Final answer:
Mr. Auld feared that teaching slaves to read and write would make them more rebellious, because literacy would provide them with the intellectual tools to seek freedom and question their oppression.
Step-by-step explanation:
Based on the account of Frederick Douglass and other historical references, Mr. Auld's theory that teaching slaves to read and write would make them more rebellious. Mr. Auld believed that literacy would give slaves a sense of autonomy that would lead to insubordination, making them of no value as slaves and upsetting the status quo.
Slavery and education had a complex relationship, with many slaveholders preventing literacy to maintain control; however, slaves sought to learn to read and write as it was an avenue to emancipation and defied the oppressive system. Literacy was not only a path to freedom for the enslaved, but it also allowed them to socialize into the larger society and as an act of defiance against the slave system.