Imagine yourself back in the early eighteen hundreds as black slave living on a plantation with death knocking on your door at any second. The only chance to survive this born-into captivity, is to humble yourself before a white master or attempt to escape to an unknown safe haven. To chance an escape would put your life at risk to the bounty hunters and cause severe brutality upon those you left behind. The only logical way to live one's life in these situations would be submissive from birth to death and to die quietly, so those remaining don't lose what little faith they have left. This is an example of the atrocities that occurred throughout our Great Nation's history, and will forever be a scar for everyone to see. One individual lived through this time period and wrote about what he saw and endured. Frederick Douglass wrote an autobiographical account, "The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself". This account of slavery is a prime example of what life on a plantation was like, and illustrates the effects of captivity, along with the sense of personal identity.
             Frederick Douglass wrote his first autobiography when he was about twenty-seven years old. This age, which he had given himself, was not an actual written account, but a verbal comment that his master made when Douglass was about age seventeen. "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it" (970). Douglass gives comments to the fact that he, and other slaves, was not allowed to know such information about themselves. If a slave would ask about their birthday or what age they were, harsh treatment would generally be the resulting answer. The only recollection of a slaves' birthday would revolve around the time of harvest during the seasons. "They seldom came nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spri...