Page 1-12

I think that the purpose of the first two paragraphs was to give the reader a little bit of background information. With out the two letters in the introduction I don't think that the readers would have as good of an understand of what it is they are reading and will be reading about. What I think about chapter one is that slaves had a hard life. Slaves didn't know their exact age all that they were aware of was what was close to what they thought was their age. To me I think that it is weird to not  know when your birth date is and to know how old you are, but I guess that was just the culture then. What I also think is weird is that a mother and child got weened when the child was at such a young age and grew up not knowing who their mother and father were. On page 11 the second paragraph it talks bout how slaves could not leave unless they were granted permission to do so by there masters. it only happened occasionally that a master would allow his slave to leave. The master then would be known as a kinda master which may or may not have been a good thing to be called.  In Fredrick Douglass's case it was a said that his father was also his master which he never really new was true or not. I don't think that I could even imagine not knowing who my birth father was. Slaves suffered a lot more then most people did at the time , they had greater hardships which to me is unfair and abusive to one another. They try to put of that slavery is right and yes some might believe so but I do not. What I don't like is how on page 12 the third paragraph he talks about how the overseer took pleasure in whipping slaves and that the louder they yelled the harder he whipped.