Slave owners were expected to treat slaves as something less than human, which caused slave owners to impose reprimands cruel and barbaric towards them. Frederick Douglass argues that slavery manipulates a person's identity, primarily due to social expectations. There were rules and laws to follow regarding slaves; among the main problems, slaves had no reason to know how to read or write, while Douglass was taught by an oblivious Mrs. Auld. Douglass's mistress had never owned a slave before Douglass, so Mrs. Auld did not know how she was supposed to treat a slave. Frederick Douglass recounts how kind and generous Mrs. Auld was before her husband taught her the “proper” way to treat a slave. “I saw her rush at me with the greatest fury and snatch from my hands this newspaper or that book, with something of the anger and consternation that one might suppose a traitor would feel when he would be discovered in a plot by a dangerous spy.” (Douglas 101). The system of slavery corrupted the good-natured character of slave owners because it was an institution based on unnatural values ​​that was only accepted due to the immoral social justifications of that period of American history and