"All sorts of slavery exist, mental, physical, spiritual, and others types. While physical slavery is the most common understanding of the word, it is not often forgotten that it is closely connected with the others. To free yourself of one slavery only reveals your enslavement of another type of slavery."
Douglass endures and overcomes several types of slavery in his lifetime. The first type, and also the most known, is physical slavery. We see in the Narrative that Douglass is exposed to this physical pain and suffering as soon as he is born. Douglass continues enduring it all through is young adult life. He escapes this physical slavery at the age of 20. As soon as Douglass arrived in New York, he overcame the bodily aspect of slavery.
The second type of slavery is mental. An example of this type would be the constant, continuous verbal abuse the slaves received from their masters. Douglass is exposed to this type when he is mature enough to understand what is being said to him. Douglass must endure this for as long as he has to endure physical slavery. One of the cruel thing of their time was that the slaves would be verbally abused no matter how well they were doing physically. Overcoming this type of slavery is almost impossible. After Douglass escaped from physical slavery, the mental wounds and scars still echoed in his mind.
These two types of slavery are the most common and the most difficult to understand. By the Narrative he wrote, we see and understand how Frederick Douglass dealt with and endured the physical and mental captivity. Through history and other biographies, we see how he overcame physical slavery and controlled the never ending mental slavery that still affects millions today.
