Frederick wanted freedom for slaves and Captain
Canot did not. Slaves were not allowed to learn. Auld tells his wife not to teach Douglass how to read and write. He believes having an education will ruin him as a slave. It is from Hugh Auld that Douglass
learns the idea that knowledge is a path to freedom.
Douglass
sees that Auld has unwittingly revealed the strategy by which “whites” manage
to keep “blacks” as slaves and by which “blacks” might free themselves.
Douglass presents his own self-education as the primary means by which he is
able to free himself, and as his greatest tool to work for the freedom of all
slaves. He devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy
to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans.
These
were the central concerns of his long reform career. Douglass understood that
the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and
unyielding agitation. After Douglass escaped, he wanted to promote freedom for
all slaves. He published a newspaper in Rochester, New York, called The North
Star. It got its name because slaves escaping at night followed the North Star
in the sky to freedom.
(I did this assignment a week ago)