1. Frederick Douglass became friends with boys in the neighborhood in order to learn to read. He also traded bread with poor children in exchange for them teaching him to read. In odd times throughout the week, when he was sent on errands, or his master or mistress left the house, he found times to read. He learned to write by watcher workers by the docks carve letters into timber. From that point, he learned more letters by challenging neighborhood kids to see who could write more, knowing that the boys would know more than him, so he could learn it. He then copied down words from his master’s son’s spelling book when his mistress would leave the house.
2. After his mistress taught him the alphabet, he wanted to learn more, so he learned to read. This granted him immeasurable amounts of knowledge. He later learned to write, because he thought it would lead to his eventual escape from slavery. I think he also wanted to learn to read and write, because it would put him at the same level as the white people who had so much power over him.
3. Mr. Auld did not want Frederick Douglass to be literate, because he knew it would lead him to discover how terrible slavery is and what freedom might look like, as he learned from the book The Columbian Orator. He knew that if Douglass could read and write, he would think he did not deserve his current treatment and escape. His master also thought he might infect the minds of other slaves, tell them about the opportunity of freedom, and all his master’s slaves would leave him.
4. Frederick Douglass risked being abused or killed by his master or mistress by learning how to read and write.
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