Learning to Read and Write Frederick Douglas was born during the slave trade in Talbot County, Maryland. He was sent to work on a plantation for Hugh's family for about seven years. This is where his learning truly began. His mistress was a "kind, kind-hearted woman" who treated Frederick as a human being rather than as property owned by the family. This was a dangerous thing for both parties at that historical moment when it was considered wrong. Frederick states that “slavery proved as harmful to her as it was to me,” which I see the connection she had made to her personality change due to slavery. She had heavenly qualities that slavery managed to deprive her of. It was bad for Fredrick not only because of the whippings that an ointment would receive, but also that his former teacher would stop teaching him. Starting to follow her husband's teachings that forbade her to teach slaves, she became violent. Douglas says that "nothing made her more angry than seeing me with a newspaper" and this led her to rush at Frederick with a furious face and take the newspaper away. His former lover who gave him his first lesson expressed his newfound apprehension about the coexistence of education and slavery. His mistress gave him an inch by teaching Douglas the alphabet now that he was about to go the mile. He began making friends with white boys he met on the street while running errands around town. Federico always took a book and some bread with him when he left for the city. The boys who wanted to teach him were paid with bread, of which they were allowed to have plenty. The white boys who taught him were considerably poor compared to the family who called Frederick “chattels.” Young Frederick spoke powerful words to two of his teachers who lived in Phil...... middle of paper ...... far from traditional as he could have no evidence of learning, so he wrote with chalk or charcoal board fences, brick walls and pavement. When his mistress left Douglas to look after the house in her absence, he would take the discarded exercise books that his teacher Thomas brought home from school and continue to practice in the blank spaces left behind. Fredrick soon began to write in a similar way to Thomas and after years of tedious effort he finally learned to write. With little outside help it is a great achievement to self-taught the English language. Even though it is my first language, I have considered it throughout my educational career, and I have not been prohibited from learning it, I can still find our language difficult. Although with practice, continuous efforts and encouragement from teachers, as time goes by I find it easier and easier to express myself through literature.