In Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, who was Douglass's father?

In Narrative of the Life of
, there is no definitive answer to who Douglass's father is because Douglass was
deprived of the information; however, Douglass says that common gossip told that his father was
his master.  In the third paragraph of Chapter 1, Douglass says that the only certainty is that
his father was a white man--all who spoke of Douglass's parents said as much.  Douglass was
taken from his mother after birth, and he did not know his mother until much later.  Such was a
common practice during slavery to break familial ties among slaves.  It was also common practice
for slave masters to rape female slaves or otherwise have sexual relations with them, so
Douglass thinks that the rumor of his father being his master is most likely
true.