A Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass Summary and Analysis

Fredrick Douglass is born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, the son of a slave woman named Harriet Bailey and grandson of Isaac and Betsey Bailey. His father is a white man, possibly his mother's master. Douglass and his mother are separated by the time he is a year old and Douglass notes that this practice is likely designed to eliminate the possibility of familial ties - and that it's successful in this goal. His mother sometimes slips in to sleep with him but is not allowed to miss work for any reason and so is always gone by the time he wakes. He notes that she dies suddenly and that he had little emotion upon hearing the news, but that he never learns the true identity of his father...