Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

Although young Frederick struggles to adjust to the quickened pace of life in Baltimore, he adores Mrs. Sophia Auld, whom he comes to see “as something more akin to a mother than a slaveholding mistress” (57). Kindness and piety are her defining traits. Frederick does not belong to the Aulds but to Captain Anthony, a fact that helps explain why “Miss Sopha,” who has never owned a slave, lacks the distasteful qualities so many slaveholding women exhibit and why she treats him with almost as much tenderness as she does her own son Tommy, whom she often trusts to “Freddy’s” care.

Hugh Auld, on the other hand, is far less kind and pious than his wife, and he pays Frederick little attention. When he learns, however, that Sophia has been teaching Frederick to read, he erupts in anger and forbids her from continuing the lessons. An educated slave is an unhappy slave, Auld tells her. Overhearing the scolding, Douglass for the first time makes the connection between knowledge and freedom.

Deprived of Miss Sopha’s instruction, Frederick has to find other ways to educate himself. For instance, he begins carrying a spelling book in his pocket and taking impromptu lessons from his white playmates. He also manages to purchase a copy of The Columbian Orator, a schoolbook filled with famous speeches by British statesmen such as William Pitt and Charles James Fox. Inside this “noble acquisition” of a book, Frederick also finds a brief, imaginary debate over slavery carried out between master and slave, whereby the slave gets the better of the exchange (65).

Armed now with arguments, Frederick begins to dwell on the nature of liberty, which, in keeping with the American Declaration of Independence, he calls “the inestimable birthright of every man” (65). The more he learns, the more he thinks, and the more he thinks, the more miserable he becomes in his slave-for-life condition. Meanwhile, Miss Sopha, whom Frederick once regarded as an ally, a teacher, and a surrogate mother, heeds her husband’s admonishment and becomes determined to prevent “Freddy” from acquiring any more dangerous knowledge.

Despondent over his condition, 13-year-old Frederick contemplates suicide. He finds hope, however, from two sources. The first is something called “abolitionism.” From snippets in newspapers, Frederick learns that the abolitionists denounce slavery as evil and want to do away with it. From conversations overheard on Baltimore streets, he comes to believe that the white people of Maryland not only hate the abolitionists but fear them.

Religion is Frederick’s second source of hope. In the midst of his deep despondency, he finds a spiritual mentor in Charles Lawson, a “good colored man” who lives near the Aulds. Lawson encourages young Frederick to “pray” and to “cast all my care upon God” (69). The boy’s internal rancor gives way to peace. He now “worked and prayed with a light heart, believing that my life was under the guidance of a wisdom higher than my own” (70).

Early in his Baltimore residence, before he discovers The Columbian Orator or meets Charles Lawson, young Frederick is sent back to the Eastern Shore. The removal proves temporary, but it could have been catastrophic. Captain Anthony, Frederick’s owner, has died, and his property, including his human property, has to be divided between his two surviving children, Andrew, a cruel drunkard, and Lucretia, Frederick’s erstwhile benefactress. By fate or prayer, Frederick falls to Lucretia, whose husband, Captain Thomas Auld, returns him to Baltimore.

Years later, a petty dispute between the Auld brothers forces Hugh to send young Frederick back to Thomas, the boy’s legal owner, who now lives in St. Michaels on the Miles River. Shortly after the valuation of her late father’s property, Lucretia died, leaving Frederick friendless in Talbot County. The widower Thomas Auld remarried to Rowena Hamilton, daughter of a rich slaveholder. Thus, on the spiteful whim of a master he never really knew, Frederick once again is taken from Baltimore, this time from a circle of friends, and thrust back into the dark and isolated world of the Eastern Shore.