The work of Douglass was one of the first African-American literary works, an important autobiography representing the black culture. Autobiographies were extremely popular in the 18th and 19th centuries, because people were looking for models. .
Benjamin Franklin can be considered to be the founder of the American Auto-Biography. People such as him considered that their life stories may be significant or meaningful to other people. Autobiographies enlarged the horizon of knowledge. However, they are not based entirely on fact, and as such, becoming a literary genre. They do not completely exclude reality though.
The autobiographer creates a story based on facts, trough aesthetic devices, striving to achieve originality. .
A movement towards freeing the black population appeared long before the Civil War. Through autobiographies, blacks strived to inform people on what life was as a slave. We must keep in mind that these autobiographies were possible partially because many of the slaves in the period were indentured. .
American slaves that were literate were becoming more and more interested in becoming a model for their race. Frederick Douglass was baptized as a Christian, hoping that once he would become a Christian, he would also gain his freedom. He was a Methodist. He published essays, as well as his autobiography. He proved a capacity for self-representation. .
Douglas was born in 1818. He was half white. His father was white, but was unknown. He publishes several works, including the "Life and times of Frederick Douglass" in 1881. By this time, he was famous, and he travelled to England frequently. As far as his first biography, written in 1845, the memories expressed within it are traumatizing. The central figure of these memories is the master, the enemy. A second figure is the overseer. The method of whipping comes to mind frequently, and there are several references towards the spectacle of this process.