Document on Frederick Douglass In the 1800s, slavery was a predominant issue in the United States, an issue that most Southern Americans faced on a daily basis. The account of Frederick Douglass's life reveals much about American history during the period of slavery and makes arguments for the abolition of slavery. As a historical document, it provides information about the slave family, work, master-slave relationship, and treatment and living conditions of slaves. As an anti-slavery treatise, it opposes common beliefs about the benefits of slavery and its morality, making strong points for getting rid of slavery. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass reveals, through the story he tells, "the core of what slavery meant, both to individuals and to the nation."(2) Slave families were often divided by the master who separated them. . Douglass states that mothers were often taken away before the child was one year old. He believes that this was probably done to break the bond of affection between the mother and the child. In Douglass' case, he remembered seeing his mother only four or five times, during the night, when she had to walk twelve miles each time just to be able to see her son for a while. When he died, Douglass was not allowed to go to his burial. He was simply told she died afterward. Douglass didn't feel great hearing the news because he barely knew her. Douglass also wrote about how slaves' family members were always at risk of being separated. They could be sold at the master's whim, or when the master died, the slaves were reunited with the rest of the property to be sold to different masters. Frederick Douglass tells how, after the death of his master, the... medium of paper... broad, when he tells of how the people who might be chosen to work on the Great House Farm sang songs full of great anguish. When he heard these songs, he had his “first inkling of the dehumanizing character of slavery.”(51) The second major idea was how knowledge equals power. His growing understanding of how education would be “the path from slavery to freedom.”(64) He recounts how the more his teacher, Mr. Auld, discussed his education, the more clearly he knew its supreme importance. His third main point was that freedom is essential for every human being. He showed in all his renderings a glimpse of this when he "imagines himself on one of the 'gallant decks' [of the ships], he speaks to us and to the ships in alternating voices of anguish and triumph, pouring out his 'soul's lament ' and by converting it into an unforgettable image of the meaning of freedom."(23)