The passage I chose is from Chapter III, “He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment’s warning, he was snatched away, and forever sundered, from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than death. This is the penalty of telling the truth, of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions” (244).

This passage enhanced my knowledge by giving more insights of slavery in America from a first-hand resource. This passage depicts how the rich slave owners and the slaves have a blinded relationship. The owner does not know who he owns, and the slave does not know who he is working for. But what matters the most, is that the slaves should flatter the master. Slaves usually have no warnings and no cautions  of when his punishment would arrive upon. It plainly depends on the mood of the slave owner, so to say, a slave is just an object. Being a slave, there is something more fearful than death, which is separation from family and friends. As they are the only resource of strength that can help one slave to carry through the hardships of slavery.

Although the slave himself does not know why he is being sent away, Douglass seems to know exactly why, just as if he has been there watching the scene where the slave meets the master. Douglass appears to know vividly the correct things that the slave master wants from the slaves, simply learning from observing his surroundings and his peers who are punished since he was young. This does not only show that he is a smart child, but his ability to act based on judgement from the environment his surrounded in and behave in a certain manner in that environment proves that he is a smart child.