Editing Frederick Douglass (section)

===Early learning and experience===

==== The Auld family ====
{{Slavery}}At the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the [[Wye House]] [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]], where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer<ref name=":1" /> and [[Edward Lloyd (Governor of Maryland)|Edward Lloyd]] was his unofficial master.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Co.|isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York & London |pages=12}}</ref> After Anthony died in 1826, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas's brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in [[Baltimore]]. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders |publisher=Scribner |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-5011-7444-5 |location=New York}}</ref> Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. 1845. "[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave#Chapters 5–7|Chapter VII]]."</ref> Douglass felt that he was lucky to be in the city, where he said enslaved people were almost [[Freedman|freemen]], compared to those on plantations.

When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the [[alphabet]]. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that [[literacy]] would encourage enslaved people to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly [[Abolitionism|antislavery]] lecture" he had ever heard. "'Very well, thought I,'" wrote Douglass. "'Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. [1881–82] 2003. ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass|Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time]]'' (''Dover Value Editions''). p. 50. [[Courier Dover Publications]]. {{ISBN|0-486-43170-3}}.</ref>

Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6th |location=London |page=39 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref> She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him.<ref name=":0" /> In his autobiography, Douglass related how he learned to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6th |location=London |pages=43–44 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."<ref>[[Kwame Anthony Appiah|Appiah, Kwame Anthony]]. [2000] 2004. "Introduction." In ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave|<nowiki/>'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave']] & [[Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl|'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'<nowiki/>]]''. New York: [[Modern Library]]. pp. xiii, 4.</ref> As Douglass began to read newspapers, pamphlets, political materials, and books of every description, this new realm of thought led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited ''[[The Columbian Orator]]'', an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. First published in 1797, the book is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches, and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar. He later learned that his mother had also been literate, about which he would later declare:

<blockquote>I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, ''not'' to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated ''mother''—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=My Bondage and My Freedom |date=1855 |publisher=Miller, Orton & Mulligan |edition=1st |location=New York and Auburn |page=[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:My_Bondage_and_My_Freedom_(1855).djvu/68 58]}}</ref></blockquote>

====William Freeland====
When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he "gathered eventually more than thirty male slaves on Sundays, and sometimes even on weeknights, in a Sabbath literacy school."<ref>[[David W. Blight|Blight, David W.]], ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'', p.&nbsp;68.</ref>

====Edward Covey====
In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh ("[a]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass later wrote). Thomas sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". He [[Flagellation|whipped]] Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal. Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in crisis: the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-5011-7445-2 |page=222|publisher=Scribner }}</ref> The 16-year-old Douglass finally rebelled against the beatings, however, and fought back. After Douglass won a physical confrontation, Covey never tried to beat him again.<ref>Bowers, Jerome. "[http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495 Frederick Douglass] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830143151/http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495|date=August 30, 2011}}." ''[[Teachinghistory.org]]''. US: [[Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media]]. 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2020.</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=February 21, 2018 |title=Frederick Douglass's Vision of Manhood The Objective Standard |url=https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/frederick-douglasss-vision-manhood/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709191335/https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/frederick-douglasss-vision-manhood/ |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |access-date=July 8, 2021 |website=theobjectivestandard.com |last1=Sandefur |first1=Timothy }}</ref>

Recounting his beatings at Covey's farm in ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', Douglass described himself as "a man transformed into a brute!"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |publisher=Anti-Slavery Office |year=1845 |location=Boston |page=63}}</ref> Still, Douglass came to see his physical fight with Covey as life-transforming, and introduced the story in his autobiography as such: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |publisher=Anti-Slavery Office |year=1845 |location=Boston |pages=65–66}}</ref>