Characters
This cruel overseer was known as a "first-rate slave-breaker" and became a turning point in Douglass's life when they fought physically.
Who is Edward Covey?
This city is where Douglass first experienced better treatment as a slave and began learning to read.
What is Baltimore?
Slaveholders denied this basic information to slaves, which Douglass describes as a way to strip them of their humanity and identity.
What is their birthdays/age?
This form of knowledge was forbidden to slaves because it would make them "unfit to be slaves," according to Hugh Auld.
What is reading/literacy?
"Knowledge is the pathway from _____ to freedom."
What is slavery?
his plantation owner was so wealthy he didn't recognize all his slaves, and once had a slave sold to Georgia for honestly criticizing him.
Who is Colonel Lloyd?
The plantation known as the "Great House Farm" was owned by this man.
Who is Col. Lloyd.
This female relative of Douglass was brutally whipped by Captain Anthony himself, a traumatic sight that Douglass describes as his entrance to "the blood-stained gate" of slavery.
Who is Aunt Hester?
Douglass describes these expressions as being misinterpreted by northerners as signs of contentment, when they actually represented deep sorrow and longing for freedom.
What are slave songs?
After his religious conversion, Douglass states that this master became even more cruel to his slaves, showing how religion could be perverted to support slavery.
Who is Thomas Auld?
This overseer shot and killed a slave named Demby when he refused to come out of a creek during a whipping.
Who is Mr. Gore?
This Massachusetts city is where Douglass settled after escaping slavery and was surprised by the wealth, refinement, and treatment of free Black people.
What is New Bedford?
Slaveholders encouraged this behavior during holidays, which Douglass argues was designed to disgust slaves with freedom and reinforce their bondage.
What is drinking heavily?
After this confrontation, Douglass said, "I was a man again...I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die."
What is the fight with Covey?
"You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a _____."
What is a 'man'?
This woman initially taught Douglass the alphabet but was forced to stop by her husband who said education would make slaves discontented.
Who is Sophia Auld?
At this location, Douglass held secret Sabbath schools to teach fellow slaves to read, which was broken up by slave owners.
What is St. Michael's? (Accept: 'the home of a free Black person')
Douglass describes slave children being fed in this dehumanizing way.
What is eating from troughs like animals/pigs?
Douglass used these people to help him learn to read by 'tricking' them into teaching him.
Who are white children/children in the neighborhood?
In the Appendix, Douglass writes, "I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this _____."
What is 'land'?
Douglass's grandmother, who raised him and many other slave children, was cruelly abandoned in her old age, left alone in a hut in the woods after serving the family her entire life.
Who is Betsey Bailey?
This site on Fell's Point is where Douglass learned ship caulking but faced violent racism from white workers who refused to work alongside Black craftsmen.
What is Gardner's shipyard?
Douglass believe that this common practice - which he personally experienced at a young age - was done deliberately by slave holders to destroy family bonds.
What is separating mothers from their children?
Douglass arranged for this to be used when planning his escape with other slaves but burned it when they were caught.
What are fake passes/documents?
When these two activities coincided, Douglass noted the contradiction, writing that "the clanking of fetters and the rattling of chains in the prison, and the pious psalm and solemn prayer in the church, may be heard at the same time."
What are religious revivals and slave auctions/slave trading