This week I
read Fredrick Douglass by France's E. Ruffin. The book begins
with Fredrick being raised
by his
loving grandparents. Unfortunately his mother was a slave so that
meant he was a slave as well.
At a young
age he remembered saying that "(Aunt Katy) meant to starve the
life out of me." when Fred
Was moved
into the city he began reading and writing with his mistress. When
her husband found out
he rebuked
her and she stopped the lessons. But that didn't stop Fred. Instead
he got his friends to teach
him and
give him books in exchange for food. At one point of his life,when he
was much
older, he
was sent to a slave breaker because his master thought he was to
rebellious. Fred and the other slaves there were beat often until one
day Fredrick had had enough. When the man approached him to begin
beating Fred like lunged at him and so it began. They wrestled for a
while until his master gave up and left. Fredrick was never beat
again by that man. Later in his life he stated that when he won that
fight he also won the determination to become a free man. Finally
Fred ran north and into free country. He got married and had kids
while becoming a very popular speaker on freeing slaves. Sadly
Fredrick Douglass died on February 20th 1895. This was a good book
with very good writing. I liked that they gave lots of quotes and
pictures as well. My favorite quote was after Fredrick received money
for the first time as a free man. He said "I have no master who
could take it from me, that it was mine that my hands were my own. I
rate this book 3 stars and if you enjoy reading about American
history I would recommend this book to you.
