Читать книгу Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Frederick Douglass - Страница 7

Frederick Douglass was born at Holme Hill Farm near the Tuckahoe Creek in Talbot County, Maryland. He was owned by Captain Aaron Anthony. He begins the Narrative by saying he did not know his birthday, and that “by far the larger part of the slaves know as little about their ages as horses know of theirs.”

Slave owners separated mothers from children and placed them in different locations, to intentionally weaken familial bonds. Douglass says he only remembers seeing his mother four or five times when he was young. She would steal away from her master and spend the night with him, returning to her place of work before dawn. He notes in a later version of his autobiography that she referred to him as “my little Valentine,” leading him to speculate that he was born on February 14.

After hearing an owner say that he was sixteen years old, Frederick was able to compute his birth year to be 1817 or 1818. A later discovered birth record kept by Aaron Anthony (now held at the Maryland State Archives) confirms his birth year was 1818 and that his mother's name was Harriet Bailey. Frederick Bailey, as he was known for the first twenty years of his life (we will see how it changed to Douglass), was told that his father was a white man, possibly Anthony, although he was never able to confirm it.

The lack of clear information surrounding his birth and parentage would come to symbolize the abuse and lack of rights that came with being a slave. Slavery not only deprived Douglass of his mother but exposed him to cold, hunger and numerous other privations. He vividly describes the bloody whippings and shootings by his masters. The flogging and beating of his aunt, vividly described in the Narrative, was an event seared into his young mind.