“She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master’s farms, near Lee’s Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew anything about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger”.

In this passage Douglass explains the absence of his mother in his life. He knows his mom but, he is taken away from her because they are slaves. After his birth, his master separates him from his mother. This separation makes Douglass feel nothing for his mother. He does not spend any time with his mom, they never met each other during the day. Douglas describes how she comes to him four or five times, only at night, and before he wakes, she is gone. He says he feels nothing when his mother dies, because she is like a stranger for him. How is possible the child feels nothing when his mother dies? Douglas describes his solitude and isolation so clear that the reader can understand how slavery not only separates families, but it does not allow people to have a family.

Douglass demonstrates how a life of a slave begins at his birth. At that time, for some white people the slavery was natural that black people were kept as slaves. Douglas describes how slave owners destroy families prohibiting slaves to have connections and affections for their family members. This way, for slave owners is easier to turn black people into slaves. Since the birth children are removed from their parents and families. If his mother has been present in Douglas life, his childhood could have been totally different. He explains that he is one of the slaves who don’t know their parents, even his day of birth. Separating child and mother, not allowing them to have a family and feelings for each other, was the way that slave owners can have the control of their slaves. Douglas shows how slavery do not allow slaves to have families, feelings, and lives.