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My Bondage and My Freedom: The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass (The Autobiographies #2)

by Frederick Douglass

4.27 of 5 stars 4.27 · rating details · 6,566 ratings · 125 reviews

Large Format for easy reading. Douglass was among the most prominent African-Americans of his time, and one of the most influential lecturers and authors in American history. His most well-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Critics frequently attacked the book as inauthentic, not believing that a black man ...more

Published by Timeless Classic Books (first published 1855)

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Aug 14, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: biography , non-fiction , history , memoir , favorites , ebooks

This is a great book, by a great American. Skeptics looking at that statement might think, well sure you think that reading his own account. Except I've found autobiographies unintentionally revealing in fascinating ways. Within the last year I read autobiographies and memoirs by Ghandi, Dian Fossey and Booker T. Washington. The first book lessened my admiration and liking, the second made me absolutely hate the woman because of her own words, and the last left me ambivalent. And in the case of This is a great book, by a great American. Skeptics looking at that statement might think, well sure you think that reading his own account. Except I've found autobiographies unintentionally revealing in fascinating ways. Within the last year I read autobiographies and memoirs by Ghandi, Dian Fossey and Booker T. Washington. The first book lessened my admiration and liking, the second made me absolutely hate the woman because of her own words, and the last left me ambivalent. And in the case of others, I've become disillusioned afterwards reading other accounts of their lives. Neither is the case with Frederick Douglass--after reading this--and even, hell especially, after reading further about him, I have a new hero. I couldn't help but admire him given so much related here--particularly how, after his experience of being treated with dignity and respect in Britain, he decided to come back to America to fight to end slavery. And reading beyond this book, I learned he was a staunch supporter not just of civil rights for African Americans, but equal rights for women as well. Hardly a popular cause or common attitude back then.

And simply in terms of content, this book was riveting. The 1855 introduction by James M'Cune Smith did give me momentary pause. It read, like so much 19th century literature I've encountered, as tedious, overly religious and stuffy. Once you reach Douglass' own account however, that's no longer the case. Yes, there is a formal tone that is characteristic of the age, but there wasn't one line of this entire book that wasn't fascinating; he's a master storyteller. After purchasing this book, I learned this is actually the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass. The first, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , published in 1845, is the most famous and arguably of the three the most influential and historically important. Yet an introduction by Brent Hayes Edwards in the edition I read makes the case for the second biography as the better, more strongly written book. Which makes sense--after all, in the decade since that first biography Douglass had spent years as editor of The North Star , which would have honed his thinking and writing.

I also have read that this middle book includes the most expansive account of his time in slavery. And that account is full of insights, not simply into slavery, but how power over others corrupts victim and perpetrator alike. And I've never read a more moving account of the liberating power of literacy. I wish young people could read this early in their schooling, and read of how young Frederick heard his master talk of how reading makes a man unfit for slavery--and understand the importance of reading for setting a mind alight. The appendix contains other items of interest--the gem I think is Douglass' "Letter to his Old Master." Truly, this is a wonderful read. ...more

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Mar 10, 2015 Hana rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics , kindle , 2014-reads , history-and-bio , 18th-19th-century

My Bondage and My Freedom reads like the best of historical fiction. Douglass' story is full of lively characters--even the minor figures are vividly drawn. The descriptions transport us instantly to a particular place and moment in time.

For the first eight years of his life Douglass was raised by his grandmother who had charge of the young slave children. They all shared a cabin with a vegetable garden and the children mostly ran free on the plantation. As he describes it he was "a spirited, j My Bondage and My Freedom reads like the best of historical fiction. Douglass' story is full of lively characters--even the minor figures are vividly drawn. The descriptions transport us instantly to a particular place and moment in time.

For the first eight years of his life Douglass was raised by his grandmother who had charge of the young slave children. They all shared a cabin with a vegetable garden and the children mostly ran free on the plantation. As he describes it he was "a spirited, joyous, uproarious, and happy boy, upon whom troubles fall only like water on a duck's back."

"Down in a little valley, not far from grandmammy's cabin, stood Mr. Lee's mill, where the people came often in large numbers to get their corn ground....The mill-pond, too, had it's charm; and with my pinhook, and thread line, I could get nibbles , if I could catch no fish." But haunting this childhood idyll is a darker knowledge that "I was not long to remain there, and that...I was A SLAVE--born a slave." Even at this early age Frederick has "a sense of my entire dependence on the will of somebody I had never seen."

Eventually the dreaded day arrives and he is taken from his grandmother to the great house of the "old master. Here he meets his mother, who in truth is a stranger from whom he has been separated since infancy and who has been hired out as a field hand to another plantation but still does her best to visit him in the old master's kitchen. It is whispered that Frederick's father is a white man, and perhaps even the master himself, but "Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families."

Douglass' descriptions of plantation life are marvelous: life in the kitchen where he finds himself "at the mercy of the sable virago...whose fiery wrath was my constant dread"; and 'upstairs' where “The table groans under the heavy and blood-bought luxuries gathered with painstaking care, at home and abroad. Fields, forests, rivers and seas, are made tributary here. Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste.”

In the dining room of the great house, “Behind the tall-backed and elaborately wrought chairs, stand the servants, men and maidens—fifteen in number—discriminately selected, not only with a view to their industry and faithfulness, but with special regard to their personal appearance, their graceful agility and captivating address. Some of these are armed with fans, and are fanning reviving breezes toward the over-heated brows of the alabaster ladies; others watch with eager eye, and with fawn-like step anticipate and supply wants before they are sufficiently formed to be announced by word or sign.”

But Frederick is soon witness to less pleasant sights--floggings and cruelties under iron-hearted overseers who are "accuser, judge, jury, advocate and executioner." The plantation is "a nation to itself" "full three hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and morals."

When Frederick is sent to Baltimore to be the house slave of one of the old master's relatives, he is blessed to have a mistress who has never owned a slave before and is, initially, extraordinarily kind. At 'Freddy's' request, she begins to teach him to read the Bible, but is harshly reprimanded by her husband and forbidden to continue the instruction. But Freddy is determined to learn--and every child in America should read the incredible lengths to which he went to master reading and writing.

I'm tempted to tell more, but that would spoil this thrilling, illuminating and beautifully told story. It is free on Kindle. Go get it and read it for inspiration, and for enjoyment.

Content rating PG for mature themes of slavery and slave life and occasionally graphic scenes of beatings.

...more

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Jul 12, 2011 Ij rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: african-american , american-history , autobiography-memoir , classics , history , non-fiction , slavery , free , kindle , 2011

My Bondage My Freedom

Written By: Frederick Douglass

Published By: Public Domain (Amazon) Kindle Edition

My Bondage My Freedom

I have read in the past about Frederick Douglass the famed abolitionist, orator, statesman, and writer. However, until reading this autobiography I knew nothing about him before he became famous.

This autobiography was published in 1855 and thus covered approximately thirty-seven (37) of his early years. Being born a slave, Douglass could only approximate the year of his bir ...more

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Aug 18, 2008 Sumeyya rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: EVERYONE. Seriously, I mean it.

Recommended to Sumeyya by: professor

Shelves: favorites , re-reads

My Bondage and My Freedom is unparalleled in its complete scope of the utter destructive effects of slavery upon individuals and the larger group. There is NO other narrative, fiction or non, that describes the African American experience of bondage quite like this -- or in fact, at all. Other great African American thinkers (such as Du Bois or Washington) are able to examine the effects of slavery on society through observation; their accounts are mostly of African Americans' experience post-em My Bondage and My Freedom is unparalleled in its complete scope of the utter destructive effects of slavery upon individuals and the larger group. There is NO other narrative, fiction or non, that describes the African American experience of bondage quite like this -- or in fact, at all. Other great African American thinkers (such as Du Bois or Washington) are able to examine the effects of slavery on society through observation; their accounts are mostly of African Americans' experience post-emancipation and the subsequent period of assimilation into white society. None describes what slavery was like with the detail and insight that Douglass does. While other writers used ample metaphors (usually of Christianity, like Du Bois) and difficult "academic" language, Douglass writes for the larger audience. His story is therefore, more easily understood, and in my opinion, profoundly more insightful because it delves into the minds of rational "good" people who happened to be slave owners, and discusses the economic conditions that encouraged, moreover sanctioned, slavery's continued existence -- several hundred years more than what the framers of the Constitution may have intended.**

Besides all that, Douglass's narrative is the ultimate example of the endearing quality of the human spirit, and as cliché as it may sound, it is absolutely true. One has to wonder, after all the inhumane, brutal, and completely destroying effects of slavery (which were systematically administered, mind you), how an entire RACE of people were able to retain some dreg of their dignity and survive. It is even more phenomenal then, that a boy who grew up and was conditioned in in this system, was not only able to retain 'dignity,' but was also able to use his natural ability of words to become an advocate in the cause of racial injustice. This is why I would recommend this book to everyone (seriously, if you can read, read this book!) – surely, in Douglass’s words, there’s a lesson we can apply to solving (or at least clearing up) many of the problems of social injustice (whether racial or otherwise) going in the world today.

**PS. -- There is also a quick chapter (more like part of a chapter) that includes Douglass's view of the Framers and the Constitutional legality, or lack thereof, of the slave system, and why Douglass changed his views (at the beginning of his 'career' if we can call it that, Douglass believed that the Constitution and its Framers supported slavery. Later in his career, he changed his views saying that the Constitution, if interpreted by the actual written text of the document [and only that], is decisively anti-slavery, and thus [at that time], to continue the system of slavery was indeed un-constitutional...)

...more

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Feb 11, 2012 Matt rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography , memoir

This book should be required reading for all American students. Frederick Douglass' account of his years as a slave and the early years of his public advocacy as a freeman is among the most poignant and morally forceful works I've ever read. Highly recommend it to anyone.

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Chris Johnson The thing that struck me was the tenderness that he had towards his captors (by and large).
Jan 19, 2012 07:33AM

Chris Johnson I saw you read the other FD book when Goodreads spammed me (oh, look, Steve turned 3 pages in Victor Hugo - give Steve a hug). Anyway, this was a fant ...more
Jul 12, 2013 10:19PM

Matt Those 3 pages might have meant nothing to you, but Steve had to dig down deep for those. Still glad you suggested this book to me--I must have recomme ...more
Jul 16, 2013 05:18PM

Mar 01, 2012 Iris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography , history

"Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer's Sabbath, stood all alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the "Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer's Sabbath, stood all alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance; and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul's complaint, in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships..."
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Chapter X

Like Flaubert, Douglass allots himself very few sentimental passages like that one, and their rarity makes them especially noteworthy. In his speeches and autobiographies, his strikingly modern, rolling prose exercises such pull that such a painterly scene isn't necessary. With a life so extraordinary, Douglass was pressured to write about his strong-willed journey several times, each one with a wider scope: the quick read "Narrative", a staple on syllabi (1845); this one, from 1855, and finally, his 1881 "Life and Times of Frederick Douglass" which covers the same territory but also the Civil War, his friendships with John Brown and Abraham Lincoln, and his work in Washington DC and New York for abolitionism and feminism.

I chose the second work, "My Bondage and My Freedom," and recommend it hugely for its insight into everyday life of slaves and the politics of individual slaveowners. The focus is on the bondage, not the freedom; for one, he wrote when his freedom was still legally shaky. After being free for several years, he achieved reknown as a speaker, but was considered to be in such danger as a publicly escaped slave that he lived several years abroad, in Scotland and England, to escape attacks in the US and to be received with great pomp by UK dignitaries.

Douglass reveals unparalleled insight into slave life and slaveowners, setting the reader on edge even today: Douglass, a master of rhetoric, knows how to wield information for dramatic tension. He acknowledges how greatly he wants to reveal how he broke out of slavery, but knows that he mustn't utter a word for fear of endangering the people who helped him escape. By the time of his 1881 autobiography, he was free to tell all about his enfranchisement, about which I will only say that it involves a sailor suit and a one-way train ticket. ...more

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Jan 21, 2011 Thorin rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This is a very heavy read. Frederick Douglass has an amazing gift of language and he uses it well in describing his story. I wish everyone would read this. It was at times so tragic that I could hardly stand it and I felt my heart breaking in my chest. Other times I was thrilled with his soaring words from excerpts of his speeches that were included in the book. Douglass' observations about the institution of slavery are absolutely spot on and really helped me understand much more about both the ...more

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Oct 02, 2014 janet rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Douglass anticipated Althusser and Foucault's work on subject formation and Agamben's Homo Sacer and concept of the camp in this work and improved upon Hegel at his own metaphor whether Douglass was aware of the work or not all while trying to appeal to white liberals to end slavery peacefully though he eventually came to see that slavery wouldn't end without violence. In reading about his adjustment to life after slavery in the north, I felt like I was reading the story of a new immigrant. He d ...more

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Feb 06, 2010 Howard Olsen rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is Frederick Douglass' story of his life as a slave, and his subsequent escape to the North. Douglass doesn't just describe the physical cruelty of southern slavery, although there's plenty of harrowing detail about that. He emphasizes the psychological pain suffered by slaves. We speak now of grinding poverty, but slaves like Douglass had to suffer through something even worse; the knowledge that their lives were not their own. This is brought home when Douglass' master - a man Douglass ha ...more

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Aug 08, 2015 Robert rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

“My Bondage and My Freedom” by Frederick Douglass

Note: MBAMF is a sequel of sorts to Mr. Douglass’ better known autobiography, “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave”. I chose to read and review MBAMF as it is a more complete version of this inspiring American’s life story.

“I longed to have a future – a future with hope in it”.

“My Bondage and My Freedom” (published in 1855) is the second of three volumes of autobiography written by Frederick Douglas, a self-freed and sel ...more

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Feb 17, 2014 Chris rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an excellent book that should be mandatory reading in schools.

Frederick Douglass was a slave in the state of Maryland in a pre-Civil War United States. He was born and raised a slave under the most shocking and inhumane conditions imaginable. Fortunately Frederick was able to escape his life of slavery and became a prominent abolitionist and lived to see the death of slavery in America.

The book is both shocking and powerful with Frederick writing in a very straightforward, but still emo ...more

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May 20, 2014 Megan Anderson rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Frederick Douglass was an abolitionist, amazing orator, and spokesman for slaves and oppressed free black people in America. He grew up in the bondage of slavery but was able to escape and live as a freeman, afterwards fighting for the freedom of all and exposing the true horrors of slavery. My Bondage and My Freedom is one of three autobiographies written by Douglas. Of the three, this book gives the most detail of his life in slavery.

Even if you’re not a fan of reading historical non-fiction o ...more

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Feb 25, 2014 Josh Ruiz rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is a very good read regarding the struggles of a man born into slavery but struggling with several questions which are restricted by his condition of slavery. This book is a memoir of Frederick Douglass' time as a slave followed by his time as a free man. The description of the not only the physical conditions of slavery, but also the mental and emotional bondages of slavery are so well expressed and depicted and can be summed up as nothing more than hopelessness. Mr. Douglass does a great This is a very good read regarding the struggles of a man born into slavery but struggling with several questions which are restricted by his condition of slavery. This book is a memoir of Frederick Douglass' time as a slave followed by his time as a free man. The description of the not only the physical conditions of slavery, but also the mental and emotional bondages of slavery are so well expressed and depicted and can be summed up as nothing more than hopelessness. Mr. Douglass does a great job of not only describing the day to day life of a slave but also poses questions regarding the justification of slavery and it was the glimpses into his thoughts which I appreciated the most. Much like the book itself, I broke what I got from this book into two sections. The first part was the constant struggle with how many of the slaveholders and those pro-slavery were some of the same social and religious leaders of the town. Rather than debating the interpretations of the Bible regarding slavery, I don't know how one could go to church, have a relationship with his/her God yet treat others humans in such an inhumane way. Much like Mr. Douglass those two things were very hard to put together, in my mind. The second part of the book that struck me the most is the importance of education, and education beyond the four squared walls of a building or room. Mr. Douglass was not allowed the opportunity for "proper" education (i.e. school) but that did not remove his quench for thirst and knowledge. With help of others he learned how to read and write and, even though many threats to stop learning and teaching others how slaves to read and write, Mr. Douglass continued to search knowledge because he knew that the increase in knowledge and education could break the stronghold of slavery. As an educator, this book has encouraged me to continue to push my students to become lifelong learners that although they may not face the injustice of slavery, many obstacles in life can be overcome with knowledge.

I cannot recommend this book enough and have already told my son that this is his summer reading project. ...more

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Sep 07, 2015 Jason Schneeberger rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM is a book that should be mandatory reading for every high school student. The lessons it has within its pages are filled with depth and honesty as it shows the reader a harrowing, brutal and heart breaking look at slavery.

Frederick Douglass was a slave for the first two decades of his life, but through determination, luck and maybe a little divine intervention, was able to escape the horrors of slavery. He dedicated his life then to helping with the abolition movement a ...more

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Aug 15, 2014 Theresa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

True story of a slave.

True story of a slave.

This book has given me a whole new perception into the minds of the African Americans in this country in the past and the present. This is a compelling novel that was hard to put down. I have learned the mindset of today's African Americans. I think by remembering the past they help keep it from happening again but I also think by acting like they are still living it today they continue to make themselves victims today. This needs to be taught and disc ...more

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Jun 27, 2008 Robin Evans rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An amazing true story of a slave who fought to become a free man. Douglass tells his story in an unflinching manner, and you feel his pain. His vocabulary is impressive and makes it a difficult read at times. But totally worth the effort!

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Aug 17, 2009 Amber rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book was wierd it was also disturbing bc it was gross. and also it would have been a lot shorter if he hadnt explained so much that which was all about nothing but it was alot better than Mountains beyond mountains.

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Jun 14, 2015 John Daly rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Frederick Douglass was an American Icon, perhaps the most famous black man in the United States in the 19th century. Born a slave, who escaped from slavery, he became famous as an abolitionist, a campaigner for women's rights, and a human rights advocate. Officially banned from education as a child (slave) he taught himself to read and write, becoming a fine writer and orator. This was his second book, published in 1855 when he was in his 30s, already famous. With the appearance of an autobiogra ...more

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Sep 20, 2014 James rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

a fascinating, tenacious man with a penetrating mind. I wonder what he would say if he visited the present. Favorite quotes:
"everybody, in the south, wants the privilege of whipping somebody else."
"To the pampered love of ease, there is no resting place."
"Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability."
"For men are always disposed to respect and defend rights when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves."
many more in the book. Lots of things to think about. One particu ...more

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Jul 12, 2015 Ridgewalker rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

You've likely heard the name Fredrick Douglass but can't recall much more than that. This autobiography details his brutal life growing up as a slave in the antebellum South and pulls no punches painting a dark picture of what the life of a slave and those who owned them was like. The literary style is excellent and typical of the period and all the more impressive understanding that Douglass was a self educated man, forbidden by law to learn to read and write while a slave. He comes across as u ...more

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Jun 12, 2014 Murray rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography , classic , history , non-fiction

Must reading for any American who cares about history and what can history can teach us about the future. This book is more illuminating than any work of fiction I’ve read about the subject of American slavery. Douglass reaches across the centuries and addresses us personally. His passion ignites ours. His logic and his intelligence are incisive. He is relevant for our age, for even, if at this point in history the details of our conflicts and issues differ, our human natures do not. Who, in lig Must reading for any American who cares about history and what can history can teach us about the future. This book is more illuminating than any work of fiction I’ve read about the subject of American slavery. Douglass reaches across the centuries and addresses us personally. His passion ignites ours. His logic and his intelligence are incisive. He is relevant for our age, for even, if at this point in history the details of our conflicts and issues differ, our human natures do not. Who, in light of the barbarism of the 20th century and current state of the world doubts that we aren’t still capable visiting the most beastly oppression and violence upon our fellow man depending upon the circumstances? The arguments and the actors of the abolition movement reverberate in our current events. Read this book carefully and then pick a topic involving the belittling a class of people. Substitute the controversies surrounding the emancipation of the American slave into the current debate about Gay Rights and see if you don’t find remarkable parallels and similarities. Try to put yourself into the 19th century. Based on your current behavior (not sentiments) how would you have acted?

Quotable ideas are on almost any page. Here a few random examples.

“The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of the family, as an institution.”

As to the myths that slaves were happy in their subjugation:

“Slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters, almost invariably say they are contented, and that their masters are kind. Slaveholders have been known to send spies among their slaves, to ascertain, if possible, their views and feelings in regard to their condition…a still tongue makes a wise head…They suppress the truth rather than take the consequence of telling it”

Douglass was enslaved to several masters during his lifetime. His back felt the lash many times. He did not know his mother or father. He watched women being abused, children torn away from their mothers, husbands from their wives. He courageously fought back against one overseer. He bravely tried to run away several times before he was successful. Even after he was a famous speaker and author he was but always in danger, up to the time of emancipation, of being captured by slave merchants and brought back to the south in bondage.

I was reading McBride’s wonderful book, “A Good Lord Bird” simultaneously. Many Goodreads reviewers, including myself, wondered why McBride treated Douglass they way he did in that book. See those reviews for the controversy.
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Aug 30, 2014 Czarny Pies rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in American History

Recommended to Czarny by: University History Professor

Shelves: american-history

Anyone interested in American history should read several of the slave narratives. Interpretations by historians have their merit. However, they tend to apply interpretative frame works that may or may not be on the mark. Two famously, silly interpretations from my time were those of Eugene Genovese (Gramsci Marxist) and Stanley Elkins (psychological)

However, anyone who attends to read American history on a regular basis needs to hear some of the slave stories told in their own words. There are ...more

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Nov 11, 2012 Keith rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

An excellent account of a man's life journey from absolute oppression to self-fulfillment. Unlike the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass , this is not simply an abolitionist pamphlet detailing the facts of slavery, it's a fully realized autobiographical sketch and an excellent work of literature in its own right. We are treated, of course, to the harrowing accounts of life as a slave, climaxing with his year long residency with the slave master who is assigned to break him. I think, just ...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Rd rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics

Unbelievable his ability to connect the wrongs of slavery to natural rights. Made all the right arguments for natural rights - not based on personal experience but on the natural order of things. His ability to detach his personal experience form what is right and wrong is simply unheard of today. A remarkable man that proves common sense and intelligence is not necessarily synonymous with educated.

His insight on how society was able to develop the slave mindset to keep slaves in check is quite ...more

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Sep 20, 2012 Abbe added it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-library

Review

Professor John S. Wright My Bondage and My Freedom is Frederick Douglass's most accomplished rendering of his life on literary and philosophical terms. It is also his most acutely romanticist and 'transcendental autobiography'...can provide yet another chance for us readers to think more closely with a dedicated thinking man about how we might grapple with the complexly interwoven meanings of his life and our own. -- Review

Product Description

My Bondage and My Freedom , by Frederick Doug

Review

Product Description

My Bondage and My Freedom , by Frederick Douglass , is part of the Barnes & Noble Classics series, which offers quality editions at affordable prices to the student and the general reader, including new scholarship, thoughtful design, and pages of carefully crafted extras. Here are some of the remarkable features of Barnes & Noble Classics :

All editions are beautifully designed and are printed to superior specifications; some include illustrations of historical interest. Barnes & Noble Classics pulls together a constellation of influences—biographical, historical, and literary—to enrich each reader's understanding of these enduring works.

Born a slave, Frederick Douglas educated himself, escaped, and became one of the greatest social leaders in American history. Although usually identified with the monumental Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave , Douglass produced two additional autobiographies, the second of which he called My Bondage and My Freedom .

A richer, deeper, and far more ambiguous work than the earlier Narrative , My Bondage and My Freedom reveals Douglass’s increased intellectual sophistication and maturity. In the decade that had elapsed since Douglass wrote_ Narrative_, he had broken away from his antislavery mentors, successfully toured England, and established himself as an inspired speaker and writer. With the publication of My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855, Douglass became the country’s foremost spokesman for American blacks—free and enslaved—during the tense and politically charged years preceding the Civil War.

One of the highlights of My Bondage and My Freedom is the appendix, which contains excerpts from several of Douglass’s speeches, including perhaps his most famous, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”

Brent Hayes Edwards is Associate Professor in the Department of English at Rutgers University. He is the author of The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003) and of numerous articles on twentieth-century African-American literature, contemporary poetry, Francophone Caribbean literature, surrealism, and jazz.

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Mar 11, 2008 Christian rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommends it for: everyone

Shelves: classics , non-fiction

An incredible story and insight into the personal and perennial fight for the freedom and escape from physical and mental slavery. Writing elequotenly from the hands and mind of a slave that was in a system that systematically was suppose to prevent niggers to read or write (or think), let alone write a bestseller book and an indelible page in history with his later abolitionist activties. Douglas is an incredible person and figure in American History and is also a remarkable writer and orator, ...more

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Jan 02, 2013 Nafis Faizi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

'The stunning document of intellectual transformation and human independence.' This caption on the back cover compelled me to think again, would this book or any book be able to do full justice to that kind of caption ! But I was happy to be proven wrong..
I have re read this book many a times for the past 3 years and I still see the transformation..I would gladly admit my obsession with some of these lines..which any Douglass fan would instantly relate with..

1. To his uncommon memory, then, we 'The stunning document of intellectual transformation and human independence.' This caption on the back cover compelled me to think again, would this book or any book be able to do full justice to that kind of caption ! But I was happy to be proven wrong..
I have re read this book many a times for the past 3 years and I still see the transformation..I would gladly admit my obsession with some of these lines..which any Douglass fan would instantly relate with..

1. To his uncommon memory, then, we must add a keen and accurate insight into men and things; an original breadth of common sense which enabled him to see, and weigh, and compare whatever passed before him, and which kindled a desire to search out and define their relations to other things not so patent, but which never succumbed to the marvelous nor the supernatural; a sacred thirst for liberty and for learning, first as a means of attaining liberty, then as an end in itself most desirable; a will; an unfaltering energy and determination to obtain what his soul pronounced desirable; a majestic self hood; determined courage; a deep and agonizing sympathy with the embruted, crushed and bleeding fellow slaves, and an extraordinary depth of passion, together with that rare alliance between passion and intellect, which enables the former, when deeply roused, to excite, develop and sustain the latter. (pg 11).

2. Prejudice was the result of condition, and could be conquered by the efforts of the degraded themselves. (pg 21)

3.Men do not love those who remind them of their sins - unless they have a mind to repent – and the mulatto child’s face is a standing accusation against him who is a master and father to the child (p46)

4. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, although it can pity him; and even this it cannot do long if the signs of power do not arise (p180).

5. The thought of only being a creature of the present and the past, troubled me, and I longed to have a future- a future with hope in it. (p200).

6. To make a contented slave, you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. (p233).

7. The time is but a speck, yet large enough to justify a pause for introspection (p265).

8. A man is sometimes made great, by the greatness of the abuse a portion of mankind may think proper to heap on him (p281).

Read it for once..at least.. ...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Jesse rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Douglass revises / refashions the original account of his slave years into a more persuasive instrument, adding detail about specific incidents and establishing a clear through-line dedicated to highlighting the logical inconsistencies of slavery. He downplays the rhetoric in this respect, going for a plain-spoken simplicity in the way he makes these points (he describes stealing meat from the smokehouse without compunction, since he was just transferring it from one unit of the master’s propert ...more

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Feb 18, 2013 Julius rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Slavery. Truly one of the darkest stains of American history. But through its black holds comes to us a shining example.
Mr. Frederick Douglas is, without a doubt, one of the greatest writers of all time. From slavery he arose to be counted among the distinguished, respected, and renowned. Yet it was not always so.
Douglas brings his skill as a writer and historian to bear in ‘My Bondage and My Freedom’ with such brilliant elegance as to enthrall the reader, and yet there is something so down to e ...more

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Jul 12, 2009 Nicholas rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: biography-memoir

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Quotes:

"Douglass was determined to let facts and theory, not personal pleading, bury slavery."

"A man who was born and brought up in slavery, a living witness of its horrors; who often himself experienced its cruelties; and who, despite the depressing influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to the distinguished position which he now occupies."

"There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so destructive as slavery. I ...more

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About Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass (née Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey). Born as a slave in Maryland in 1818, he was to become a renowned abolitionist, editor and feminist. Escaping from slavery at age 20, he renamed himself Frederick Douglass and became an abolition agent. Douglass traveled widely, often at personal peril, to lecture against slavery. His first of three autobiographies, The Narrative of the Frederick Douglass (née Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey). Born as a slave in Maryland in 1818, he was to become a renowned abolitionist, editor and feminist. Escaping from slavery at age 20, he renamed himself Frederick Douglass and became an abolition agent. Douglass traveled widely, often at personal peril, to lecture against slavery. His first of three autobiographies, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, was published in 1845. In 1847 he moved to Rochester, New York, and began publishing a weekly newspaper, North Star. Douglass was the only man to speak in favor of Elizabeth Cady Stanton 's controversial plank of woman suffrage at the first women's rights convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848. As a signer of the Declaration of Sentiments, Douglass also promoted woman suffrage in his North Star. Douglass and Stanton remained lifelong friends. In 1870 Douglass launched The New National Era out of Washington, D.C. He was nominated for vice-president by the Equal Rights Party to run with Victoria Woodhull as presidential candidate in 1872. He became US marshall of the District of Columbia in 1877, and was later appointed minister resident and consul-general to Haiti. His District of Columbia home is a national historic site. D. 1895.

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“The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one sixth of the population of democratic America is denied it's privileges by the law of the land. What is to be thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of it's humanity, boasting of its Christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?” — 42 likes

“A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnamity.” — 16 likes

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