Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass- Trini Izquierdo

A passage from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass that made a strong impression on my reading, is in chapter 2, last paragraph (page 242). ““I am going away to the Great House Farm! O, yea! O, yea! O!”…This they would sing…”  In this passage, Douglass talks about the song that slaves sings when they were on their way to the Great House Farm. Douglass makes a connection with the slaves since he knows how they felt while they were singing this song. He highlights that for these slaves, singing a song does not mean that they are feeling excited or happy. In this case singing this song reveals the sadness of these slaves. Douglass defines the song as a “deep meaning” that only people who experience slavery would understand. Douglass experienced slavery during his childhood until he escaped and started to educate himself. He got to experience the slavery life and a life from the outside of this criminal world, that’s why Douglass started fighting against slavery. What this passage adds to my understanding of slavery in America is the power that slave owners have towards slaves. This affects their own lives and slave’s lives, because being so cruel to a group of people and treating them bad, would affect your mental health, in some cases, because some owners do not care about slaves, but only their families. Slaves did not have the option to be someone else, but slave. These people do not experience a happy life, but a criminal and fear life. This is when people of color like Frederick Douglass fight for a change in society because he knows the difference of being a young/ adult slave and a person who has rights and the right to choose what they want to be in life.