have composed it. In this short autobiography, Douglass recounts his life as a slave, and details some of the horrors and atrocities perpetuated on slaves by their fiendish overseers, most of whom Douglass portrays as downright evil. More than just a narrative of his life, Douglass also gives an account of how the desire to be free grew and began to burn within his bosom, and how he grew to hate that horrible institution. Above all, this is a story of a slave learning that he is, in fact, a human being.The significance of this book cannot be overestimated. In it, Douglass effectively dispels a number of popular myths about slaves and slaveholders, and forever changes the way the reader (especially one who lived while slavery still existed) looks at slavery. The theme of this book is very simple: slavery is wrong. It is evil, it is cruel, and, despite what many people thought at the time, the slaves know how cruel it is. Douglass cites several examples of the horrible treatment slaves received, one of them being separation of families. "It is a common custom...to part children from their mothers at a very early age" So it was with Douglass and his own mother.Douglass writes in a very eloquent style, and this contributes to the power of this work. Many people who thought blacks were inferior in intelligence were shown to be sadly mistaken with the coming of Frederick Douglass, a man both educated and refined. It may be said that the book is not entirely fair, for it is decidedly anti-slavery, but it is undoubtedly true for most cases nonetheless. Most of the overseers in Douglass's narrative are demonic and sadistic, but when a good overseer comes along (such as Freeland), he is fair in his treatment of him.One can imagine the fuel this book gave to the abolitionist fire, and it is not difficult to see why Douglass had such an impact on both North and South. This is, in my opinion, a definitive work, in that it shows the horrible institution of slavery in all its barbaric nature, and does it from a firsthand point of view, that of a former slave. This book was a tremendous contribution, both for the light it shed on slavery in general, and for proving that blacks were not intellectually inferior by nature, but instead were "transformed into...brute[s]" at the hands of their overseers.This is a great book, essential for anyone wanting to study the Civil War era or wanting to gain a firmer understanding of slavery.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a must read for all who want to study the history of Black people in America. This book was so important that I had to mention it in my book The Real Wakandas of Africa. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass takes the reader through a journey of what it was like to be a slave in American society. Being an enslaved African-American meant a life of no future and no hope. Douglass details the experiences that he undergoes as he is “broken” by an overseer. This involves psychological warfare against Douglass and other slaves. It shows that slavery was more than just a physical enslavement, and that it included mental enslavement too. There are hundreds of slave narratives that were written. However, if you are only going to read one slave narrative, this is the one. In fact, this is by far the most widely read slave narrative. Without ruining the end, Douglass eventually learns how to read. Once he learns the basic aspects of reading, he does anything within his power to try to learn how to read further. Is this intellectual freedom that eventually drives him to free himself physically. Frederick Douglass became the preeminent black leader of his day. His story is indeed moving. Like his book, I also discuss slavery at length in my book The Real Wakandas of Africa. Slavery took tens of millions of the sons and daughters of Africa from her shores. I also discuss colonialism at length and connect these two errors of slavery and colonialism. However, unlike other books, I also detail the beautiful history of African civilizations before slavery and before colonialism. Referencing more than 200 sources, I discuss the fact that Africans build the tallest building in the world. This building stood for more than 4000 years as the tallest building. I also discuss the fact that Africans charted star systems that were not discovered by Europeans or Americans until the 1990s. In the sphere of medical advancement, Africans did surgery on the eye to remove cataracts 700 years ago. They performed cesarean sections with antiseptics several hundred years before it was done in Europe or America. To add to this, Africans who were enslaved brought the concept of inoculation against smallpox to the United States of America. They also smelted carbon steel 2000 years before it was done in Europe or America. Africans built a wall that is one of the most magnificent structures on the planet. I wrote a book about this called: The Great Wall of Africa: The Empire of Benin’s 10,000 Mile Long Wall. It is stories like these that are often missing from Black history. Indeed, Frederick Douglass has written a book that is a must read for all who want to learn about slavery in America. Pick up a copy of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass today!!!

This short narrative, written in 1845, was Frederick Douglass’ first book. A short read, you get a taste of the horrors of slavery and the culture of the antebellum United States. His later books are better reads and give a more fulsome discussion of his life - but it is this book that began his public advocacy for abolition. A must read for the scholar, historian or advocate.