Excerpt 5: An Escape Attempt

Excerpt 5:
An Escape Attempt

​Cherish—to keep or take care  of something or someone you  hold dear

Multiple Choice

What does Douglass decide he will do in 1834?

• Escape from slavery
• Become a preacher
• Start a rebellion
• Move to a different plantation

Open Ended

Given some of Douglass’s  concerns about escaping to  freedom, what do you think  may have prevented other  slaves in the 1800s from  attempting to escape from  slavery? Use examples from the text.

​Prudence—caution 

Ascertain—figure out 

Multiple Choice

Imbue means...

• To extinguish or put out
• To enhance or improve
• To diminish or reduce
• To inspire or permeate with a feeling or quality.

Multiple Choice

Feasible is from the root fais, which means do or make. The suffix is able. Given that,  what do you think feasible  

means? 

• Capable of being done or made
• Unattainable
• Impossible to achieve
• Not worth considering

Open Ended

Recounted has the prefix  re, which means again. What does Douglass do again in this paragraph?  

Multiple Choice

Disposed means...

• To keep or store something
• To repair or fix something
• inclined, or to have a desire to

• To clean or organize something

​bondage- captivity

Multiple Choice

Gaining the end might mean...

• Success
• Failure
• Defeat
• Accomplishment

​Sentinel—a soldier or guard  whose job is to stand and keep  watch 

Shunned—deliberately 

avoided someone or  

something

Multiple Choice

“its robes already crimsoned with the blood of millions, and even now feasting itself greedily upon our own flesh”?

What type of figurative language is Douglass using here in this quote?

• Metaphor
• Simile
• Hyperbole
• Personification

Open Ended

What are two of Douglass’s concerns about trying to escape from slavery?

​Patrick Henry, a delegate  from Virginia who was  

trying to get his state to join  the Revolutionary War,  wrote a speech where he  said, “Give me liberty or  give me death!”

Multiple Choice

Why does Douglass so clearly explain the dangers of trying to escape?

• Douglass thought that escaping would lead to better treatment by slave owners
• Douglass shows how awful slavery was because slaves would rather take the chance that they might die than continue to be slaves.

• Douglass believed that escaping was the only way to freedom
• Douglass wanted to make escaping seem easy and safe

​Adrift—not fastened to anything; a boat that is adrift  will float away

Open Ended

What was the escape plan?

Multiple Choice

Purpose here means...

• The shape of a design, or the shape in general

• The reason or intended outcome behind a particular action or decision.
• The color, shape, and size of an object

• The size of a room along with the amount of people that can fit in it

Multiple Choice

Liable here means...

• Unreliable
• Responsible or accountable

• Incompetent
• Not responsible

Multiple Choice

If someone is subjected to something, then they are...

• protected from it
• avoided it
• exposed to or forced to endure it
• embraced it

Open Ended

What does Douglass mean when he says, “We are betrayed?”

What happened to their plan to escape?

Multiple Choice

What set of context clues helps you figure out what lash means?

• seize, tied, hands closely  together 

• satisfaction, inquired, hands

• at once, tied, without 

• tied, insisted, scrape

Multiple Choice

What does Henry refuse to do?

• surrender
• yield
• give up
• concede

Multiple Choice

“This he said in a tone of loud defiance; and at the same time, with a motion as quick as lightning, he with one single stroke dashed the pistols from the hand of each constable.”

What does “defiance” mean in this sentence?

• behavior that shows you are unhappy with someone

• behavior that shows you are angry with someone

• behavior that shows you refuse to do what someone tells you to do, especially because you do not respect them

• behavior that shows you are moving quickly

Open Ended

Create a statement that describes the type of person Henry is.

​Propriety—recommended action or behavior

Multiple Choice

Why were Douglass and his friends “not yet convicted on the intention to run away”?

• No one had found their forged passes, so they didn’t know they were planning to escape.

• They were too scared to attempt an escape
• They were not aware of the consequences of running away
• They were caught before they could make any plans

Multiple Choice

What does Douglass mean by “own nothing”?

• Douglass had no sense of ownership
• Douglass was not allowed to have any possessions
• Douglass was not responsible for anything
• Douglass is telling the slaves not to admit to any of their escape plan

Open Ended

What would happen if one slave confessed to the plan?

​Utter—complete

Learn a trade—to learn to do a particular craft, such as making clocks or boats or weaving cloth

Multiple Choice

Where do the constables take Douglass?

• hospital
• school
• park
• jail

Open Ended

How does this excerpt support the position Douglass held that slavery is terrible for slaves?

Open Ended

How does this excerpt support the position Douglass held that slavery corrupts slave holders?