My Bondage and My Freedom

Published in 1855, 'My Bondage and My Freedom' is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass. It is the second of three autobiographies written by Douglass, and is mainly an expansion of his first (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass), discussing in greater detail his transition from bondage to liberty. It was written after ten years of reflection following his legal emancipation in 1846. It is an important document of the state of race relations and the politics of slavery leading up to the American Civil War and in its pages we find the voice that made Frederick Douglass one of the nation's most prominent figures in the American Anti-Slavery movement as well as an intimate portrait of his life.