...author of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass writes at the beginning of his account that he "was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about...twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County Maryland." As his biographer, Benjamin Quarles, notes: "The man [Douglass] is the exclusive authority on the early...

...Articulating where he is becomes Douglass's way of knowing and presenting who he is, The full sentence reads, "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about...twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland" (23 ). Douglass's use of geography here accomplishes two purposes: first, his control of language,...

...physical opposition but also through an opposition of space and time. The Narrative begins, "I was bom in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." Douglass knows the physical circumstances of his birth: Tuckahoe, we know, is near Hillsborough and...

...was part of slavery's strategy to deprive blacks of all the elements of identity, even a birthday. "By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs," Douglass writes in the opening lines of the Narrative, "and it is the wish of most masters within my...

...describes himself thus: I was bom in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easlon in Talbot County, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age. never having seen any accurate record containing it. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever...

...book, when, in the first of many such comparisons, he explicitly sets himself on a par with animals: I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about...larger part of the slaves know as little of their age as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their...

...pursue reading at a tender age. Instead, he speaks of his early sorrow at another kind of ignorance: I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. ... A want of information concerning my own [birthdate] was a source of unhappiness to me even during...

...(1845) frequently returns to this strategy throughout its analysis of the entire system of slavery. Slaves know "as little of their ages as horses know of theirs" (21); the children were called to a trough "like so many pigs, and like so many pigs they would come...

...sequence of many other items of information he does not know. He is, in effect, defining knowledge: I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any autltentic record containing it. By far the larger pan of the slaves know as little oftlieir ages as...

...what Althusser takes as normative, did not know his father's name. Douglass describes himself thus: I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about...accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any accurate record containing it. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever...