William Gould’s diary held one of the most striking collections of writings I noticed in the text. His writing was incredibly straightforward and can perhaps seem even boring to someone who did not know who was writing and during what time; however, it shocked me because I was expecting to find texts more similar to Thomas Ducket’s letter in 1850. For instance, that letter was very important because he had lost his family and was writing a plea to a white abolitionist. There, you can sense the level of urgency in his words. There are also a lot of spelling and grammatical mistakes since slaves did not receive a proper education.  

One of the reasons that they were not taught to read was mentioned early in chapter one, when a slave owner states “Why, don’t you see? You begin teaching niggers, and having reading and writing, and all these things, going on, and they begin to open their eyes, and look around and think; and they are having opinions of their own, they won’t take yours; and they want to rise directly.” (32) This part directly correlated to the moment in Frederick Douglass’ narrative when he overhears his slave master tell his mistress that Douglass could not learn because it was too powerful. Writing was seen as a very inspiring and liberating force which brings me back to why I liked William Gould’s diary entries a lot. 

The diary entry states: 

“Sun. Sept. 27th
At Beaufort, N.C. We coald ship all night and until ten O clock. we then up anchor. hauld alongside of the store ship (Wm. Badger.) for the purpose of takeing more Coal. and stores on board.  

Mon. Sept. 28th At Beaufort. finishd Coaling to day. took in stores. fine day.” (110) 

 This was the first moment I saw writing being simple and not being used in a very serious or inspiration way in the text. This seemed even more important because it depicted a Black man becoming comfortable enough with the writing to use it on a regular basis and get into the habit of writing every day. It looked like it was normal to just write down those events even though it’s clear more was happening in his life than those mere events. He was a slave who had just escaped yet was writing in a mundane way. It was also very easy to understand what he was describing. It sounded like he had a lot of practice writing and normalized the experience of an escaped slave writing for both him and the reader. 

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