"In 1841 Frederick Douglass attended an antislavery convention in Nantucket, Massachusetts; thereafter his role in the abolitionist movement would forever be sealed" (Quarles, 36). The Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave was written by Douglass in 1845 to give fuel to the abolitionist movement. Though it was revised many years later and appeared in final form, in 1882 under the title Life and Times of Frederick Douglass the message had already been given. The narrative was written in a way that stunned the souls of the people who read it; whole lives were forever altered by its power. I believe this was Douglass's intention when writing the narrative.
             Some people would argue that Douglass simply needed to portray the life he had fled from, and that his story was for the lives of slaves everywhere; but when examining Douglass's life after 1841 it is clear that his intentions had to be directed towards his cause, for he made no attempt at hiding the fact that his life was much different at
             the time of his writing the book from what it was like when he was in slavery.
             Douglass's name became a symbol for freedom and achievement. His skills as a speaker were amazing for a man of his history. In fact so impressive were Douglass's oratorical and intellectual abilities that opponents refused to believe he had ever been a slave and alleged that he was an imposter. They called him a "sympathetic force displayed to the public by the abolitionists" (Bontempts, 42). This allegation is what actually compelled Frederick to write his narrative. If anyone wanted to doubt the scars on his back, Frederick would give the world a detailed description of how he got them. And it was this description of his oppression and the horrors he had witnessed which made Frederick a hero of his people, and raised the abolitionist movement to a fevered state. They followed him not because he was an incre...