Question

In the first paragraph of "Narrative of the life of Fredrick Douglass", Douglass writes, "By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs,” What does Douglass mean in this statement? Then he states, “and it is the wish of most masters to keep their slaves thus ignorant." Why would most slave masters want this?

Answer 1

It sounds like Fredrick Douglass was pointing out that slave masters didn't want their slaves to have knowledge such as reading and writing, let alone knowing their own ages and such.

Most slave masters wanted this so that they could feel superior over blacks, and they didn't want the slaves to be equal with them.