Chapter 8 Summary

Douglass is caught off guard in Chapter 8 when he is suddenly called back to the place where he was born. This is due to the fact that his old master died without a will, so the master's property had to be valued so it could be split equally between the remaining heirs. Since Douglass was a slave, he was property, so he had to return to his birthplace to be valued with all of the other property. This made Douglass particularly angry, because he was more aware of the injustice of his confinement now that he was more educated. Douglass is now about ten or eleven years old in his narrative, and this was the first time he had been back to his birthplace since he was about five. Even so, he says he remembered the place very well.

Douglass says here that...