Life of Frederick Douglass

The history of the United States of America is full of a great variety of controversial issues. Every historian has his own view on the events that took place in this now independent country. People all over the world used to consider and admire the USA as the Motherland of freedom and democracy; but it was not so during the whole history of the country. As any country, the USA had difficult time, when its’ people suffered not only because of the financial or economical problems, but because of the problems of society and morality. Since the very beginning of the British and French exploration of America, the concept of slavery was an inherent part of the society formation, in spite of the fact of the cruelness and humiliation. Black slaves had neither rights nor compassion. They were used as the cheap workers without any chance to protect their lives or protest against the injustice that happened very often in relation to them. Only after the obtaining the independence in 1865 the American society abolished the slavery as last. As a matter of fact, it was not a process of a day or month – it took years to understand that in the United States of America everyone was equal. A lot of abolitionists did their best to describe the terror and despair of those days; but only the person, who experienced the horror of the slavery by himself, managed to overturn the consciousness of the American citizens. The name of this man is Frederick Douglass. Born as a slave, he became a free man and described the true position of the slaves in order to prevent the relapse. His book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave is not only the memoir – it is also the demonstration of a strong self-awareness, total intellectual independence and true literary authority. Frederick Douglass’ life turned out to be very hard. Since the early childhood he did not know his mother as they were separated, and when the boy was seven years old she died. “It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it” (Douglass, 2001). Watching the whipping of Aunt Hester, little Frederick first time in his life noticed the cruelness and injustice that black slaves had to overcome because of their white masters desires. There are a lot of bloody punishment descriptions in the text; and later on when Mr. Frederick became a free man, he understood that it was rather fear and not domination, what made the slave stood everything without any protests. Probably, that was the moment Frederick Douglass’ self-awareness woke up in him. Every next time the boy saw the sufferings of his friends in slavery or became the object of punishment, the realizing of what he was became stronger and stronger.The crucial moment for Frederick was the time when he moved to Baltimore, Maryland. There his life changed greatly. In …