Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

I have read many original narratives of life under American slavery, but Douglass' is unique in its reflection on how the system of American enslavement exposed aspects of our humanity. He is deeply perceptive both about the effect of the system on himself (and other enslaved people) and on the white slaveholders. Yes, he offers plenty of detail about the physical violence of being enslaved by "man-stealers," but it's his sharing of the psychological, emotional, and mental torture of that system and the people who ran it that will stay with me. His analysis of the effect of trying to own people on a previously-kind woman or his insight into why certain slaveholders acted as they did are invaluable. And his description of the friendships that were so strong as to argue against escape were terribly poignant. I found most profound his lament that if he could go but a mere 100 miles north, he would be free. One country, with freedom or enslavement dependent on where you landed on the line. It tortured Douglass and puts the lie to the idea of America as "the land of the free." It was a situation that could not stand, and didn't, and Douglass makes the truth of that clear.