Vicente Aravena

Question #1
The Significance of Keeping Slaves Incognizant

In the book Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave Douglass
narrates his life like a highway map, showing us the road from slavery to freedom. At the
beginning of the book, Douglass is a slave in both body and mind. By the end of the book, he
acquires both his legal and mental freedom. If the book is like a highway map, then the mile
markers are a series of moments of realization, as he goes along. These moments are turning
points in Douglass' life, but they demonstrate how he got there, and what he learned along the
way. One of the most important skills Douglass learned was how to read. At one point in the
book Mr. Auld, a slaveholder, is overheard saying: Reading would forever unfit (the slave) to be
a slave, because it makes him discontented and unhappy (78). Mr. Auld and other slaveholders
believed that if slaves were literate, they would become smarter and more powerful than the
slaveholders and would eventually retaliate.
Slaveholders used tactics to keep slaves in submission in their economy of dominion.
The economy of dominion include tactics such as: dehumanization, keeping slaves incognizant,
and brutality. The slaveholders dehumanized them by not giving the slaves birthdays, no
records of their parents, and no times/dates. By denying the slave any sense of self, the slaves
did not know any better than to just follow the slaveholders orders. The slaveholders feared
retaliation by the slaves, so to prevent retaliation they had to keep them as ignorant as possible.
The only way to keep slaves ignorant was to keep them incognizant. They were not taught to
read or write. The slaves were also exposed to brutal public beatings, that they either had to

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Question #1
witness or unwillingly participate in. All of these tactics helped put fear into the eyes of the
slaves and power to the slaveholders.

When slaves began to teach each other, the slaveholders noticed that the slaves were
getting harder to manage. Anytime the slaves acted out the slaveholders took the slaves to a
public place where everyone on the plantation could watch and they would punish them
severely. Another big problem with teaching the slaves to read was the more they learned, the
cognizant they became about their situation. The more they figured out their situation, the less
satisfied they were working for their slaveholder. Mr. Auld revealed literacy was the key to
freedom, Douglass recognized that literacy can invert the economy of dominion and he took it
into his hands to establish himself and his life.
Douglass slowly but surely inverted the economy of dominion by teaching himself how to
read and write. He did this by using trickery. He would approach kids that he knew excelled in
writing and reading and tell them he could write as well as them. He followed up by saying: I
don't believe you. Let me see you try it (87). He would make out the letters which he had
previously learned and asked the children to beat that. After several years he had finally
succeeded in learning how to write. Once he mastered writing he slowly began to establish
himself and when he was twenty years old he escaped from his master and started his new life.

Vicente Aravena
Question #1
In his autobiography, Fredrick Douglass displays the significance of learning to read and
write. Once a slave knows how to read and write, it spoils them because they are of less value
to the slaveholder because they are harder to manage, more likely to run/retaliate, and not as
afraid of the slaveholder. Historically, these facts tell us that the more educated one was during
this time the more the more powerful one was. In todays world it is very similar. In the United
States and elsewhere worldwide, scholars have shown a direct correlation between levels of
literacy, wealth, poverty and the general quality of life. Studies consistently show that income
rises with the number of years people attend college (Maxwell). Because of this reality,

education, business, religious, civic and political leaders at all levels in America should put
reading and literacy at the top of their agendas. Literacy is especially important in this country
because we are a democracy. We must be literate and be able to comprehend the issues that
are important to the greatest number of people over time. To be literate is to be intellectually
empowered, and to be intellectually empowered means you are on the way to being individually
free.

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Works Cited
Douglass, Fredrick. Narrative of the Life of Fredrick Douglass, An American Slave. New York
New York: Penguin, 1982. Print.
Maxwell, Bill. "Literacy Is Freedom." Role Models Today. University of Florida, 20 Apr. 2012.
Web. 8 Apr. 2015.

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Question #1