Wife of Hugh Auld. Shortly after a seven or eight-year-old Douglass was transferred to live with the Aulds in Baltimore, Maryland, Sophia began teaching Douglass how to read as she was not corrupted by unsparing power at that time. Hugh Auld, learning of this forbade her from teaching Douglass. Douglass depicts this conflict as key to his philosophy of education and literacy as a key path to freedom. Sophia’s increasing cruelty to Douglass following the incident serves Douglass’s claims regarding the corrupting capacities of enslavement.