Chapter 10-Appendix Frederick Douglass

In this reading, Douglass makes two escape attempts, the second one being successful. Douglass is determined that 1835 will be the year he becomes his own master. He and several of his fellow slaves make a plan to canoe up the Chesapeake Bay on the Saturday before Easter. Their plan was unsuccessful as they were somehow betrayed and arrested by Mr. Hamilton and several other men soon after. Douglass was accused of being the mastermind behind the escape. After being released, Douglass is sent to Baltimore to work for Hugh Auld who sent him to work for Mr. Gardner. While he was working in much better conditions, his desire for freedom grew. He writes, "whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom" (58). Thus, he began to plan his second escape attempt. Because of his success, he was unable to share the details regarding his final escape for the risk of being caught and taken back to his master. What struck me most while reading about his escape was how painful it was for him to leave behind the friends he made in Baltimore. He said, "the thought of being separated from them forever was painful beyond expression" (63). Though leaving his friends was hard, he started a brand new life with his new bride, Anna. Anna was a free woman. living in New York. I thought it was interesting how he thought that people up north did not own slaves because they could not afford them. He soon realized that that was not the case. He mentions that free slaves often had better living conditions then slaveholders in the south. He was surprised by how different the working conditions were and how people had a, "sober, yet cheerful earnestness" (67). After three days in New Bedford, he found work and he and Anna began to settle down. At the close of the final chapter, while at an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, he felt strongly moved to speak. He felt a degree of freedom while speaking to white people that he had never felt before. From then on, he fought for the end of slavery.