The Classic Salve Narratives By Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

In the book The Classic Salve Narratives, edited and with an introduction by Henry Louis Gates, JR., contains a slave narrative; Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. This narrative is written by Frederick Douglass, in 1845, who was a former slave but escaped slavery. The narrative describes the horrors and injustices of American slavery, however, some pro-slavery forces might have argued that Douglass simply had the bad luck to have a series of cruel or incompetent owners. But this is not the case, because wherever there was slavery there was cruelty and injustices. Douglass begins his narrative by telling the reader about his childhood, how he had no idea about what slavery was, but throughout the rest of the narrative he explicitly explains to his reader by seeing it through his own eyes. He gives his reader an insight to the authority difference between a slave and his master, but the main purpose of this narrative was to show the world how slavery was from the inside. Do uglass proves this in his narrative by giving the reader some insight into the cruel brutality that happens between a slave and his slaveholder. He also describes how some â€Å"nice† slave owners can transform into an evil slave owner. Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland as Fredrick Bailey in 1817 or 1818. Just like many of the slaves, he has â€Å"no accurate knowledge of [his] age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.† (Gates 315) His mother Harriet Bailey was married