Appendixes Autobiography Volume 2
Appendix A. Reader Responses, 1855-56
The following are contemporary published reviews of Bondage and Freedom located by the editors. Those lengthy passages excerpted from Bondage and Freedom have been abridged. Deleted passages are indicated by ellipses and by bracketed notations of their page and line numbers in both the Yale edition and the 1855 copy-text. Some reader responses could be found only in Douglass's own newspaper.
LIFE IN BONDAGE AND FREEDOM. [Anon.] New York Daily Tribune, 15 August 1855. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
If success in life is any criterion of ability, Frederick Douglass has fairly won his claim to the title of an uncommonly able man. He has overcome obstacles which no one in his position has ever before been called to encounter. Doomed by his birth to bondage, ignorance, and degradation, he has literally broken the fetters of Slavery, secured his place as an equal in the ranks of freemen, attained distinction as a writer, public speaker, and member of an intellectual profession, and gained possession of an influence which he has nobly exerted in behalf of human rights. The life of such a person belongs to history. The truthful narrative of its events must be full of instruction as well as of exciting interest. Confined to plain matters of fact, without the embellishments of fancy, it would present a study equally significant to the philanthropist and the student of human nature. The author has wisely taken this view of the subject, and endeavored to give merely a literal transcript of his past experience. He claims that there is not a fictitious name or place in the whole volume, and that every transaction occurred as therein described. We know no reason to mistrust the accuracy of this statement. His story reads like an "o'er true tale." It exhibits all the natural marks of probability. Nothing is related to which a parallel may not be discovered in other veracious accounts of Southern life. At the same time the startling revelations which abound in his volume, give it the glow and often the pathos of a high-wrought fiction.
Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, a barren, famine-stricken, and unhealthy district on the eastern shore of Maryland. Like other slaves he is ignorant of his age, though from certain events, the dates of which have come to his knowledge, he supposes that his birth took place about the year 1817. His earliest remembrances were of the family of his grandmother and grandfather. They were advanced in life, and had long lived on the spot where they then resided. His old grandmother was a distinguished personage among the blacks, and was even held by the whites in
usually high esteem. She was a good nurse, a capital hand at making nets for shad and herring, and a successful amateur in the cultivation of sweet potatoes. In this way she became a universal favorite, and received so many presents that she enjoyed a certain degree of luxury. Her dwelling was a log hut, built of clay, wood, and straw. The possession of a separate cabin was a privilege of negro aristocracy, accorded either to her faithful services or her infirm old age. Living thus with the happy old couple, it was a long time before Frederick discovered that he was a slave. The inevitable fact dawned upon his mind by degrees, and he learned the existence of a mysterious individual who bore the ominous title of “old master.” This was the chief clerk and butler on the home-plantation of Col. Lloyd, owning himself several farms in Tuckahoe. Col. Lloyd's plantation was situated on the Wye River, some twelve miles from Tuckahoe. Frederick's first experience of Slavery was his removal from the cabin of his grandmother to the house of “old master,” on the great baronial domain of Col. Lloyd. This was a long brick building, plain, but substantial, standing in the center of plantation life, and constituting an independent establishment on the premises of the lordly proprietor. The plantation was dotted over with dwellings of various sizes, occupying every nook and corner not devoted to cultivation. Beside these there were barns, stables, storehouses, and tobacco-houses, blacksmiths' shops, wheelwrights' shops, coopers’ shops, and all the appurtenances of industry on a large scale. The “Great House” in which lived Col. Lloyd and his family, was the object of wonder to all eyes. “It was surrounded by numerous . . . [39.38-40.23/66.32-68.4] . . . of their wild, warbling notes.”
These all belonged to the young slave boy, as well as to Col. Lloyd, and for a time were a source of great enjoyment to him. The business of twenty or thirty farms, all belonging to Col. Lloyd, was transacted at the “great house farm.” Each farm was under the management of an overseer. Col Lloyd was reported at that time to be very rich. His slaves, numbering not less than one thousand, were an immense fortune in themselves. One or more lots of these were sold almost every month to the Georgia traders, but without making any apparent diminution of the stock. Horseshoeing, cart-mending, coopering, grinding and weaving for all the neighboring farms were performed here by the slaves. “Uncle Tony” was the “boss” blacksmith—Uncle Harry, the cartwright—Uncle Abel, the shoemaker—and all had hands to assist them in their several departments.
Among other slave notabilities of the plantation was an old fellow called by everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. The surname was a special distinction, as the slave very seldom gets one of any kind at the South. According to Douglass, negroes fare but little better in that respect among the Northern Abolitionists, who rarely give a surname to their colored proteges. "The only improvement on the "Bills," "Jacks," "Jims" and "Neds" of the South observable here is that "William," "John," "James," "Edward," are substituted.
But now and then as in case of Uncle Isaac Copper, a slave gets a surname fastened to him, and holds it in spite of conventional etiquette. This negro was
sometimes dubbed also with the epithet "doctor," being a distinguished light both in the professions of medicine and divinity. Where he took his degree remains a mystery to this day, but he was too eminent in his vocation to permit a question either as to his attainments or his native skill. "One qualification he undoubtedly had— . . . [42.13-20/71.3-13] . . . Lord’s Prayer, and hickory switches!” The Doctor was schoolmaster, it seems, in addition to his other learned functions. Here is a specimen of the manner in which he trained the tender minds of his charge:
I was not long at . . . [42.21-43.3/71.14-72.13] . . . again would come the lash.
With regard to the physical condition of the slaves, Mr. Douglass’s experience contradicts the frequent belief that they are better off than the peasantry of any country in the world.
The men and the women . . . [59.3-61.28/100.17-105.3] . . . so comes and goes another.
In contrast with the squalid poverty of the slaves, we have a glowing picture of the wealth and luxury which are at the foundation of the widely celebrated hospitality of the South.
The close-fisted stinginess that . . . [62.25-64.33/107.12-111.7] . . . dazzle and charm was done.
But the glitter of the surface must not be taken as an evidence of the satisfaction which prevailed within the interior of the domicile.
I had excellent opportunities of . . . [65.17-66.38/112.8-114.29] . . . kneel to receive a whipping.
Upon the coming of a new overseer to the plantation, such acts of atrocity were committed as led Mr. Douglass to suspend his personal narrative for a "chapter of horrors.” We give a single specimen:
The name of the new . . . [69.20-71.24/119.15-123.2] . . . place where he had stood.
As to his own personal condition, while yet a boy, take the following description:
As I have before intimated . . . [76.16-77.6/132.4-133.15] . . . was sure to whip me.
At ten years of age young Frederick was sent from Col. Lloyd's plantation to Baltimore, having been presented by “old master" to a family of his relatives in that city. This Mr. Douglass regards as one of the most fortunate events of his life. He escaped the rigors of Slavery before his spirit had been crushed by the iron rule of the slaveholder. So important was the influence of this step on his future life that he
regards it "as a special interposition of Divine Providence in his favor." "This thought," says he, "is a part of my . . . [80.30-38/139.23-140.5] . . . I offer thanksgiving and praise."
During the first part of his Baltimore life he was treated with comparative kindness, his external condition was comfortable, and after many difficulties he succeeded in learning the art and mystery of reading and writing. At length knowledge brings discontent. He was no longer the same light-hearted, gleesome boy,full of mirth and play, as when he first landed at Baltimore. He often wished himself a beast or a bird rather than a slave. He became wretched and gloomy beyond description. He was too thoughtful to be happy, and soon the burden of bondage became intolerable to his spirit. After many vicissitudes, including change of master and residence, which are here related with thrilling effect, Douglass determines to make a bold push for freedom. His first attempt was not successful. At a subsequent period he accomplished his purpose, and after overcoming incredible difficulties, makes his way to the Free States. This was in the year 1838. A full account is given of his first experience as a free man, and the successive steps by which he has reached his present distinguished position. Although the volume naturally declines in interest after the escape of the author from the house of bondage, it cannot fail to be read with avidity as one of the most striking illustrations of American Slavery which either fact or fiction has presented to the public. It abounds in scenes of breathless excitement, often curdling the blood with horror, and revealing the miseries of servile life with an intense vividness scarcely surpassed by the most impressive descriptions of recent popular romance.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM. [Anon.]. Utica Morning Herald, 16 August 1855. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS is a remarkable man.—Born in slavery, winning his own liberty, and entering upon responsibilities of life in freedom about the time he attained his majority, he has been petted by many of wealth and intelligence, and has given evidence of a mind of rare vigor and comprehensiveness. As a writer and speaker, he ranks with the most effective and natural, after our master authors and orators. The life of such a man is important in these days, and has not a little bearing on slavery and its future. This book is written forcibly and neatly, and to those who are not altogether weary with all topics relating to slavery, will be quite interesting. The details of the author's personal experience as a slave, are suggestive of the possible character in freedom of the beings now held as chattels.
A good likeness of DOUGLASS, and engravings showing the contrast between the North and the South are given, and the volume is handsomely issued.
NEW PUBLICATION. [Anon.]. Buffalo Morning Express and Daily Democracy, 17 August 1855. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
This work relates to the history of a remarkable man, who has lived twenty-
one years a slave and seventeen years a free man, and even under the adverse circumstances of color and condition, now stands out in the world as one of the brightest and best cultivated intellects of the age. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, as a speaker and writer, has few superiors for eloquence, powers of description and vigor of thought in this or any other country.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM, as a work of intrinsic merit, speaks volumes in praise of the man, his intellect and culture. The incidents of his life, woven up in the web of narrative by his polished and classical mind and graceful pen, are full of interest, and command the admiration while they excite the astonishment of the reader. Slavery and Freedom, in all their length and breadth, are discussed and contrasted in this work with a power that must convict the dullest apprehension of the degenerating influence of the one and the elevating effects of the other.
For sale by WANZER, McKIM & Co.
NEW BOOK. [Anon.]. Daily Ohio State Journal, 18 August 1855. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855: New York Radical Abolitionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
We have received from the publishers, Messrs. Miller, Orton & Mulligan, New-York, the new book of FREDERICK DOUGLASS, entitled "My Bondage and My Freedom," in two parts, the first embracing his Life as a Slave, the second part his Life as a Freeman, with an introduction by Dr. James M'Cune Smith.
We predict for this book a wide circulation. It is a plain narrative of the experience of the writer, written in a clear and impressive style: and having been written by a man whose life to early manhood was spent in actual bondage will of itself secure for it a general perusal. We venture to say, speaking from our own experience, notwithstanding our pretty full acquaintance with the subject, that few will take it up without going through with it, at least the first part.
The reader will find in the narrative a series of facts, detailed from personal experience, which will rivet his attention and lead him on from page to page. We know what Slavery is in the abstract, but here we have it in reliable detail. Take the following account of his personal condition in boyhood:
"As I have before intimated . . . [76.16-77.6/132.4-133.15] . . . was sure to whip me."
Such detail brings reflection. And the writer goes on with his hard experiences through his slave life, giving facts and incidents of engrossing and thrilling interest. We pause as we read, and ask can these things be so? We have before listened to the homely tale of the liberated slave, but it did not impress us as does this narrative of Douglass, for the reason that we were left to supply the commentary which is here pressed upon us by one who has both seen and felt what he relates. The story bears throughout the impress of truth, and the manner in which it is told stamps the
writer as a man of genius and a high order of talent. The publishers have done an acceptable work in laying it before the public.
NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Anon.]. Buffalo Daily Courier, 20 August 1855. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
There is much in this volume to interest the general reader. The story of the author’s life is well told, and the exciting incidents connected with it impart a romantic flavor to the whole.—And yet we are told that it is every word truth, and that every name mentioned is that of an actual person, and that every locality has an existence in fact. While there is much in the opinions expressed by Mr. DOUGLASS which we cannot approve, we are free to award a high order of merit to the production. The author has talent, he has been educated in the stern school of adversity, and he throws his whole soul into the mission with which he considers himself charged. We are compelled to admire the character of the man, and the narrative of his bondage and freedom will do no harm.
Mr. DOUGLASS is a spirited and pointed writer, and his oratory will hear favorable comparison with any of our public speakers. There is thought and reason in all he says, and though his language is sometimes bitter, it is usually calm, dignified and earnest. As a specimen of his style we give the following:—
COL. LLOYD'S PLANTATION.
It is generally supposed that . . . [36.28-38.38/61.13-65.9] . . . of life, activity and spirit.
LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS. [ Anon.]. Rochester Daily American, 20 August 1855. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855: New York Radical Abo litionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
The author of this autobiography has had a more remarkable career than any other person of color in the United States. Inferior to none of his own race, and equaled by few whites in natural endowment, he has attained a name and position which few black men could aspire to with hope of success. This book describes the incidents of his extraordinary life—incidents which distance fiction and almost defy belief. The volume will find many readers outside the circle of those who agree with its author in political opinion. Mr. D. has resided in this city and published a weekly journal for about eight years. Of his ability as an orator the public here and elsewhere have had abundant opportunity to judge: and we suppose that none have ever listened to his graceful elocution, his cutting satire, and his frequent bursts of eloquence without wonder that a man who emerged from the dense darkness of slavery after reaching his manhood,—who in fact learned his alphabet after coming to maturity, could deservedly rank among the first orators of the day.
We are indebted to the publishers for a copy of the work.
FRED. DOUGLASS' NEW BOOK. [Anon.]. Syracuse Wesleyan, 22 August 1855.
The result has been as we anticipated. This new work is to be the work of the season. A second edition was put to press within one week of the issue of the first five thousand which were all used up in three days. Our office ordered one-tenth of the whole. An equal number is to be forwarded to us from the second edition.
To show the high tone and elevated sentiments of the author we quote the following letter from Mr. Douglass, written in answer to the urgent solicitations of a friend, that he should prepare the memoirs of his "Life as a Slave" and "His Life as a Freeman," will indicate the motives which induced him to comply.
ROCHESTER, N.Y., July 2, 1855.
DEAR FRIEND:—I have long entertained . . . [5.18-6.37/vi.4-viii.2] . . . which you so enthusiastically anticipate.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
COL., LLOYD'S PLANTATION.—From the fore-going work, we extract the following graphic picture of the one man power—the absolute despotism of slavery, even in Maryland. Col. Lloyd it should be understood, was Fred's Master and the owner of a thousand slaves! No ancient Baron ever had, or exercised greater power than he.
It is generally supposed that . . . [36.28-38.30/61.13-64.29] . . . relates to humanity and morals.
LITERARY NOTICES. [Anon.]. Boston and Portland Zion's Herald and Wesleyan Journal, 29 August 1855.
—This is an autobiography of Frederick Douglass, so well known as a lecturer on slavery. It details the particulars of his life in graphic style, and while extremely interesting in itself, is valuable as a picture of slavery and as a contribution towards its overthrow. The reader will have to make some allowances for Mr. D.'s peculiar prejudices in some instances, but as a whole he will accord to it his approval. He will certainly be intensely interested in its contents. Let it be freely circulated.—Miller, Orton & Mulligan, New York.
SLAVERY AND FREEDOM. [Anon.]. London Empire, 1 September 1855.
Many works have within the last few years have been written and published in the United States to illustrate the evils, enormities, dangers, and guilt of Slavery. No other works have been as widely read as some of these. Uncle Tom's Cabin, by Harriet Beecher Stowe, and The White Slave, by Richard Hildreth, may be cited as examples. The reason is obvious: the subject is an all-engrossing one, and deeply, though variously, affects the interests, the politics, and the feelings of every American. Slavery is the great question which occupies the thoughts of the universal people. The problem to be solved is—whether the largest liberty is compatible with the rankest despotism—or, rather, whether Slavery shall spread itself over the
entire extent of the American soil, or Liberty shall triumph, and Republican institutions be purged from their deformity and disgrace.
A valuable addition has just been made to the Anti-Slavery literature of the United States, by the publication of the self-written life of Frederick Douglass—his life in slavery, and his life as a free man. The author, in explaining the motives which had led him to give the history of his own remarkable career to the world. says:—
“It is not to illustrate . . . [6.7-16/vii.6-18] . . . can scarcely be innocently withheld.”
The majority of our readers do not require to be told that Frederick Douglass is among the most eloquent of living men—that his descriptive and declamatory powers are of the highest order—and that his talents as a writer are not inferior to those which he has displayed as a speaker. His present work is written in a style at once terse, vigorous, frank, and ingenuous. It sustains his high reputation as a close observer, an original thinker, and a nervous, and, at the same time, elegant composer. That it will be widely read on both sides of the Atlantic we have no doubt: we are also confident that its facts, arguments, and impassioned appeals, will increase the depth of that detestation with which the slavery of America is already regarded, and will hasten its overthrow.
On a future occasion we shall undertake a more general review of the work which has just emanated from the pen of one of the most remarkable men of the present age. Till then, a few extracts will suffice to indicate the style and contents of the volume, and to beget a desire to possess and peruse it, when (as we hope it soon will be) it shall be reproduced by the press of this country. Here is a glimpse at
A SLAVE PLANTATION.
Just such a secluded, dark. . . . [37.9-34/62.9-63.13] . . . excluded from this "tabooed spot.”
HOW THE SLAVES FARE.
It is the boast of . . . [59.1-32/100.14-101.27] . . . in a state of nudity.
HOW THE MASTER FARES.
This is the great house . . . [61.38-63.28/105.17-109.9] . . . lounged in magnificence and satiety.
IS THE TYRANT HAPPY?
And who would ever venture . . . [64.39-65.16/111.15-112.7] . . . "Troubled like the restless sea."
We conclude with a few words from the pen of
AN AMERICAN CRITIC.
My Bondage and My Freedom exhibits the fine genius. and the rapidly developing powers of its author. If he is original and peculiar as a speaker, he is equally
so as a writer. We have the fullest confidence, therefore, that this work, the result of his riper experience and of his more mature judgment, will challenge not only the admiration of all the Friends of Freedom, for its spirited and irresistible Anti-Slavery facts and arguments, but of scholars, for the directness, condensation, and affluence of its style, and of the general reader, also, for the graphic interest of the story of his checkered and eventful life.
BOOKS AND NEGROPHILISM. [Anon.]. Petersburg (Va.) Daily South-Side De mocrat, 5 September 1855.
Had the sage author of the ejaculation, “oh that mine enemy would write a book!” been thrown upon our fortunate times, it is highly probable his pious desires would have been abundantly gratified. Never were books and book writers more plentiful and never were both more contemptible. There is scarcely a young gentleman or lady in the land, above the rank of a hod carrier or a chambermaid, who does not look forward with something like a confident assurance to the day when his or her name shall be duly marked and stamped upon an octavo or duodecimo sample of literature, the entire product of the aspirant's unassisted brain. The universality of the capacity to read, the speculative bias which publishers have caught from the age, and finally the cheapness of the raw material, have combined to create this passion for book making, and as long as paper is so cheap, muslin so plentiful, steel pens so innumerable and purchasers so exceedingly indulgent to nonsense—a fellow feeling makes us wondrous kind—we may expect to see the torrent of ink flowing on in uninterrupted and uninterruptable profusion. To a philanthropist there is some consolation amid these "barbaric invasions,” in the reflection that immortality is the destiny of the most infinitesimally small number of these productions, and that a lustrum or two will purify the earth of the accumulated rubbish: but this is cold comfort at best. We are forced to bear the leaden dulness of our own day, and cannot but believe that the next generation will have as great an army of Dunciad heroes as our own, if it be not more plenteously favored. The last of these impositions on a forbearing public is a work denominated Bondage and Freedom, the author of which is no less a person than the bosom friend of Philosopher Greeley and Abby Kelly Foster. Frederick Douglass, Fred, is a fugitive from labor whom the sagacious negrophilists of Faneuil Hall and the Tribune office, with a few other candidates for State aid as lunatics, have been endeavoring to civilize a good many years for the purpose of proving that God knew not what he was about when he stamped inferiority on every line and lineament of the African. This christian-like task has been undertaken and prosecuted with the usual zeal of monomaniacs, and we may add with about their usual success. Fred. has been feted and toasted and glorified and dressed up for worship like the shapeless post that receives the homage of a Feejee islander, and the faithful have vowed with many protestations that their idol was a prodigy of intellect and virtue, with the hope that their protestations would induce the censorious world to believe their divinity at least, respectable.
And now Fred. to prove himself worthy of all this idolatry—how often he must have scratched his woolly head with delight at the stupid blindness of his white brethren!—has written a book. We have not yet had the fortune to meet with it, and must content ourselves with noticing its contents at second hand. The N.Y. Sun finds two things worthy of especial notice, and only two in the book.
First, that Fred. should speak in such mild and temperate terms of the institution of slavery—for the peaceful simplicity of which life he has doubtless often sighed, and
Second, that he should rail so unmercifully at the white population of the North for their continued denial in practice of their theory of the equality of races.
This must be a bitter pill to the abolitionists. After many years of lecturing on the horrors of slavery—after all the harrowing scenes with which the fertile imagination of the Stowes and Garrisons have crammed his crispy cranium, and after as pleasant experience of the beauties of freedom as the most energetic efforts of the abolitionists could afford him, he absolutely cannot find it in his heart to enter into a wholesale denunciation of our domestic institution!—The Baileys and Beechers and the Solon Robinsons who have tasted naught but the hospitality of the South can go home and indite the most thundering Phillippics against African bondage, but here is a poor ex-slave, educated, supported and sustained by the bitter enemies of slavery, forced, in order to keep up a fiendish excitement by which their pockets may be filled, to utter the most shocking calumnies against an innocent people, considered the standard authority for all the Topsy tribe, and when he comes to say his say with all the past before him, remembering as he doubtless does, the "hardships" of bondage, and contrasting them with the present "blessings" of freedom, he scorns to place on record an endorsement of the calumnies of his pale-faced friends!
Singular and suggestive as is this fact, it is not more so than the other—the protest against the honesty of the abolitionists.
Can a more significant commentary on abolition fanaticism be imagined than the testimony of this slave (the best treated African in the Northern States) that he is an out cast and a Pariah in the land where he was promised freedom and equality? How powerful is this unwilling evidence, extorted by the bitter consciousness of degradation, and a disgust more bitter, at the falsehood and treachery of his pretended friends!
If it were reasonable to hope for any exhibition of sanity from men so hopelessly crazed as the freesoilers of the North, we might look for some mitigation of a fanaticism so sternly rebuked by the cherished object of its zeal. May we not at least hope that upon the calm, reflecting mind of the North this bitter rebuke may operate some wholesome result? May we not expect that it will bring to the absorbing question of Slavery more rational and deliberative consideration, and that men may learn the short-sighted weakness of their attempts to mend the workmanship of the Omniscient Eternal?
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM. [Anon.]. New York Daily Times, 17 September 1855.
Compared with the actual and startling revelations of this plain biography of a living man, the melodramatic imaginings of Uncle Tom's Cabin are of small value. It may be said, as it has been, that taking a number of isolated circumstances and weaving them together on a wool of fiction, Mrs. STOWE produced a romance of no ordinary power. But here is a man, not yet forty years of age, who was a born thrall; who has himself suffered as a slave; who felt the iron eat into his soul; who records only what he personally experienced; who gives dates and places; who names circumstances and persons; whose body yet bears the marks of the cruel lash; who remained twenty-one years in bondage; who escaped from that bitter slavery; who, a self-taught man, has exhibited true eloquence of speech and pen, at home and in Europe, in advocacy of his race's claim to freedom; who has conducted a newspaper in this State for several years with success; whose exemption from being claimed as a fugitive is owing solely to the fact that, long after his escape, his friends purchased his freedom from his quondam "master;" and who, living, acting, speaking among us, possesses more vital interest for men who think than would the heroes of twenty negro romances, even though each of them was as highly wrought as that written by Mrs. STOWE. My Bondage, so forcible in its evident truth, is one of the most interesting, exciting and thought-awakening books in our language. In every way is it remarkable—not only in what it relates, but in the manner of the relation.
In truth, the literary merit of the book is very great. Suppose that it had been written by some college trained man, the lucidity of its style and the thoroughly Saxon character of its language would have attracted attention. But here is a man of color, instructed merely how to spell words of three letters, while yet a child—subsequently forbidden to acquire any further knowledge of this sort,—gleaning the elements of learning literally on "the highways and by-ways,"—teaching himself to write by copying printed letters—and producing a work which, as a mere literary production, would be creditable to the first English writer of the day. (Actually, the only vulgarity we have found in it is, where passing a eulogy on a friend, he called him a "whole-souled man"— a phrase which, bad enough in colloquial usage, is almost offensive when deliberately written) We trust that My Bondage will meet with great success, for it stands far above all rivals, at the head of the peculiar class to which it belongs.
NEW PUBLICATIONS. [Anon.]. FDP, 21 September 1855.
We have read nothing since Uncle Tom's Cabin, which so thrilled every fibre of the soul and awoke such intense sympathy for the slave as this touching autobiography. It is a sad thought, that what Frederick Douglass suffered in slavery, three millions of human beings are this day suffering. Not all of them, it is true, become familiar with the depths of agony thro' which he passed, for it is the darkest feature
of the peculiar institution—that it benumbs the souls of its victims, and makes them like the brutes with which it classes them.
My Bondage and My Freedom is a remarkable book. We could not but wonder, as we read, at the terseness, vigor and polish of the style, which would do credit to the ripest scholar and most practiced writer in our country.
The First Part, or "Life as a Slave," is not as we at first supposed, a reprint of the narrative of his life, published by Mr. Douglass about ten years ago. It has been entirely rewritten, and many of the incidents have not before been made public, while the grouping and arrangement of them, together with the whole style and spirit of the book, indicate the rapid growth of the author during these ten years.—There is a fascination about the book which makes it difficult for one to lay it down after having read the first page. We cannot help making one extract, in which Mr. Douglass describes the comparative happiness of the slave children. To us it seems one of the saddest pictures in the book.
"The slaveholder, having nothing to . . . [25.18-26.22/40.23-42.20] . . . slavery I am now narrating."
What a commentary is this picture of utterly neglected childhood, on the system of which it is the result. We hope this book is destined to be as popular as Uncle Tom's Cabin. We hear it has already had an almost unprecedented sale. It is a very handsome volume of about 500 pages, got up in the best style of the publishers, and embellished with a very fine steel engraving of the author.
TRUE, AND OF ABSORBING INTEREST. [Anon.]. Boston Journal. n.d . Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
The story of Frederick Douglass' life as detailed in this volume, possesses an interest which is really absorbing. The truthfulness of the narrative which he gives of his bondage will be generally conceded, and certainly realizes the truth of the old adage—"truth is strange—stranger than fiction."—Boston Journal.
EXPOSES THE BANE OF THE REPUBLIC. [Anon.]. Vermont Journal. n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855: New York Radical Abolitionist. 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
It reveals the miseries of servile life with an intense vividness and impressive ness, that can but fasten its facts and arguments upon the reader's mind as with a pen of iron and with the point of a diamond.—Vt. Journal.
NO ROMANCE MORE EXCITING. [Anon.]. Yates County Whig, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
No romance can be more exciting to the reader than this truthful narrative. The work is having a wide circulation.—Yates Co. Whig.
IT STIRS THE FEELINGS. [Anon.]. Oswego Times, n.d . Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
We have not read a work which has stirred our feelings to a greater extent for some years, and we are glad that Mr. SLOSSON intends to keep a good stock on hand. We think he will need it. The book is a powerful, vivid picture of a slave's life, and effectually removes the gloss which pro-slavery men attempt to throw over the beatitudes of this aid to the "highest state of human existence!"—Oswego Times.
A SELF-MADE MAN. [Anon.]. Christian Advocate, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
This volume, besides its many moving and thrilling details, affords evidence of a most remarkable man. Mr. Douglass has emphatically made himself. As a writer and speaker, he has but few equals in the country. His book is readable and interesting.—Christian Advocate.
AN INTERESTING AND REMARKABLE WORK. [Anon.]. Vermont Watchman, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
The book is one of the most interesting and remarkable ever published—a well written work on Slavery, by one who was born and bred a slave.—Vt. Watch man.
NERVOUS. CLEAR. AND TELLING. [Anon.]. New York Evangelist, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
It presents a clear and graphic picture of his slave-life from his earliest recollections: his escape and his life since, including his experiences in this country and Europe. No one will deny Mr. Douglass the possession of genius and character of a high order. He writes in a nervous, clear and most telling manner, clothing his narrative with intense interest, and conveying his moral impressions with a vividness that leaves the reader scarcely any escape. The subject is deeply tragic, and, in his masterly handling possesses an engrossing interest.—N.Y. Evangelist.
WORTH A HUNDRED VOLUMES OF ROMANCE. [Anon.]. Pittsburgh Herald, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855.
We recommend the book as worth a hundred volumes of the trashy literature of the day.—Pittsburgh Herald.
CIRCULATE IT WIDELY. [Anon.]. Whitehall Chronicle, n.d . Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist, 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
The encroachments and usurpations of Slavery are becoming more flagrant
every day, and a work animating the public mind, enlightening it upon this bane of the American Republic, and from the high source whence this emanates, ought to be very extensively read in the Free States.—Whitehall Chronicle.
HOW WRITTEN—ITS CHARACTER. [Anon.]. Detroit Daily Advertiser n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist. 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
The book is written with the happiest descriptive power, with nerve and vigor of expression, and with richness of style. It has an ample resource in phrase, great perspicuity, and a musical, resonating. and half rhythmatic style, which reminds the reader of the author's origin, and of the native melodics of his race. The book manifests a high, and, to us, unexpected polish. The interest aroused and kept up by a perusal of this book is of a high order, and rarely degenerates.—Detroit Daily Advertiser.
IT IS PECULIARLY ATTRACTIVE. [Anon.]. Christian Ambassador, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist. 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
We need not say that the volume possesses extraordinary attractions. The life of such a man cannot fail to excite an interest in the puhlic mind seldom equaled, even in this book-making age.—Christian Ambassador.
THE AUTHOR POPULAR HIS BOOK IN DEMAND. [Anon.]. Wesleyan, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 September 1855; New York Radical Abolitionist 2:3 (November 1856) Supplement.
This is a splendid work. The personal worth of the author, the deserved popularity he has secured throughout this nation, and the universal desire that prevails to have a momento of one of nature's noblemen, will conspire to create an unprecedented demand for this book.—Wesleyan.
THE EVILS OF SLAVERY CALMLY UNFOLDED. [Anon.]. American Spectator, n.d. Excerpt reprinted in FDP, 21 Septemher 1855.
There are no lines of ranting madness here.—Calmly, dispassionately he unfolds to us all the evils of the bondage system in its varied aspects, and must thus commend his disclosures to all true Americans, south as well as north. The entire work is of a high intellectual order, and intensely interesting from its beginning to its close.—American Spectator.
CURRENT LITERATURE. [Anon.]. Philadelphia Bizarre, 6:349 (29 September 1855).
In the 464 pages of this duodecimo is comprised as much deeply interesting matter, as we have ever met within the same compass. It would be interesting. even
though it were professedly fictional, but that interest is greatly enhanced by the fact, that the book is a register of facts.
We do not, however, mean to say, that he may not, sometimes, have exaggerated; that his views may not have been warped and colored by prejudice and lacerated feeling; or that he may not have so generalized his own idiosyncracies, as to have given a somewhat erroneous impression of the mental and moral condition of the slave population at large. But that he is an honest witness, and intended to declare "the truth, and nothing but the truth," we have no question. And, after making what exceptions and qualifications you will, there must still remain a huge, dark mass of facts, which cannot but wring the heart of every person of common humanity.
The vexed question of slavery we have no room to discuss here, even had we the inclination—which we have not. Our proper office is to touch briefly upon the author and the execution of his book.
That Frederic Douglas is a person of quite unusual mental abilities, and of moral stamina firm and vigorous far above what belong to the average of men, no reader of this volume, we think, will question. These traits stand prominently out from every page of this simple, straight-forward autobiography. Only a man, thus constituted, could possibly have surmounted the obstacles, which, first, barred his attainment of a very fair measure of education, and, again, his achievement of his freedom.
The present volume is correctly and graphically written, and is itself a curious phenomenon, being the production of one with such antecedents and surroundings.
Of course it cannot be wondered at that he is a bitter foe to the "peculiar institution," and that his assaults upon it are neither "few nor far between." The rather, because his case must he considered harder than that of the full-blooded African, since his blood is in large part Caucasian.
What may be the result of his labors, we cannot predict. We only wish, for ourselves, that this perturbing question might be settled peacefully and to the satisfaction of all parties concerned.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM. [Anon.]. London Literary Gazette, 2022:663-64 (20 October 1855 ).
THE facts narrated in the first part of this autobiography are of the painful kind with which both historical narrative and literary art have made every reader too familiar. The early part of the life of Frederick Douglass was spent in American bondage, in the most severe and repulsive forms. As to the mode by which he at length made his escape he keeps silence, on the ground that it might close one avenue by which some brother in suffering might clear himself of the chains of slavery. This generous consideration is, however, almost rendered needless by the horrid enactments of the Fugitive Slave Act, by which the Free States of the Union have agreed to allow slaves to be re-delivered up to bondage. A greater step of
progression in principle and in civilization does not appear in all history. In common with "Old England," the Free States of America could till lately boast that the slave that touched their soil became thenceforth a freeman; but it is not so now, and the disgrace of upholding slavery belongs to the whole Union. Fortunately for Frederick Douglass, his freedom has been purchased by friends in England, and attested by legal documents, else this act would hand him over again to slavery. For some years he has devoted himself with unwearied energy and great ability to the advancement of the Abolition cause, formerly by lecturing, and now as editor of a newspaper favourably known in this country as well as in America. From one of the latest orations delivered by the author, and partly reported in the appendix to this volume, we quote some sentences expressing his opinion as to the progress of the Abolition movement, and the influence exerted in its behalf by literature:—
"I have taken a sober . . . [281.1-282.7/461.20-462.31] . . . of slavery in his country."
From the autobiography we quote two incidents illustrating the feeling towards free coloured men of their white fellow-citizens:—
"Riding from Boston to Albany . . . [232.10-233.21/402.28-405.6] . . . people in the United States."
That there should appear in the writings of Mr. Douglass, as well as in his public conduct, some points not to be approved, is only to be expected from one whose early life was spent under every disadvantage. The distinguished position reached by Mr. Douglass, in spite of many depressing influences, is most honourable to his character and his talents, and presents a conspicuous instance of the capabilities of the oppressed race for whose social and intellectual improvement he is a zealous and able advocate.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM. [Anon.]. New York Radical Abolitionist, 1:21 (October 1855).
The public press and the public generally have already rendered their verdict in decided commendation of this new volume. It is rather late in the day for us to add our tribute of applause, and it is not needed. Yet we cannot refrain from expressing our high gratification in its perusal. Much as we had been interested in the writer, and well acquainted, as we were, with his writings and his public speaking, we must confess that this piece of autobiography exhibits his literary powers in a new phase. It will always hold a rank among the model writings of that class—simple, straightforward, easy, unpretending, yet graphic, life-like, and touching the chords of sympathy with resistless power.
In our judgment it has high claims to he regarded as a first-rate production, in more aspects than one. If any one wishes to find or to cite a rare specimen of what is called a "self-made man," or to learn or show from what depths, against what
obstacles, and amid what discouragements, the humblest of our species may rise to an enviable pre-eminence, the life of Frederick Douglass is, emphatically the book for the purpose. For this reason, if for no other, it should be in the hands of every young man, and in every family in an obscure and discouraging position. If any one wishes to adjust the rival claims of simple biography and the best tales of fiction, let not the final decision be made without comparing this narrative of Frederick Douglass with the most admired productions of the imagination. If an antidote be needed for color-phobia—if the grave question whether or no the descendants of Africans are inferior, and whether the slaves, if emancipated, could ever rise, in this country, is still awaiting decision, in any sane mind, this volume of Frederick Douglass, if anything, will be likely to clear up all doubts and solve all difficulties. If any one, at this late day, needs to be certified in respect to the facts, the nature, the philosophy, the workings, and the effects of the slave system, Frederick Douglass has, in this volume, presented the needed information, and in the most attractive and unobjectionable form. If the pride of caste, birth, rank, blood, or of anything else of that nature, requires a corrective, in palaces of wealth, or in seats of science, this volume of Frederick Douglass, on the centre table, would be one of the most timely acquisitions that could be conceived. If any one desires to discriminate justly between true and false religion, and learn how to drive infidelity out of the country, he should take this volume of Douglass and study certain parts of it in connection with the practical writings of Belamy and Edwards. If the politician would rise to the dignity of a statesman—if he would foresee the future by marking well the tendencies of the present, let him open his eyes to the fact that senators as well as theologians are already under pupilage of the fugitive of Tuckahoe. If the friends of liberty would gather up courage and find guidance, let them read the story of Douglass, let them profit by his experience, and ponder his final conclusions.
We must not close this notice without calling the attention of our readers to the enterprise and manly independence of the publishers. Messrs. MILLER, ORTON AND MULLIGAN, who advertise, among other valuable books, a variety of Anti Slavery publications—in cheering contrasts to the craven class who suppress or expurgate whatever is offensive to slaveholders.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM [Anon.]. New York Independent, 1 November 1855.
Here is testimony upon the question whether slavery is a good institution either for master or slave, which must be regarded as direct, positive, and reliable. Mr. Douglass has widely commended himself to the public, by the ability of his speeches and of the journal that bears his name. He is in his own person one of the most emphatic arguments against slavery. Never shall we forget the majestic bearing with which he overawed Captain Rynders and his mob, and woke up the enthusiastic response of the vast assembly in the Tabernacle, to the question, "Am I not a man?" He proved himself a man.
This narrative written without any vindictiveness of spirit or violence of language, will convey to whoever may read it a clear and just view of the system of American slavery—odious even under its best phases—and will demonstrate the capacity of the colored man for all the rights of freedom enjoyed by the white. We wish it may have a wide circulation and prove as remunerative to the author as it is instructive to the public.
EDITORIAL NOTES-LITERATURE. [Anon.]. Putnam's Monthly, 6:547 (November 1855).
—A third biography before us furnishes a still further contrast—the Life and Bondage of FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the well-known fugitive slave, who has come to occupy so conspicuous a position, both as a writer and speaker. It details the incidents of his experience on the slave plantation of Maryland, where he was born, of his subsequent escape, and of his public career in England and the northern States. We need hardly say that it abounds in interest. The mere fact that the member of an outcast and enslaved race should accomplish his freedom, and educate himself up to an equality of intellectual and moral vigor with the leaders of the race by which he was held in bondage, is, in itself, so remarkable, that the story of the change cannot be otherwise than exciting. For ourselves, we confess to have read it with the unbroken attention with which we absorbed Uncle Tom's Cabin. It has the advantage of the latter book in that it is no fiction. Of course, it is impossible to say how far the author's prejudices, and remembrances of wrong, may have deepened the color of his pictures, but the general tone of them is truthful. He writes bitterly, as we might expect of one who writes under a personal provocation, taking incidents of individual experience for essential characteristics, but not more bitterly than the circumstances seem to justify. His denunciations of slavery and slaveholders are not indiscriminate, while he wars upon the system rather than upon the persons whom that system has made. In the details of his early life upon the plantation, of his youthful thoughts on life and destiny, and of the means by which he gradually worked his way to freedom, there is much that is profoundly touching. Our English literature has recorded many an example of genius struggling against adversity,—of the poor Ferguson, for instance, making himself an astronomer, of Burns becoming a poet, of Hugh Miller finding his geology in a stone quarry, and a thousand similar cases—yet none of these are so impressive as the case of the solitary slave, in a remote district, surrounded by none but enemies, conceiving the project of his escape, teaching himself to read and write to facilitate it, accomplishing it at last, and subsequently raising himself to a leadership in a great movement in behalf of his brethren. Whatever may be our opinions of slavery, or of the best means of acting upon it, we cannot but admire the force and integrity of character which has enabled Frederick Douglass to attain his present unique position.
MY BONDAGE AND FREEDOM. [Anon.]. Buffalo Western Literary Messenger, 25:143(November 1855).
MY BONDAGE AND FREEDOM, by FREDERICK DOUGLASS, a volume recently published by Miller, Orton & Mulligan, 25 Park Row, New York, is well written and intensely interesting. The first part treats of his history as a slave; the second, as a freeman. In the appendix are several of his speeches, and a characteristic and unique letter, addressed to his old master, Thomas Auld. Let no one fail to read the last mentioned production. The work may be had of WANZER, McKIM & Co.
A FAITHFUL CORRECTION, AND WILLING ACKNOWLEDGMENT. [Anon.]. London Empire, 15 December 1855. Reprinted in FDP, 22 February 1856; Lib., 18 January 1856.
IN a friendly and private communication, recently received from WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON—President of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and Editor of the Boston Liberator—there is the following passage:—
"At times, I notice a slip of the pen, or a sentiment in its (THE EMPIRE'S) pages, which, as it is apparently editorial, seems to compromise your views and principles. For instance: in the number for September 1st, in an article entitled 'The Sanatory Movement,' occurs the following strange declaration:—'Happier the black slave of Carolina than the white of Britain.(!) It is the body alone (!) which the American miscreant trafficker deals with: the mind of the black he leaves unchained and unfettered.' (!!) Now this is what Bennett's Herald, and other 'Satanic' journals have a thousand times asserted and flung in your teeth while you were labouring in the Anti-Slavery field in America. It cannot possibly be from your pen; and yet it is found in the editorial department, and therefore makes you its endorser, if not its author, before the public. I have no doubt you will express your dissent from it in unequivocal terms; or break its force by stating it to be a hyperbolical form of expression, to intensify the abject condition of the oppressed white in England, groaning beneath religious and governmental restrictions. To speak of American slavery leaving the mind of its victim unfettered is a gross absurdity.
"In the same number of THE EMPIRE is a panegyric upon FREDERICK DOUGLASS'S new volume, 'My Bondage and my Freedom'—a volume remarkable, it is true, for its thrilling sketches of a slave's life and experience, and for the ability displayed in its pages, but which, in its second portion, is reeking with the virus of personal malignity towards WENDELL PHILLIPS, myself, and the old organizationists generally, and full of ingratitude and baseness towards as true and disinterested friends as any man ever yet had on earth, to give him aid and encouragement. THE EMPIRE speaks of the work as 'frank and ingenuous'—when it is precisely the reverse of this. The preface by J. McCUNE SMITH is, in its innuendoes, a very base production."
We beg our friend to accept our thanks for his vigilance, fidelity, and candour. It is not the first time we have been indebted to him for words of correction and counsel, and we trust that as long as we are permitted to continue his fellow-labourer in the Anti-Slavery cause, and on the list of his personal friends, he will repeat his wholesome admonitions, whenever they shall be needed, and be assured that they will be received with the gratitude due to one whose motives we venerate for their purity, and whose friendship we value above all price.
In reply to Mr. GARRISON's first complaint, we have to say—that the article was from another hand—that it was published when we were distant from town—and that we utterly dissent from the position of the writer, knowing as we do that the physical evils of American slavery are amongst the least in that long and fearful catalogue, which the infernal system inflicts upon its three millions and a half of victims. Deeply do we regret that the passage appeared in our editorial columns.
In reply to Mr. GARRISON's second complaint, we have to say—that the notice of the work by FREDERICK DOUGLASS was founded upon the reviews which had appeared in the American papers, and on copious extracts from the work which had been circulated by the publishers. It was not our intention or design to pronounce any opinion on the conduct of Mr. DOUGLASS as an abolitionist: still less to convey the impression that we approved of the course which, since 1851, he has pursued towards those whom we know to have been his truest friends, and whose only cause of offence to Mr. DOUGLASS has been their steadfastness to their principles, and their desire and efforts (alas! in vain) to save a brother from self-destruction. Our sole object in the notice was the gratification of a generous wish to herald a literary production from the pen of one whom we knew to be singularly qualified to reveal the secrets of the prison-house. The book itself we have not yet seen. Should it ever come into our possession our review shall be as honest as our present amende to our friends in America is sincere.
One word more. Mr. GARRISON and the friends with whom he is identified in the United States may rest satisfied, that whatever may have been the mistakes we have committed, we have never been for an instant tempted to swerve from an attachment to them or our common cause—that in evil and in good report we have been their defender—and that our confidence in them, and our respect and love for them, were never greater than at this moment.
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM. [Anon.]. Boston Christian Watchman and Reflector, 20 December 1855.
People who say that "Uncle Tom" is an exaggerated fiction, and pin their faith on such books as "A South-side View of Slavery," cannot find a more profitable book than this autobiography. They will find not the outside or inside of a plantation alone, but an introduction to the mind of a slave. They will see something of the relations of slavery to the souls of men. If they can rise from its perusal still cherishing the belief that slavery is calumniated by fanatical abolitionists, that we
at the North have nothing to do with the subject, or that any of the "great issues" which politicians hatch are fit to stand in the way of anti-slavery action for a single day, they will deserve credit at "Only, near Onancock, Accomac County, Virginia," as allies of the slaveocracy, fit for recognition by Gov. Wise himself.
Mr. Douglass very sensibly declines to gratify curiosity as to the precise ways and means by which he escaped. He thinks the publicity given to such things effectually shuts up, one by one, the avenues by which many might otherwise win freedom. While we do not concur in all the opinions he expresses, on political and ecclesiastical matters, we could wish that his well-told story might find multitudes of readers disposed to lay the lesson to heart.
REVIEWS. [Anon.]. London Anti-Slavery Reporter, 4:22-23 (1 January 1856).
This is in every respect a remarkable production. The author is too well-known in this country to render an introductory notice of him necessary in this place, and we hope that a copy of the volume now before us—which is a valuable addition to anti-slavery literature—will ere long be as well known amongst us as he was himself, and will figure in the library or on the table of every friend of the negro. Frederick Douglass is no common man, and could not write a work of only ordinary merit. His mind is essentially original: therefore he takes novel views of things, even most familiar. Hence his reflections on them have a freshness and an interest altogether peculiar. Although his experiences of slave life were severe, and extended over a period of twenty-one years, we have been less struck with his recital of them than with his delineation of the mental struggles that made him restless by day and sleepless by night, and which, commencing with the inquiries, "What is a slave? and why am I a slave?" led him by degrees to the irresistible conclusion that he was a slave only because all moral principle had been set aside to make him one, and that, therefore, he had a right to possess himself, and to take advantage of the first opportunity to make that self-possession sure. His narrative, however, presents a graphic picture of the inner life of the system of which he was a victim, and is penned in an admirable style: terse yet flowing, and frequently even elegant. Passages, too, of great humour abound in it; and when he gives the rein to his wit and satire, pointing his shafts against the system, he does so with evident relish. But an undercurrent of profound thought also runs through the whole work, which sometimes—nay often—partakes of the character of the highest philosophy. His arguments and his conclusions strike with irresistible force at the foundation of "the peculiar institution," and are never more cogent than when levelled at the sophisms of pro-slavery divines. His descriptions of places and portraits of individuals are, we should judge, touched off to the life. That of Tuckahoe, Maryland, with its not less queer named river Choptank, "from which they take abundance of shad and herring, and plenty of ague and fever," opens the book, for the simple reason that Douglass was born in this district. It is quite a gem. Here, too, we are introduced to a spectral personage known as "Old Master, whose name seemed
ever to be mentioned with fear and shuddering," and whose mysterious existence and absolute power first touched the young spirit of Douglass with "the point of its cold cruel iron," and left him something to brood over after play and in moments of repose. As the narrative proceeds, the reader is introduced to other scenes and new personages, all sketched with singular felicity of expression, and probably with equal fidelity to nature. Those of the Reverend Rigby Hopkins, the principal feature of whose government was "his system of whipping slaves in advance of deserving it, as he said;" and Edward Covey, "the negro breaker," are equal to any thing in the way of portrait painting ever done by Dickens or Thackeray. Take the Reverend Rigby Hopkins, of Talbot County, Maryland, for instance:
"He always managed to have . . . [148.1-10/259.17-259.30] . . . the com
mission of large ones."
The manner in which the slave-boy picked up learning by the way-side is singularly illustrative of his intelligence, industry, and force of character. It was indeed "the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties;" and the success which attended his efforts deserves to be specially recorded as another proof of the power of self-advancement which has been denied to the negro and the coloured man. An interesting episode in this phase of the writer's career is that which relates to his Baltimore mistress, Sophia Auld, who, in the simplicity and kindness of her heart, began by encouraging the lad's desire to acquire knowledge, but under the influence of the system, gradually awakening to the "danger" of having "larned niggers about the place," not only "set herself at last hard as a flint" against Douglass' learning to read by any means, but would herself fly into a terrible rage, and tear newspaper, book, or scrap of paper out of his hands, whenever she saw him with such in his possession. Still, he bears her in affectionate remembrance on account of her many acts of kindness to him, and of what she would have been if the system had allowed her to follow the natural impulses of her warm heart.
We cannot, within the limits we can allot to a review, do anything like justice to My Bondage and Freedom, either as a literary composition or as a simple narrative of slave experience. We would gladly have minutely detailed the incidents of Douglass' life, from the period of his first troubles at Tuckahoe till he found himself a free man in New York, and we would in like manner have dwelt upon the subsequent phases of his history to the present time. This, however, our limited space precludes us from doing. We have been particularly interested in those portions of the narrative which embrace his labours in the anti-slavery field, both in the United States and in this country. In them are set forth the circumstances under which he became an agent of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and the reasons which influenced him, on his return from England, to make an attempt to establish a newspaper that should be the organ of the coloured people; an enterprise that appears to have led to his severing himself from his former colleagues. He also gives, in a few pithy sentences, an account of the radical change which, about four years ago, took
place in his opinions on the subject of the Constitution and non-voting under it, and which now placed him in opposition to those with whom he had been theretofore in agreement. This change, he informs the reader, was brought about by the responsibilities of his new position as an Editor, which imposed upon him the necessity of giving reasons for his views. Hence he was "compelled to re-think the whole subject, and to study, with some care, not only the just and proper rules of legal interpretation, but the origin, design, nature, rights, powers, and duties of civil government, and also the relations which human beings sustain to it." He adds:
"By such a course of . . . [229.11-17/397.20-397.30] . . . to authorize such a belief."
Whether right or wrong in the conclusion to which he came, namely; that the Constitution is not a pro-slavery instrument, no one can doubt that his convictions were likely, under such circumstances, to be sincere. From this time he is found urging them with the same zeal, energy, and ability, which distinguished his advocacy of the opposite views whilst he was attached to the American Anti-Slavery Society.
F. Douglass' idea of establishing a paper devoted to the interests of the enslaved and oppressed, did not find favour in the eyes of his Boston friends and former colleagues; but he felt so strongly the necessity of disproving the inferiority of his "people," and of demonstrating their capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and prejudice had assigned to them, that he resolved to persevere in his new project, notwithstanding the offence he knew he should give to his old friends, in Boston, "by what seemed to them a reckless disregard of their sage advice." But he adds:
"Time has answered all their . . . [227.27-31/394.29-395.3] . . . the eight
that are past."
He thus concludes his book:
"Believing that one of the . . . [233.39-234.7/405.30-406.8] . . . emanci
pation of my entire race."
We have marked for extract several passages in this interesting book, which we shall give in our columns, from time to time, under appropriate heads. Meanwhile we recommend My Bondage and Freedom as a work that will repay an attentive perusal, not only on account of its revelations of the inner life of slavery, but as a reflex of the mind of the extraordinary man who has attained his present eminence by the force of his genius and the vigour and energy of his character.
We cannot close our notice of this book without a passing reference to the manly letter from F. Douglass to Dr. J. McCune Smith, in which he states his reasons for yielding to the earnest solicitations of his friend, and writing his own biography. The introductory chapter by Dr. McCune Smith is also extremely able as
an exposition of Douglass' peculiar mental qualities, and as a history of their development under circumstances of extraordinary difficulties and dangers.
LITERATURE. [Anon.]. Edinburgh Daily Scotsman, 13 February 1856.
THIS is a book of deep interest and of great ability. It is also, in many respects, a precious literary curiosity. Considering what Frederick Douglass is, under what circumstances he was educated, this book is perhaps one of the most remarkable that has ever been given to the world. It is not simply its great excellence that renders it so very remarkable, as its kind of excellence—its whole character. The publication of Frederick Douglass' book will mark a step in advance to the destruction of American slavery. By exchanging the platform for the press, the author has extended the influence which his talents are sure to command wherever he is listened to. There are many persons who will read a book regardless of the colour of the hand that penned it, who would never think of going to a public meeting to hear a black man speaking. There are many persons, even in this free country, who would hold their principles as compromised if they were to be seen in a meeting of the friends of Frederick Douglass, who yet, it may be hoped, will, in the privacy of their closets, be induced to take a glance at the pages of a volume which, if they once commence reading, they will, if they are readers at all, feel compelled to read to the end. Amidst the feelings with which the book will be read, one of the strongest will be the feeling of surprise. To those who have had the pleasure of hearing Frederick Douglass' speeches, the surprise felt at reading his book will not be so unbounded as that of those who have now the mind of the author for the first time laid before them. When we are told that a man of black colour, of African race, of great genius and great eloquence, but born and brought up in slavery, is delivering lectures against slavery, what is it, with all our faith in the report of his genius and eloquence, that we expect to listen to? Great genius and great eloquence certainly, but mingled with what, under the circumstances, would be so excusable and so natural, great faults, tawdry ornament, inflated declamation, unsound reasoning, an Asiatic exuberance of words, an African viciousness of taste, or something of that Hibernian style of oratory which, with its faults as well as its beauties, is most natural to minds more fervid than well balanced—more inflamed by excitement than disciplined by the contemplation of chaste and symmetrical models. Instead of all this, or any part of this, those who listened to Frederick Douglass heard an orator who, from the first moment that he opened his lips, appeared to look steadfastly to the attainment of the one great object of all true eloquence—the conviction of his hearers; placing no value on their mere admiration. His audience listened to an address singularly devoid of figures of rhetoric or flowers of oratory, without a paragraph or sentence of mere useless adornment—an address distinguished by a severe simplicity of language, which went direct towards the object aimed at—the convincing of the understanding and winning the hearts of his hearers to the great purpose which lay nearest to the orator's own heart . Those who
listened felt themselves in the condition of the hearers of the great orator of Athens, and the criticism made on his eloquence might in spirit be passed on that of Frederick Douglass. When other orators concluded their addresses, the people said, "How beautifully he has spoken!" When Frederick Douglass made his appeal to humanity in the cause of humanity, the people said, "Arise, let us march to the overthrow of slavery!" People felt that against the bare stern eloquence of the man whose body had been lacerated by slavery, the contention of the heartless and wordy sophistry which was arrayed in defense of the trade in the flesh and blood of men was the contention of the chaff with the consuming flames.
A foretaste of the character and spirit of the book now before us was given in the author's speeches. The style of a writer is always the picture of his mind. The great characteristics of Frederick Douglass' mind are those which do not often mark out a man as a public orator. His strong points are soundness of judgment, closeness of reasoning, and, above all, a decided and refreshing manliness. To these faculties his other gifts are all wisely subordinated. He has pathos, wit, and sarcasm, but he never unnecessarily uses them, or overlabours them. His satire is generally insinuated in a single quiet phrase, which no doubt often escapes the notice of readers of less acute sensibility than his own. But, above all, manliness, masculine strength, is the characteristic of his mind.
An ancient poet, speaking of a slavery which was freedom itself when compared to American slavery, tells us with melancholy truths that "man loses half his virtues that day he becomes a slave." And amongst the few virtues which we could conceive still retaining a place in the heart of a slave, would it not look something like madness and mockery to look for manliness? How, then, are we to account for this miracle, that from the age of six years, from the very day that Frederick Douglass discovered that he was a slave, manliness was the guiding and all-elevating feature in his character? From that moment, though, violently subjected to slavery, he never consented, not even in thought, to his subjection. From that moment his clear reason saw at once that the relation between him and his master was a criminal relation, which it was his duty to break as soon as he was able. The sophistries which bewildered the feeble judgments of other slaves, and, which were daily preached to them by divines of the most flaming reputation for piety, and by ladies and gentlemen who constantly held the hymn-book in one hand and the scourge in the other, never imposed on the sound understanding of Frederick Douglass, or made him doubt for a moment that it was his duty to plot and conspire, and use every necessary means to break his fetters and the fetters of his fellow-slaves.
Frederick Douglass never knew who was his father, and scarcely did more than just see his mother to his knowledge, and never ascertained the year of his birth. With a white father and a black mother, prejudice will be inclined to trace the intellect to the paternal side. Against this conclusion, the opinion of Frederick Douglass himself is arrayed. His regret at his separation from his mother is expressed in simple language, which some will not call eloquent, but most people will feel to be so.
The detail of the means by which at length Frederick Douglass made his escape, he buries in silence, regretting the evil consequences that have arisen from the publicity given to the accounts of the escapes of other slaves. The opening of the second part of his work finds him a free man in New York. In the summer of 1841, he made his first public speech at Nantucket. A humorous divine and ardent Abolitionist present introduced him to the audience as "a graduate from the Peculiar Institution, with his diploma written on his back." In 1845, Douglass came to England. On his passage, and during his residence in Britain, considerable opposition to his cause was manifested even by parties of high religious professions; but Douglass shows that the hostility of the friends of slavery, not less than the support of the friends of liberty, tended to increase his influence, and to surround him with public favour.
The incident to which the following extract refers is familiar to most of our readers, but they have never heard it so well described as it is by Douglass:—
"Dr. Cunningham was the most . . . [220.38-222.39/383.5-386.20] . . .
from whom it was gathered."
There is one strange and painful feeling which will not fail to arise in all thinking minds on the perusal of these deeply-interesting pages. This perusal will increase the public conviction of the horrible nature of American slavery—above all slavery that ever existed. In any other country, ancient or modern, in the world, where slavery exists, a slave of the intellect of Frederick Douglass would have risen to honour, wealth, or power, or all combined. In the heathen world, the slave Phaedrus became the freedman and the friend of Augustus: the slave, the African slave, Terence, was the companion of Scipio and Lelius, of all that was noble in rank and refined in character in Rome; the slave Epictetus became the counsellor of Hadrian and the teacher of Arrian. In Christian America, the body of Frederick Douglass has been tortured by slaveholders of the lowest intellect and the most brutalised character. His pre-eminence in mental endowments, over the ablest of those writers who have prostituted and degraded their pens to the perpetuation of the most hideous system of cruelty and obscenity that ever existed in any part of the world, will not bear questioning. If it were the case that superiority of intellect gave one human being a right to treat another as a brute, which of the defenders of slavery in America or in Britain, male or female, would be entitled to hold Frederick Douglass in bondage? Would it be any of these "converted men" who, according to a slavery-defending divine of our city, are more common amongst the American slaveholders than such men are in Scotland, and whose names have heen consigned by Frederick Douglass to an immortality of infamy?
MY BONDAGE AND MY FREEDOM. [Anon.]. London British Banner, 6 March 1856.
With a good deal in common, this book very materially differs from the Volume of Mr. Ward, noticed in our last. The character, although not the object, is
exceedingly different. The one is a formal, elaborate, condensed, and telling treatise on the general question; the other is a free, friendly, grateful, valedictory record of the Author's treatment in Great Britain. It is proper to remember the critical canon.—
In every Work, regard the Writer's end.
Otherwise, we shall form a very inadequate estimate of Mr. Ward as compared with Mr. Douglass. In point of solid value and comprehensive interest, the volume of the latter, we think, surpasses that of the former. This was to be supposed, since the one is intended, in some measure, to serve a temporary purpose, and the other to produce a permanent influence. Mr. Douglass stands forth, not simply as the autobiographer, but as the philanthropic orator, the advocate of his people. There is, therefore, a maturity, a fullness, and an elaboration in Douglass, which was not to be expected in Ward.
The Author, starting with his childhood, presents a most affecting chapter, beautifully detailing the facts and incidents of his bitter boyhood. To this succeeds another on his removal from his first home, with which began his principal sorrows, and the many trials which were subsequently to overtake him. This occupies two chapters, which present an affecting development of Slave Life. We are next presented with a general essay on the slave plantation,—a tremendous indictment against the slaveholder. The plantation here so vividly pourtrayed is a hell upon earth,—a place where seeming men display the spirit of real devils,—a place where violence endeavours to extinguish every attribute of mind and to obliterate the last vestiges of the image of God upon the soul of the creature. But, bad as it is, it is shown that the monstrosities of this Pandemonium are greatly restrained by public opinion. There is something horrible in the isolation of a large plantation placed beyond the influence of such opinion. There religion and politics are alike excluded, and no effort is left untried to reduce man to the level of his companion beasts, to prepare them for feeding together, labouring together, being taken to the auction mart together, being sold and, we might almost say, slaughtered together!
To this succeeds a copious and most affecting chapter concerning the " Mysteries of Slavery," "The Treatment of Slaves," "Life in the Great House, capped and crowned by a chapter of horrors,"—a fearful chapter this!
The intense and afflicting interest of the work is somewhat softened by a chapter of a subdued tone, entitled, "Personal Treatment of the Author." This is followed by a sketch of "Life in Baltimore," which presents a brilliant but painful portraiture of the condition of society and the reciprocal mischiefs of Slavery both on the slave and his Master. This is followed by a great change coming over the Author, who became the subject of a religious awakening, which paved the way for the vicissitudes which were to follow. We have here touches, many and striking, on the subject of religion, education, and freedom, which introduces us to the horrible history of "Covey the Negro-breaker." This Covey was a terrible man! There are
few people in this country who would not rather occupy the revolting position of Billy Ketch himself. The chapter of this man 's doings is a fearful one—fearful for its cruelty, its profligacy, and its matured wickedness. We have no name adequately to describe him. We may not charge him with brutality, as Mr. Douglass does, for it is a libel on the bestial tribes. He is not a man, he is not a beast, he is not a fiend: but a strange something which Slavery alone can produce, and which is known only in slave territory!
We have, next, a chapter on "The Last Flogging," a chapter of the most heartrending character. Here we have all sorts of wickedness and all sorts of suffering. We have Nature rebelling against her cruel tyrants, and overborne by ruthless force.
The next chapter, touching the new relations and duties of the Author, is a very remarkable one. It possesses a strong ethical value, as showing the tendency of light to work liberty, to create new powers, to reveal new aspirations—aspirations which nothing but freedom can satisfy, and powers which nothing but death can arrest. This prepares the way for "A Runaway Plot"—a long and wonderful chapter, surpassing everything of the sort that we have previously met for interest and vividness. To this succeeds a disquisition on apprenticeship slave life, which paves the way for a chapter on his escape from Slavery, and another on his attainment of liberty.
Mr. Douglass was now introduced to the Abolitionists, and one event succeeded another till at last he was led to visit Great Britain, which gave the turning point to his wonderful history. He was in this country only twenty months, which may be considered as in some respects the most eventful period of his life. Here he had time to rest his wearied spirit, being no longer beset on every side with his enemies, and no longer wounded with sights and sounds which pierced and rent his heart. Here he had leisure to realise the great idea that he was a man—a man even among men—and a man not second to the first of men. Here he conceived aright of his character, his powers, his duties, and his mission; and here he was led to form the conception of the laborious and philanthropic career to which he has ever since devoted his talents, genius, and eloquence.
But we must not proceed. Let this be taken as an outline of the work, giving, not an exaggerated, but a most subdued and imperfect conception of it. No publication has yet appeared admitting of a moment's comparison.—lt is Slavery vivified by the spirit of genius. It is an indictment against the system framed by a hand inferior to nothing that the world of White Americans can supply. It is the utterance of a man who, once enslaved himself, but now free, on behalf of millions of his fellow-men still clanking their fetters and shedding bitter tears, makes his solemn appeal to the Reason of the Universe, and to the Equity of the intelligent Creation.
REVIEWS. [Anon.]. London Inquirer. 19 April 1856.
Many will respond to our desire, that those who have either been beguiled or chilled by plausible and heartless apologies for slavery, would read the testimonies
of such men as Douglass; they would then learn what it is to endure the lot of a slave with the soul of a free man. When Douglass published his "Narrative," in 1845, Wendell Phillips, an eloquent abolitionist of Boston, wrote:
You remember the old fable of 'The Man and the Lion," when the lion complained that he should not be so misrepresented "when the lions wrote history." I am glad that the time has come when the "lions write history." We have been left long enough to gather the character of slavery from the involuntary evidence of the masters. . . . We have known you long, and can put the most entire confidence in your truth, candour, and sincerity. Every one who has heard you speak has felt, and, I am confident, every one who reads your book will feel persuaded, that you give them a fair specimen of the whole truth. No one-sided portrait—no wholesale complaints—but strict justice done, whenever individual kindliness has neutralised, for a moment, the deadly system with which it was strangely allied.
The book was written to dispel the doubts of those who denied that the manly and eloquent lecturer could ever have been an untaught slave; and contains the names of persons and places which common prudence had required him to withhold whilst recounting his recollections of slavery. Mr. Phillips reminds him of the danger of such a publication; and adds, "I am free to say that, in your place, I should throw the manuscript into the fire." The fire, however, which Douglass preferred to feed with it, was that of a burning indignation against slavery. The thrilling facts so simply and graphically told kindled fresh ardour for justice and freedom; and the narrative went through several editions. For personal security, and to aid the cause of Abolition, he came to England; his speeches and lectures were heard with enthusiasm, and many refer to his visit their first practical zeal for American emancipation.
He who would prevent the wrongs done to the coloured race must maintain their rights; and perhaps Douglass has been as useful in exemplifying their capacities for freedom as their sufferings in bondage. Few can see and hear him, without abhorrence of the system which made him a slave; yet a Mr. Thompson, who knew him about a year before he became free, denied that he could have written his narrative, for "he was an unlearned and rather ordinary negro." Those who will not, or cannot, listen to his oratory, may read his book; he has done wisely therefore to rewrite his autobiography. As a literary production, "My Bondage." &c., does ample credit to his self-culture during the ten years which elapsed since he first became an author; it shows calm reflection, and artistic skill. Few slaveholders could compose a work of so much ability and interest; and the reputation which it has attained, and the warm eulogies which have been pronounced on it by the organs of various parties, may suggest to some of his old oppressors the uneasy apprehension, that "a rather ordinary negro" may be an extraordinary man.
The space which we can spare to literature relating to slavery has been so fully
occupied of late with our review of Miss Murray's letters that we can scarcely do more than notice this book, which we cordially recommend not only to those who have never read his former narrative, but to those who, like ourselves, are well acquainted with it.
Some of the most interesting additions are the descriptions of the scenes and persons familiar to his childhood,—his clever, spirited grandmother, and the rude hut where he lived under her care; the virago, Aunt Katy; the negro schoolmaster, "Dr. Isaac," whose "remedial prescriptions embraced four articles: for diseases of the body, Epsom salts and caster oil; for those of the soul, the Lord's Prayer and hickory switches;" the wonders of the great house and its haunted burial-place; and the Englishman's windmill.
He was taken from his mother when an infant; she was hired out to a plantation twelve miles distant, and died in his early childhood. He touchingly says that he had to learn her value long after her death, and by witnessing the devotion of other mothers to their children. He fondly treasures and eloquently details his few recollections of her; and as she was the only coloured person of that locality who could read, he ascribes to her, rather than to his unknown white father, whatever love of letters he possesses. After describing the dread which haunted him of being taken by his "old master" from the kind care of his grandmother, he says:—
But the sorrows of childhood . . . [25.8-26.22/40.10-42.20] . . . slavery I am now narrating.
The turning point in his life was when, at the age of ten, he was sent to an amiable and pious woman at Baltimore. "l had been treated,'' he says, "as a pig on the plantation, I was treated as a child now." She was teaching him to read, when her husband told her that learning would unfit him for a slave. Thenceforth, he eagerly taught himself; his desire for freedom deepened his thirst for knowledge; and the narrative of his self-education, and the zeal with which he subsequently taught his fellow-slaves, is one of the most interesting portions of the book. He little suspected then, how, after he had attained his freedom, the lessons he was learning so reluctantly of the complicated evils of slavery would impart to him a power over the hearts of others which few men of mere literary culture possess. The history of his bondage, which is full of incident, sufficiently explains those anomalies which have led superficial observers to suppose the slaves happy in their false and degraded situation. He escaped in 1837, when he was about twenty-one years of age.
In Chapters xxii.-xxv, he relates his life as a free man with modest brevity. He married a free coloured woman, and energetically devoted himself to any manual labour which the jealousy of white artizans conceded to him. He became a class leader and local preacher among the coloured Methodists, and subscribed for the Liberator, which he read with the greatest ardour. He loved and revered Mr. Garrison, its editor. In 1841 he was unexpectedly called on to speak at an Anti-slavery Convention; and the impression he made was such that he was appointed an agent
of the Massachusetts Anti-slavery society. We have already alluded to his English visit. He returned from it free, not only by right, but in law, as some of his British friends insisted on purchasing his liberty from his old master. They also raised ₤500 to enable him to establish a paper for the special benefit of the coloured people. Such attempts had failed before; and his American friends wished to dissuade him. He would never have achieved freedom, however, had it been his habit to be overruled when his own convictions were decided. The result has fulfilled both fears and hopes. Like the other Anti-slavery organs it is not self-supporting, owing to the lowness of the price, though it has 3,000 subscribers. It is a large sheet, costing about ₤17 a week.
Could all the perplexity, anxiety . . . [227.33-228.2/395.6-17] . . . deeply injured and oppressed people.—P. 395.
The regularity with which the paper has appeared for the last eight years speaks well for the energy and perseverence of its conductors. It affords a medium for coloured people to make known their thoughts to each other, and to the world; it stimulates their self-reliance and desire for improvement; and its contents are much superior to the average of American newspapers. He has left the ranks of the Disunionists, and considers it proper that the advocates of freedom should do battle for it in Congress, and assert their rights as citizens of the United States. In this general principle we are disposed to accord. Garrisonians, however, do not readily believe that any one can honestly renounce their favourite doctrine, and the papers which should have united in the fundamental principle of freedom, have not been free from personalities and cutting rejoinders. These animosities pain us, and it was not without some anxiety that we turned to the latter portion of the volume. We were pleased with the respect with which he writes of his old friends, whilst he calmly and briefly alludes to the reason why he left them; and we were therefore as-tonished and grieved at a letter from Mr. Garrison to the Empire, which has been quoted in other journals, and from which this is an extract:—
"In the same number of the Empire, there is a panegyric upon F. Douglass' new volume "My Bondage and my Freedom," a volume remarkable, it is true, for its thrilling sketches of a slave's life and experience, and for the ability displayed in its pages; but which in its second portion is reeking with the virus of personal malignity towards Wendell Phillips, myself, and the old organisationists generally, and full of ingratitude and baseness towards as true and disinterested friends as any man ever had on earth to give him aid and encouragement."
This language is rather that of a "kind old Massa" respecting a thankless fugitive, than of one gentleman regarding another, whom he had stimulated by his example to think and write without fear or favour. Douglass has called on him to adduce the passages in fault; but no answer has been made, which we are not surprised at. Those who do not read the book will infer, either that Douglass, being guilty of virulent malignity and base ingratitude to his best friends, of course
cannot be trusted when he speaks of his old oppressors, or, that this bitter charge being quite groundless, Garrison's judgments must generally be received with caution, when his self-love is touched, or his party criticised. Those who do read the book will form their own opinion of the temper of the author, and of the self-lauded truth and disinterestedness of his critic.
The latter portion of '"My Freedom" contains some curious instances of prejudice against colour, and the mode in which they were met and surmounted. We have watched, and shall continue to watch, his course with great interest. From all that we can gather from impartial observers on America, he has maintained, in peculiarly trying circumstances, those moral qualities which his friends honoured in him when he was among us.
"Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow," and the moral warfare against prejudice and oppression must be waged by the oppressed race themselves. We hope that in the heat of the strife he will always maintain that spirit which alone deserves and will achieve real success.
We are surprised that this book has not yet been reprinted in England; but it can be obtained through any American bookseller.
Appendix B.
Letter from Douglass to William Lloyd Garrison, 13 January 1856
This letter from Douglass to William Lloyd Garrison refers to Garrison's letter printed in the 15 December 1855 issue of the London Empire (reprinted in the Reader Responses section of this volume) in which Garrison charges that Bondage and Freedom contains sections that criticize Wendell Phillips and himself. This letter can be found in the Anti-Slavery Collection, MB.
Springfield, Mass. Jan. 13, 1856
MR GARRISON:
Sir, I find the following from your pen, in the last number of the "Standard,"—copied into that paper from the "Empire"—published in London, England—and Edited by GEORGE THOMPSEN Esqr.
My object in calling your attention to this last effort to injure, is respectfully to ask you (if not incompatable with your chosen mode of dealing with me) to point out in the pages of My Bondage and my freedom, the offensive portions of the Book to which you refer, that the readers of the "Standard" and the "Empire" may read and judge for themselves, of the justice of your denunciations—
Respectfully yours—
Frederick Douglass—
William Lloyd Garrison Esqr.
Appendix C.
Preface to the German Translation of My Bondage and My Freedom
This preface originally appeared in Frederick Douglass, Sclaverei und Freiheit: Autobiographie von Frederick Douglass (Hamburg, 1860), ix - xiv. German journalist Ottilie Assing and Douglass first met in 1856 when she requested approval to translate Bondage and Freedom into German. The preface to that volume was written in 1858 but includes an excerpt that Assing wrote in 1856 after her meeting with Douglass. The U. S. Supreme Court decision she refers to is the Dred Scott v. John F. A. Sanford ruling of 1857. The text reproduced below is from Christoph Lohmann, ed., Radical Passion: Ottilie Assing's Reports from America and Letters to Frederick Douglass (New York, 1999). Reprinted with permission of Peter Lang Publishing. Inc.
Were this life story fiction, artistic invention, one would have to deplore that it was not published a few years earlier, before the interest in such narratives had been exhausted by the almost countless representations of slave life that now, since the publication of the famous Uncle Tom, have developed into a whole new branch of literature. Yet the present work is not an invention but a true history, a series of naked, unadorned, terrible facts that are far more effective, moving, and convincing for those who can stand the truth than any work of fiction, because they represent reality and all of its consequences. Instead of an imagined hero, it is the author himself who is at the center of this narrative: he actually lived these experiences, and he is now living among us, one of America's famous men. He belongs to that oppressed race—the pariahs of American society—who, because of a decision by the United States Supreme Court last year, are forever barred from becoming citizens of their own country and have no rights that any white person is bound to respect. It is the whole human being—the noble self, the passionate, spirited, gifted, and dynamic man, with his burning love of freedom and the virtuosity of his implacable hatred of slavery and slave masters—who steps from these pages in his irresistible attractiveness and distinction to meet the reader. In the northern United States his autobiography was an overwhelming success, far beyond all expectations. Since 1855, the year when it first appeared, no fewer than 20,000 copies have been issued, even though slavery is the subject of countless daily discussions and controversies in all the papers, causing the reading public to pay attention only to the most outstanding and significant writings on this subject.
The story of the author's life is the most faithful expression of his individuality and therefore needs no further explanation. The reader will get to know all his qualities in the course of this book, except for his brilliance as an orator, which is
the basis of his current renown. In this country of great orators Frederick Douglass is one of the greatest. Perfect mastery of the subject, incisive and brilliant logic, and controlled moderation despite all passion are his hallmark. He often soars to tragic heights but then illuminates his subject with brilliant flashes of wit, speaks to the listener's heart, or provides comic relief with a joke. Everything is fresh, original, and compelling, and all these attributes are underscored by a perfect mastery of language and by so mellifluous, sonorous, flexible a voice speaking to the heart as I have ever heard. His abundant intellect and originality are evident in the fact that, even while all the great speakers of this country have also been exploiting the subject, he has been treating it for seventeen years without becoming repetitious or stale. The circumstances that served him well at his first appearance—a time when a fugitive slave was rarely seen on the platform and he had the advantage of novelty—no longer obtain: nevertheless, his success and his influence are still rising. In every town and village of the northern United States the mere announcement of his name is enough to fill the halls to the last remaining seat. Although he addresses it every year. I have even seen the demanding public of New York thrilled and swept away by him as if a new apostle had revealed to them for the first time a truth that had lain unspoken in everyone's heart.
Two years ago, I first became acquainted with Frederick Douglass on a visit to Rochester, and I present the following excerpt from the sketch I wrote after that first meeting. All I have to add is that that first positive impression has only been confirmed and strengthened upon further acquaintance.
"At first I went to meet Frederick Douglass in his newspaper office, which is marked by a sign in large letters above the entrance: THE NORTH STAR OFFICE. It refers to the familiar symbol among fugitive slaves, who often have the north star as their only guide as they flee and are transported by the hundreds on the so-called underground railroad from Rochester to Canada. As I did not find him there, I went to his home, about a half hour outside the city. The handsome villa, surrounded by a large garden, is situated on a hill overlooking a charming landscape. Douglass is a rather light mulatto of unusually tall, slender, and powerful stature. His features are striking: the prominently domed forehead with a peculiarly deep cleft at the base of the nose, an aquiline nose, and the narrow, beautifully carved lips betray more of his white than his black origin. The thick hair, here and there with touches of gray, is frizzy and unruly but not woolly. His whole appearance, stamped by past storms and struggles, bespeaks great energy and will power that shuns no obstacle and has been the sole source of his success in reaching his present prominence in the face of all odds. One can easily see how, when little more than a boy, he stood up to his master (who wanted to beat him) and actually cowed him—as he relates in his autobiography; or, when working in the shipyard at Baltimore and finding that the white workers refused to tolerate him, he lifted up his most ardent opponent and tossed him into the water. Despite all the vicissitudes, his whole being expresses a richly endowed, original, happily mature nature. Everything about him is
fresh, genuine, true, and good. Endowed with an exceptional talent for conversation, he knows how to inspire and elevate others, and in conversation proves to be cheerful, animated, witty, and knowledgeable. Glowing with passion for the cause to which he has dedicated his life, he is far too wide-ranging in his interests as not to engage other worthy causes with energy. We touched upon a wide variety of things—large and small, general and personal—in the course of our conversation, and everywhere I encountered understanding and sympathy.—Douglass's wife is completely black, and his five children, therefore, have more of the traits of the Ne
gro than he."
If Frederick Douglass were white, with his talent, endurance, and energy he would have had a brilliant career and achieved some distinguished position despite his humble origins. But as a mulatto—even though he is a famous man whose speeches attract large and eager crowds, whose importance and influence no one can gainsay, a man who belongs to the true elite of society, a man of intellect, personal amiability, and the purest character—he is excluded from any public office and from what is generally called good society. All the greater is the respect and love he enjoys among the friends of the emancipation of the slaves. It is no exaggeration of his accomplishments and the influence of his personality to attribute to him much of the change in public opinion in favor of the colored population that has occurred in the North for a number of years and is making slow but noticeable progress.
May this biography contribute to heighten the interest in the representatives and the cause of a race that, under a so-called republican form of government, has been subjected to a system of oppression whose cruelty has hardly been paralleled in the history of all peoples and countries.
Appendix D.
Harriet L. Anthony, Annotated Copy of My Bondage and My Freedom
Harriet Lucretia Anthony (1855-1930) was the great-granddaughter of Aaron Anthony, the first owner of Frederick Douglass. Her handwritten comments on Bondage and Freedom from 1912 appear in the fly leaf and margins of the 1855 edition of that book. This work is now in folder 93 of the Dodge Collection, MdAA. A transcription of Anthony's comments appears below, preceded by the page and line numbers of the section of text in both the Yale edition and the 1855 copy-text to which they refer. Those comments that cannot be referenced to key text are tied to the specific location near which they are written.
flyleaf]
Harriet Lucretia Anthony
Oxford, Maryland
Talbot County.
I do not know that there is any credit in one's family having been the owner of "Frederic Augustus Washington Bailey" alias Fred Douglass, but so many newspaper references to him speak of his living in the Lloyd family that for the sake of truth, I have several times been tempted to correct these statements. As far as I know no member of the Lloyd family ever laid claim to the honor(?)
As I understand it now, I am as much opposed to slavery as Fred ever was, I know, however that he exaggerates the story of the many cruelties he suffered as a slave in my great grandfather's, Aaron Anthony, family. He blames "Aunt Katie" the upper house servant for starving him. No one could have worked and subsisted on such scanty food as he describes, and as to his sleeping on a dirt floor with his head stuck in a meal sack in winter time any one familiar with this climate knows to be untrue.
If Fred grew up surrounded by such ignorant people, both blacks and whites, how did he acquire the ability to express himself so well? His arguments are clear, his references to important events, celebrated people, to poems, books of fiction, and to historical facts all in good English, are the utterances of a cultured gentleman.
H. L. Anthony
21.12-17/33.12-33.19 In Talbot county . . . ague and fever] An exaggeration
21.18-25/33.20-34.6 The name of . . . Maryland parlance, Tuckahoe] Tuckahoe is an Indian name
22.1-5/34.24-29 The reader will . . . respecting the place] Several years before Fred's death I sent him, from my great grandfather's records the date of his birth. H. L. A.
24.3-4/38.13-14 Their names were . . . HARRIET] Kitty "Aunt Kittie" Fred's sister, was our head house servant. She her son, Henry, and "Uncle Perry" died at Fred's home. H. L. A.
26.34-36/43.13-17 was the chief . . . to Col. Lloyd] He was really secretary and general manager for Col. Lloyd, as his old records show. All overseers reported to him. H. L. A.
31.19/52.13-14 It was sometimes . . . was my father] He denies this in another place, I am glad to say. H. L. A.
32.16-32/54.1-24 she seldom had . . . of the overseer] Very unlikely.
33.37-34.1/56.23-26 for the latter . . . in the kitchen] He contradicts himself here.
34.28-30/58.1-3 she was the . . . enjoyed that advantage] Many of my father's slaves could read. They were proud of the fact that they could read the BIBLE. H. L. A.
35.4-7/58.21-25 my mother died . . . he was not] In another chapter he exonerates his old master, and says his father, is supposed to be William Paca. H. L. A.
37.39/63.20 The Skinners] My great grandmother, the wife of Aaron Anthony, was a daughter of Andrew Skinner, the social equal of the Lloyds. H. L. A.
39.30-32/66.21-24 Old master's house . . . of Col. Lloyd] My great grandfather's house. H. L. A.
44.25-36/75.7-22 Cruel, however, as . . . cramming her own] From what the old servants have told me I believe this to he untrue.
44.33-36/75.18-22 William, Phil and . . . cramming her own] How could she cram them if she had so little to cram them with?
45.13-14/76.13-15 I had a . . . of my story] The "friend in the parlor" was Miss Lucretia Anthony, his daughter, for whom I was named. H. L. A.
45.15-17/76.16-20 I was not . . . the Chesapeake Bay] He refers to Capt. Aaron Anthony, my great grandfather.
46.12/78.6 Andrew] Andrew Anthony, whose portrait I have, was my grandfather. He was named for his grandfather, Andrew Skinner. H. L. A.
46.16-17/78.12-13 He owned about thirty "head of slaves] He must have owned more than thirty, for my father had that many, and my grandmother married after grandfather's death, a man who squandered her property, and a number of her negroes were sold for his debts. H. L. A.
46.17-19/78.14-16 The most valuable . . . one every year] In all of Capt. Anthony's old records which I have, there is no account of the sale of a single slave. H. L. A.
51.38/88.6 too coarse and blasphemous] I have every reason to believe this untrue. A message written to his children, in the old bible leads me to believe my great grandfather, Aaron Anthony, was a God-fearing man. H. L. A.
56.2/95.18 Rigby Hopkins] Rigby Hopkins was Mrs. Williams Seth's grandfather. H. L.A.
56.23/96.16 Mr. Hopkins] Rigby Hopkins.
75.4-5/129.23 Lucretia Auld] Lucretia Anthony married Capt. Thomas Auld. She left one daughter who married John L. Sears. H. L.A.
75.33/131.4-5 After this, Miss Lucretia was my friend] Douglas never failed to say he appreciated the kindness of his young mistress, Lucretia Anthony.
76.20-34/132.10-30 In hottest summer . . . in the gashes] Any human being, black or white, would have froze in winter, with no bed beneath him and no covering over him.
99.15/173.25 Capt. Anthony] Capt. Aaron Anthony
99.16-19/173.27-174.3 In a very . . . share his estate] Our old bible records show that Capt. Aaron Anthony died November 14, 1826, and his son Richard Lee, May 18, 1828. On the accounts in settling Capt. Anthony's estate, his son, Richard Lee, was living at the time of his father's death, however he died before the final settlement of his father's estate, and Fred is right in saying the estate was divided between Andrew and Lucretia. H. L.A.
100.28-38/176.6-18 He was distinguished . . . of deep consternation] As my grandfather, Andrew Skinner Anthony, died a young man I know nothing of his cruelty, but I fear Fred is right about his intemperate habits. There is no record however of his having sold his slaves. H. L.A.
101.37/178.6 Perry] I remember "Uncle Perry" very well, as he and his sister, "Aunt Kittie," with numerous other negroes became my grandfather's and eventually my father's property. In spite of this alleged cruel treatment he was apparently devoted to his white people as long as he lived. H. L.A.
102.29/179.17 Amanda] Her full name was Areana Amanda Auld. She married John L. Sears. Dr. Thomas E. Sears, of Baltimore, is one of her children. H. L.A.
102.31/179.19-20 one child] This "one child" was my father, John Planner Anthony. H. L.A.
103.1-2/180.1 in the hands of strangers] I suppose he refers to Capt. Anthony's son-in-law and daugher-in-law, his grandchildren certainly were not strangers. H.LA.
103.4-25/180.3-28 If any one . . . out to die] There is a lot, in the woods, to be sure on my father's old farm, inherited from his father and grandfather, called "Aunt Bettie's Lot, where she, with a number of little children, lived. She was provided for and not left to starve. H. L.A.
104.18/181.29 Rowena Hamilton] Rowena Hamilton was the mother of Mrs. John Harper and Mrs. ____ Bruff. Mrs. Nicholas Orem, Mrs. Joseph B. Harrington and others are among her grand children. H. L.A.
109.21/190.32] significant passage possibly deleted
109.39-110.9/191.23-192.5 When I lived . . . his enforcement weak] Although for some reason there was great objections made to Capt. Auld's marrying Lucretia
Anthony, I have always heard he was a very worthy man. I think Fred tries to belittle him in every way. He went to see Capt. Auld in his last sickness and professed high regard for him. H. L. A.
110.28/192.31 Eliza] Cousin Amanda's children were devoted to "Mammy Liza," as they called her. Her sister "Aunt Kittie" held about the same position in my father's family. We loved her devotedly. H. L.A.
111.4-24/193.21-194.17 Well, the camp-meeting . . . to come in] A good description of an old fashioned Methodist camp meeting. I hope he is wrong about Capt. Auld's conversion.
111.36-112.2/195.4-12 But in my . . . over his conversion] Still trying to belittle Capt. Auld.
112.16/195.32] I knew Capt. Auld very slightly. He married so many times after the death of his first wife, Lucretia Anthony, he hardly seemed a connection by marriage. H. L.A.
113.24/198.3-4 nearly starving] A slave could accomplish more work if well fed, and so I cannot believe Capt. Auld and his wife, Rowena Hambleton, would starve their slaves.
113.35-36/198.19 Mr. Samuel Harrison] The grandfather of Mrs. Tilghman, the wife of Col. Oswald, Tilghman. H. L.A.
115.16-34/201.6-32 I have seen . . . starve and die] I have heard this denied.
116.15-16/202.29-30 He gave food . . . in excellent quality] Why did not Mr. Hambleton's daughter inherit some of his liberality, in feeding her slaves?
116.26/203.13 Edward Covey] This Mr. Covey was really noted for his cruelty and meaness. His descendants are people of money and importance in the county, now.
143.34/252.17 "jubilee beating."] I have seen our negroes "Pat Juba," while others danced to the rhythm of the beats. H. L.A.
151.5/264.22 Sabbath school] Often at these meetings conspiracies were plotted against the master's, and I, for one, can not blame the negroes. I am as much opposed to slavery as Fred Douglass ever was. I am thankful that it has heen abolished. H. L.A.
186.6-11/325.22-28 Carefully counting the . . . an "unprofitable servant."] I can scarcely believe this H. L.A.
234.7/406.8] If Fred grew up surrounded by such ignorant people, both white and black, as he describes, how did he acquire such good command of English. He argues clearly and expresses his thoughts in the language of a cultured gentleman. H. L. A.
236.23-24/409.1-2 The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves] I know that my father's slaves were legally married to each other. Fred's brother, Perry, and sister, Kittie, and his numerous cousins, nephews and nieces, belonging to my father were legally married. H. L.A.
237.19/410.1-2 upon these cruelties] I think many of these cruelties, if practiced in Maryland at all, were few indeed. H. L.A.
238.22-24/411.9-1 When I was . . . I cared for] Not even by a hated over- seer was he treated thus. H. L.A.
252.30-36/427.4-14 And my dear . . . her old age] Fred's grandmother never belonged to Capt. Auld's wife, but to my grandfather Andrew Skinner Anthony, and eventually to my father John P. Anthony. H. L.A.
253.17/427.34 Amanda] Cousin Amanda married Mr. John L. Sears. She was a lovely Christian woman. I knew her well. H. L.A.