My Bondage and My Freedom is an autobiographical slave narrative written by Frederick Douglass and published in 1855. Highest recommendation! Frederick Douglass adopted February 14 as his birthday because his mother Harriet Bailey used to call him her "little valentine". Douglass was born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where slaves were punished for learning to read or write and so could not keep records. Based on the records of Douglass' former owner Aaron Anthony, Douglass was born in February 1818. My Bondage and My Freedom is a deep meditation on the meaning of slavery, race, and freedom, and on the power of faith and literacy, as well as a portrait of an individual and a nation a few years before the Civil War. As his narrative unfolds, Frederick Douglass - abolitionist, journalist, orator, and one of the most powerful voices to emerge from the American civil rights movement - transforms himself from slave to fugitive to reformer, leaving behind a legacy of social, intellectual, and political thought.