My Bondage and My Freedom

Contrast Douglass’s description of Aunt Katy with that of Sophia Auld in the context of their roles as surrogate mothers to Douglass. 

Douglass frequently addresses how enslavement precludes enslaved men from embracing their masculinity. What examples does Douglass give to illustrate his point about a loss of manhood? How is his sense of manhood regained when he becomes free? How do you interpret his gendered consideration of his condition, and how does it differ from that of the enslaved women whom he mentions in the narrative?

In describing the competition between enslaved Black men and poor, free white men, Douglass expresses hope that, one day, poor white laborers would become wise to the ways in which rich plantation owners manipulated them and join forces with Black Americans. Discuss Douglass’s depiction of his interactions with working-class white men in light of this hope.

Consider the enslaved person’s concept of time, as Douglass depicts it. Douglass describes how enslaved people lacked an understanding of history due to often not knowing when they were born. Their enslavers also discouraged them from thinking about the future and, instead, to accept their enslavers’ authority to determine their fates. In what ways did Douglass challenge these methods of justifying his captivity, both during and after his enslavement?

Douglass describes the hypocrisy of the Methodist Church to which he once belonged, both in the North and the South. In Massachusetts, he joins a Black congregation of Methodists and finds that they, too, are complicit in racial segregation. How do Douglass’s experiences with the church reinforce the fact that enslavers often employed Christianity as a tool of white supremacy?

Douglass describes how, early in his career as an orator, his abolitionist friends managed his speech. In what ways might the abolitionists have been perpetuating racism with their insistence on usurping control over Douglass’s image? Why did they encourage him to affect “the plantation manner of speech” and (356), later, discourage him from writing?

What do you think of Douglass’s decision to circulate his anti-enslavement paper, The North Star, in Rochester, New York, so as not to conflict with the circulation of his abolitionist friends’ papers in Boston? Based on your reading of his narrative, do you think that he made this decision solely out of friendship or another concern? Explain your answer.

How do Douglass’s descriptions of the lives of self-liberated people complicate the idea that the lives of freed Black people were much easier than their enslaved brethren? How did the line between enslavement and freedom become fainter after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850?