While in slavery and even after gaining freedom, some slaves wrote down their recollection of that period during their lives. These recollections are called slave narratives- where the institution of slavery and its effects on the enslaved are naturally discussed. In correlation to the institution: color relations, gender relations, master and slave relations, and freedom are conferred in parallel. Although the narrators survived under the harsh premises of the slavery institution, their experiences are one in the same. William Wells Brown, Fredrick Douglass, and Mary Prince highlighted some of the same notions but because of gender, writing form, and location their stories are similar and dissimilar in many ways.
             The basic ideal for the slaves was freedom. They all believed that slavery was a harsh system and being free had to have better benefits for them. Douglas's narrative shows how white slaveholders perpetuate slavery by keeping their slaves ignorant Slave owners keep slaves ignorant of basic facts about themselves, such as their birth date or their paternity, "slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs." (Douglas, 255) This enforced ignorance robs children of their natural sense of individual identity. As slave children grow older, slave owners prevent them from learning how to read and write, as literacy would give them a sense of self sufficiency and capability. Slaveholders understand that literacy would lead slaves to question the right of whites to keep slaves. Just as slave owners keep men and women as slaves by depriving them of knowledge and education, slaves must seek knowledge and education in order to pursue freedom. It is from Hugh Auld that Douglass learns this notion that knowledge must be the way to freedom, as Auld forbids his wife to teach Douglass how to read and write because education ruins slaves. Douglass sees that Auld has unwittingly revealed the strategy by which whi...