My Bondage and My Freedom
MY BONDAGE
AND
MY FREEDOM.
Part 1.—Life as a Slave. Part II.—Life as a freeman.
By FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
WITH
AN INTRODUCTION.
Br DR. JAMES M'CUNE SMITH.
By a principle essential to christianity, a PERSON is eternally differenced from a THING; so that the idea of a HUMAN BEING, necessarily excludes the idea of PROPERTY.
COLERIDGE
NEW YORK AND AUBURN:
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN.
New York: 25 Park Row—Auburn:107 Genesee-st.
1855.
Title page. 1855 edition. Yale Collection of American Literature.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year one thousand eight hundred and fifty-five
BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York
AUBURN:
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN
STEREOTYPES AND PRINTERS
"Copyright" page, 1855 edition. Yale Collection of American Literature.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Lihrary.
TO
HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH,
AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF
ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,
ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE,
AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND
GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND AS
A SMALL BUT MOST SINCERE ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF
HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHT AND LIBERTIES
OF AN
AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTRAGED PEOPLE,
BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY ANBD MURDER,
AND BY
DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE,
THIS VOLUME IS RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED,
BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
ROCHESTER, N.Y.
Dedication page. 1855 edition. Yale Collection of American Literature.
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
MY BONDAGE
AND
MY FREEDOM.
Part 1.—Life as a Slave. Part II—Life as a Freeman.
Bv FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
WITH
AN INTRODUCTION.
By DR. JAMES M'CUNE SMITH.*The son of a slave father and a self-emancipated bondswoman. James McCune Smith (1813–65) was born in New York City, where he attended the New York African Free School. Denied admission to American medical schools, Smith set sail for Scotland in 1832, receiving his B.A. (1835), M.A. (1836), and M.D. (1837) from the University of Glasgow. Upon his return to New York City, Smith established a medical practice and pharmacy that catered to both blacks and whites. He also devoted himself to abolitionist concerns. Smith briefly served as an associate editor of the Colored American in 1839 and contributed regularly to the Anglo-African Magazine and, under the pseudonym "Communipaw," to the North Star and Frederick Douglass' Paper. A longtime opponent of black colonization and emigration, Smith helped finance the revival of the Weekly Anglo-African as an anti-emigrationist organ in 1861. In 1863 Smith was appointed professor of anthropology at Wilberforce College, but illness kept him from his post. FDP, 18 May 1855; Lib., 1 June 1838; Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York, 1969), 115, 134; Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, They Who Would Be Free: Blacks' Search for Freedom, 1830–1861 (New York, 1974), 90–92, 103, 110; David W. Blight, "In Search of Learning, Liberty, and Self-Definition: James McCune Smith and the Ordeal of the Antebellum Black Intellectual," Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, 9: 7–25 (July 1985); Rhoda Golden Freeman, "The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War" (Ph.D diss., Columbia University, 1966), 40–42, 177, 186, 195, 200, 247, 276, 286, 325, 353, 393; Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928–36), 27: 288–89.
By a principle essential to christianity, a PERSON is eternally differenced from a THING, so that the idea of a HUMAN BEING necessarily excludes the idea of PROPERTY IN THAT BEING.
COLERIDGE.*Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834), English poet and philosopher, was a prominent poet of the Romantic age. His most famous works include "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel." Margaret Drabble, ed., The Oxford Companion to English Literature, rev. ed. (New York, 1998), 209–10.
NEW YORK AND AUBURN:
MILLER. ORTON & MULLIGAN.
New York: 25 Park Row.—Auburn: 107 Genesee-st.
1855.
Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1845,
BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court ofl\hssachusetts.
AUBURN:
MILLER, ORTON & MULLIGAN,
STEREOTYPERS AND PRINTERS.
TO
HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH,*Gerrit Smith (1797–1874) of Peterboro, New York, inherited real estate and a commercial empire amassed by his father in partnership with John Jacob Astor. An unenthusiastic businessman, Smith nevertheless invested skillfully in New York lands and became a successful financier. His fortune shrank during the panic of 1837, but, aided by a quarter-million-dollar loan from Astor, he recouped his losses in the 1840s. Between 1828 and 1835 Smith gave large donations to the American Colonization Society, and in the late 1840s he gave away some 140,000 acres of land to approximately three thousand black settlers who agreed to cultivate the tracts in upper New York state. Smith abandoned colonization in 1835 when he joined the New York Anti-Slavery Society. In December 1843 he led a group of followers out of the Presbyterian fold to form the nonsectarian Church of Peterboro. Selecting Smith as their new pastor, the new congregation endorsed temperance, abolition, and political action. In 1840 Smith began a thirty-year career as a political abolitionist by running for governor on the Liberty party ticket. He was elected to Congress as an Independent in 1852. Smith joined the Republican party during the Civil War and campaigned for both Lincoln and Grant. Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 26–38; Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith, Philanthropist and Reformer (New York, 1939); Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170–80; Ralph Volney Harlow, "Gerrit Smith and the Free Church Movement," NYH, 18: 269–87; John R. McKivigan, "The Frederick Douglass—Gerrit Smith Friendship: A Biracial Alliance for Reform," in Eric J. Sundquist. ed., Frederick Douglass: New Literary and Historical Essays (New York, 1990), 205–32; National Cyclopaedia of American Biography (New York, 1898), 2: 322–23; DAB, 7: 384–85.
AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF
ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,
ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE,
AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND
GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,
AND AS
A Small but most Sincere Acknowledgement of
HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES
OF AN
AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTRAGED PEOPLE,
BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY AND MURDER
AND BY
DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE,
This Volume ios Respectfully Dedicated,
BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND,
FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
ROCHESTER, N.Y.
EDITOR'S PREFACE.
If the volume now presented to the public were a mere work of ART, the history of its misfortune might be written in two very simple words—TOO LATE. The nature and character of slavery have been subjects of an almost endless variety of artistic representation: and after the brilliant achievements in that field, and while those achievements are yet fresh in the memory of the million, he who would add another to the legion, must possess the charm of transcendent excellence, or apologize for something worse than rashness. The reader is, therefore, assured, with all due promptitude, that his attention is not invited to a work of ART, to a work of FACTS—Facts, terrible and almost incredible, it may be—yet FACTS, nevertheless.
I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor place in the whole volume: but that names and places arc literally given, and that every transaction therein described actually transpired.
Perhaps the best Preface to this volume is furnished in the following letter of Mr. Douglass. written in answer to my urgent solicitation for such a work:
ROCHESTER. N.Y. 2, 1855.
DEAR FRIEND: I have long entertained, as you very well know, a somewhat positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for the public which could, with any degree of plausibility, make me liable to the imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its own sake. Entertaining that feeling very sincerely, and permitting its control, perhaps, quite unreasonably. I have often refused to narrate my personal experience in public antislavery meetings, and in sympathizing circles, when urged to do so by friends, with whose views and wishes, ordinarily, it were a pleasure to comply. In my letters and speeches, I have generally aimed to discuss the question of Slavery in the light of fundamental principles, and upon facts, notorious and open to all: making, I trust,no more of the fact of my own former enslavement, than circumstances seemed absolutely to require. I have never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system. I have also felt that it was best for those having histories worth the writing—or supposed to be so—to commit such work to hands other than their own. To write of one's self, in such a manner as not to incur the imputation of weakness, vanity, and egotism, is a work within the ability of but few: and I have little reason to believe that I belong to that fortunate few.
These considerations caused me to hesitate, when first you kindly urged me to prepare for publication a full account of my life as a slave, and my life as a freeman. Nevertheless, I see, with you, many reasons for regarding my autobiography as exceptional in its character, and as being, in some sense, naturally beyond the reach of those reproaches which honorable and sensitive minds dislike to incur. It is not to illustrate any heroic achievements of a man, but to vindicate a just and beneficent principle, in its application to the whole human family, by letting in the light of truth upon a system, esteemed by some as a blessing, and by others as a curse and a crime. I agree with you, that this system is now at the bar of public opinion—not only of this country, but of the whole civilized world—for judgment. Its friends have made for it the usual plea—"not guilty;" the case must, therefore, proceed. Any facts. either from slaves, slaveholders, or by-standers, calculated to enlighten the public mind, by revealing the true nature, character, and tendency of the slave system, are in order, and can scarcely be innocently withheld.
I see, too, that there are special reasons why I should write my own biography, in preference to employing another to do it. Not only is slavery on trial, but unfortunately, the enslaved people are also on triaL It is alleged. that they are, naturally, inferior; that they are in the scale of humanity, and so utterly stupid, that they are unconscious of their wrongs. and do not apprehend their rights. Looking, then, at your request, from this standpoint, and wishing everything of which you think me capable to go to the benefit of my afflicted people, I part with my doubts and hesitation, and proceed to furnish you the desired manuscript; hoping that you may he able to make such arrangements for its publication as shall be best adapted to accomplish that good which you so enthusiastically anticipate.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
There was little necessity for doubt and hesitation on the part of Mr. Douglass, as to the propriety of his giving to the world a full account of himself. A man who was born and brought up in slavery, a living witness of its horrors: who often himself experienced its cruelties; and who, despite the depressing influences surrounding his birth, youth and manhood, has risen, from a dark and almost absolute obscurity, to the distinguished position which he now occupies, might very well assume the existence of a commendable curiosity, on the part of the public, to know the facts of his remarkable history.
EDITOR.*James McCune Smith
INTRODUCTION.
WHEN a man raises himself from the lowest condition in society to the highest, mankind pay him the tribute of their admiration; when he accomplishes this elevation by native energy, guided by prudence and wisdom, their admiration is increased: but when his course, onward and upward, excellent in itself, furthermore proves a possible, what had hitherto been regarded as an impossible, reform, then he becomes a burning and a shining light, on which the aged may look with gladness, the young with hope, and the down-trodden, as a representative of what they may themselves become. To such a man, dear reader, it is my privilege to introduce you.
The life of Frederick Douglass, recorded in the pages which follow, is not merely an example of self-elevation under the most adverse circumstances: it is, moreover, a noble vindication of the highest aims of the American anti-slavery movement. The real object of that movement is not only to disenthrall, it is, also, to bestow upon the negro the exercise of all those rights, from the possession of which he has been so long debarred.
But this full recognition of the colored man to the right, and the entire admission of the same to the full privileges, political, religious and social, of manhood, requires powerful effort on the part of the enthralled, as well as on the part of those who would disenthrall them. The people at large must feel the conviction, as well as admit the abstract logic, of human equality; the negro, for the first time in the world's history, brought in full contact with high civilization, must prove his title to all that is demanded for him; in the teeth of unequal chances, he must prove himself equal to the mass of those who oppress him—therefore, absolutely superior to his apparent fate, and to their relative ability. And it is most cheering to the friends of freedom, to-day, that evidence of this equality is rapidly accumulating, not from the ranks of the half-freed colored people of the free states, but from the very depths of slavery itself; the indestructible equality of man to man is demonstrated by the ease with which black men, scarce one remove from barbarism—if slavery can be honored with such a distinction—vault into the high places of the most advanced and painfully acquired civilization. Ward†The parents of Samuel Ringgold Ward (1817–c.1866) carried him along on their escape from slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore in about 1820. The family settled six years later in New York City, where young Ward received an elementary education. In 1833 he embraced religion and received ordination in 1839. His two New York congregations, at South Butler (1841–43) and Courtland (1846–51), consisted mostly of whites, but Ward vigorously agitated for the rights of both slaves and free blacks. The American Anti-Slavery Society appointed Ward a lecturing agent in 1839. As one of the earliest black supporters of political abolitionism, Ward acted as spokesman for the Liberty party after 1844. Ward studied law and medicine briefly, and also tried his hand at editing during the late 1840s. His Impartial Citizen, published from Syracuse, and another newspaper venture both failed financially. In 1851 Ward's leading role in rescuing Jerry McHenry from slave catchers caused him to fear arrest and to emigrate to Canada. There he launched the Provincial Freeman in 1853 and acted as agent for the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. In the latter capacity, Ward journeyed to Britain in 1853 on a fundraising tour. In 1855 Ward published his Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro and accepted a British Quaker's gift of fifty acres of land in Jamaica. He lived his last decade on that island, farming, writing, and ministering to a small Baptist congregation. On Ward's death, Douglass mourned the loss of a black leader who "in depth of thought, fluency of speech, readiness of wit, logical exactness, and general intelligence . . . has left no successor." Douglass, Life and Times, 308; NS, 2 February 1849; Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History (New Haven, 1971), 206–08, 227, 265–66, 361, 395; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 79, 98, 133, 138, 210. and Garnett,†Born a slave in Kent County, Maryland, Henry Highland Garnet (1815–82) fled north with his parents in 1824. He attended the African Free School in New York City; the Noyes Academy in Canaan, New Hampshire; and the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York. Garnet was one of the founders of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and a stump speaker for the Liberty party. Licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Troy in 1842, Garnet went to Jamaica in 1852 as a missionary of the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland. An early proponent of black emigration to Africa and founder of the African Civilization Society. Garnet also sanctioned slave uprisings in an address before a National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York, in August 1843. After the Civil War, Garnet was president of Avery College in Pittsburgh and United States minister to Liberia (1881–82). Joel Schor, Henn Highland Carnet; A Voice of Black Radicalism in the Nineteenth Century (Westport, Conn., 1977); Dorothy Sterling, ed., Speak Out in Thunder Tones: Letters and Other Writings by Black Northerners, 1787–1865 (Garden City, N .Y., 1973), 376; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 68, 185, 216–17, 226–27. Wells Brown†William Wells Brown (c. 1816–84) was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky, but spent much of his youth near St. Louis, Missouri. He fled slavery in 1834, taking the name Wells Brown from a Quaker man who aided his escape. Brown was employed as a lecturer for the Western New York and Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Societies from 1843 to 1849, and was active in universal reform movements advocating temperance, women's rights, and prison reform. Brown studied medicine informally, but chose to remain active in reforms instead of committing to professional medical practice. He published a number of historical books concerning blacks and slavery, beginning in 1847 with his autobioography, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave. His first history, The Black Man, His Antecendents, His Genius, and His Achievements, appeared in 1863 and ran through ten editions in three years. His best-known literary production was the novel Clotel, written while Brown was touring Great Britain in the early 1850s. R.J.M. Blackett, Beating against the Barriers: The Lives of Six Nineteenth-Century African Americans (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 45, 48, 95–96, 101–02; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 35, 42, 50–51; DAB, 3: 161. and Pennington,†James William Charles Pennington (1809–71) was born a slave on the Eastern Shore of Maryland and trained as a blacksmith. His flight north at the age of twenty-one led him to the home of a Pennsylvania Quaker who taught him to read and write. Later Pennington began teaching black children in Newtown, Long Island, and then in New Haven, Connecticut, where he also studied theology. Pennington's ministerial career began in 1838 in Newtown, and in 1840 he entered the Congregational ministry in Hartford, Connecticut, where he served until 1847, later serving as a pastor (1848–55) of Shiloh Presbyterian Church in New York City. In 1843 Pennington traveled to England as a delegate-at-large to the World's Anti-Slavery Conference in London and then lectured in London, France, and Belgium. He so impressed his European audiences that the University of Heidelberg awarded him an honorary doctor of divinity degree. Fearing recapture after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, Pennington again traveled abroad, but abolitionist friends bought his freedom in 1851 for $150. He was an active member of both abolitionist and black self-improvement organizations. In addition to many sermons, addresses, and regular contributions to the Anglo-African Magazine, Pennington wrote A Text Book of the Origins and History, etc., etc., of the Colored People (1841), an inquiry, based on biblical references, into the Negro's ancestry and character; and an autobiography, The Fugitive Blacksmith (1849). Carter G. Woodson, ed., The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in Letters Written during the Crisis, 1800-1860 (Washington, D.C., 1926), 642–51: Martin Robinson Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (1852: New York, 1968), 113; William Wells Brown, The Rising Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race (Boston, 1874), 461–63; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 49–51, 53, 88–89, 108–10, 418; NCAB, 14: 307; DAB, 14: 441–42. Loguen†Jermain Wesley Loguen (c. 1810–72), son of a slave mother and his Tennessee owner, escaped to freedom in Canada in 1835. After working as a farm laborer and a hotel porter, he attended the Oneida Institute in Whitesboro, New York. Loguen taught school in several New York communities and then became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. After congressional enactment of a more stringent fugitive slave law in 1850. Loguen moved to Syracuse, where proximity to the Canadian border provided him comparative safety. In 1851, when indicted for his part in the rescue of Jerry McHenry from slave catchers, Loguen briefly fled to Canada. He later supported Gerrit Smith's Radical Abolition party and aided John Brown in recruiting men for the Harpers Ferry raid. After the Civil War Loguen was elected a bishop of his denomination and championed missionary work among the freedmen. New York Daily Tribune, 1 October 1872; San Francisco Elevator, 5 October 1872; Benjamin Quarles, Allies for Freedom: Blacks and John Brown (New York, 1974), 39–44, 65–66, 73–75; idem, Black Abolitionists, 66–67, 154, 188; DAB, 11: 368–69. and Douglass, are banners on the outer wall, under which abolition is fighting its most successful battles, because they are living exemplars of the practicability of the most radical abolitionism; for, they were all of them born to the doom of slavery, some of them remained slaves until adult age, yet they all have not
only won equality to their white fellow citizens, in civil, religious, political and social rank, but they have also illustrated and adorned our common country by their genius, learning and eloquence.
The characteristics whereby Mr. Douglass has won first rank among these remarkable men, and is still rising toward highest rank among living Americans, are abundantly laid bare in the book before us. Like the autobiography of Hugh Miller,† Hugh Miller (1802–56) was a renowned geologist, stonemason, banker, newspaper editor, and author from Edinburgh, Scotland. Miller published a memoir, An Autobiography, My Schools and Schoolmasters; or, The Story of My Education, (1854), and several geology texts. In his writings he supported the notion of white racial superiority, but did not believe that the inferiority of other races was innate or predestined; instead he suggested it resulted from the effects of decadent, but freely chosen, actions by members of the subordinate race. Thomas N. Brown, The Life and Times of Hugh Miller (New York, 1858); C. Peter Ripley, ed., The Black Abolitionist Papers, 5 vols. (Chapel Hill, 1985-92), 2:509n. it carries us so far back into early childhood, as to throw light upon the question, ''when positive and persistent memory begins in the human being." And, like Hugh Miller, he must have been a shy old fashioned child, occasionally oppressed by what he could not well account for, peering and poking about among the layers of right and wrong, of tyrant and thrall, and the wonderfulness of that hopeless tide of things which brought power to one race, and unrequited toil to another, until, finally, he stumbled upon his "first-found Ammonite,"†A quote from Hugh Miller's An Autobiography: "In a nodular mass of bluish-gray limestone . . . I laid open my first found ammonite." An ammonite is a fossil whorled chambered shell of prehistoric squids or octopuses, so called because they resemble the horn upon the ancient statues of Jupiter Ammon, the Libyan god. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, ed., Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 15th ed. (New York, 1995), 30. hidden away down in the depths of his own nature, and which revealed to him the fact that liberty and right, for all men, were anterior to slavery and wrong. When his knowledge of the world was bounded by the visible horizon on Col. Lloyd plantation,†Settled by Edward Lloyd I in 1658, Wye House, the home plantation of the Lloyds, was situated on a peninsula formed by the Wye River on the north and the Miles River on the south. By 1790 Edward Lloyd IV owned 11,884 acres in the region. The mansion house to which Douglass refers was built in 1784 and overlooks Lloyd's Cove on the Wye River. Aaron Anthony and his family lived in the "Captain's House," a brick outbuilding near the mansion. Douglass lived at Anthony's home at Wye House from August 1824 to March 1826. H[enry] Chandlee Forman, Old Buildings, Gardens, and Furniture in Tidewater Maryland (Cambridge, Md., 1967), 51–80; Hulbert Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore: Seventeen Maryland Rivers (New York, 1944), 269–93; Dickson J. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years (Baltimore, 1980), 37–40, 199. and while every thing around him bore a fixed, iron stamp, as if it had always been so, this was, for one so young. a notable discovery.
To his uncommon memory, then, we must add a keen and accurate insight into men and things; an original breadth of common sense which enabled him to see, and weigh, and compare whatever passed before him, and which kindled a desire to search out and define their relations to other things not so patent, but which never succumbed to the marvelous nor the supernatural; a sacred thirst for liberty and for learning, first as a means of attaining liberty then as an end in itself most desirable; a will; an unfaltering energy and determination to obtain what his soul pronounced desirable; a majestic self-hood; determined courage: a deep and agonizing sympathy with his embruted, crushed and bleeding fellow slaves, and an extraordinary depth of passion, together with that rare alliance between passion and intellect, which enables the former, when deeply roused, to excite, develop and sustain the latter.
With these original gifts in view, let us look at his schooling; the fearful discipline through which it pleased God to prepare him for the high calling on which he has since entered—the advocacy of emancipation by the people who are not slaves. And for this special mission, his plantation education was better than any he could have acquired in any lettered school. What he needed, was facts and experiences, welded to acutely wrought up sympathies, and these he could not elsewhere have obtained. in a manner so
peculiarly adapted to his nature. His physical being was well trained, also, running wild until advanced into boyhood; hard work and light diet, thereafter, and a skill in handicraft in youth.
For his special mission, then, this was, considered in connection with his natural gifts, a good schooling; and, for his special mission, he doubtless "left school" just at the proper moment. Had he remained longer in slavery—had he fretted under bonds until the ripening of manhood and its passions, until the drear agony of slave-wife and slave-children had been piled upon his already bitter experiences—then, not only would his own history have had another termination, but the drama of American slavery would have heen essentially varied; for I cannot resist the belief, that the boy who learned to read and write as he did, who taught his fellow slaves these precious acquirements as he did, who plotted for their mutual escape as he did, would, when a man at bay, strike a blow which would make slavery reel and stagger. Furthermore. blows and insults he bore, at the moment, without resentment; deep but suppressed emotion rendered him insensible to their sting; but it was afterward. when the memory of them went seething through his hrain, breeding a fiery indignation at his injured self-hood, that the resolve came to resist, and the time fixed when to resist, and the plot laid, how to resist; and he always kept his self-pledged word. In what he undertook, in this line, he looked fate in the face, and had a cool, keen look at the relation of means to ends. Henry Bibb,†Henry BibbJ Henry Bibb (1815–54), born a slave in Shelby County, Kentucky, escaped in 1837, only to be recaptured in his unsuccessful attempt to rescue his wife and child. By 1842 he had escaped once again and settled in Detroit, Michigan, his residence until 1850. Immediately plunging into political and antislavery work, Bibb was hired as a lecturer by the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society and spoke on behalf of Liberty party candidates. Although Bibb planned to visit England in 1848, he was advised against making such a tour because the bigamous implications of his marriage to a free woman, Mary E. Miles, might limit his antislavery appeal. He toured the East in 1849, at one point acting as an agent for the North Star, and published his Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb . . . (1849). After the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, Bibb settled in Windsor, Canada West, where he published the Voice of the Fugitive (1851–53). In January 1852 the Refugee Home Society was founded to assist American blacks to migrate to Canada and chose Bibb as a trustee. Bibb was also active in the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, serving as one of its vice-presidents in 1852. , 24 March 1848; Henry Bibb, "Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb,'' in Puttin' On Ole Massa, ed. Gilbert Osofsky (New York, 1969), 64, 74–82, 154–64; William H. Pease and Jane H. Pease, Black Utopia: Negro Communal Experi ments in America (Madison, Wisc., 1963), 109–22; Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787–1863 (Urbana, Ill., 1975), 106–07, 110–15, 149; Winks, Blacks in Canada, 204–08, 254–55, 396–97; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 61–62, 185, 218–19; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 65, 252–53; Fred Landon, "Henry Bibb, a Colonizer," JNH, 5: 437–47 (October 1920). to avoid chastisement, strewed his master's bed with charmed leaves—and . Frederick Douglass quietly pocketed a like , compared his muscles with those of Covey†Edward Covey (1806?–75), who started out as a poor farm-renter from Talbot County, Maryland, managed to accumulate $23,000 in real estate by 1850. Covey's reputation as a slave breaker enabled him to rent or even to receive the free use of field hands from local slave owners anxious to have their slaves taught proper discipline. Harriet Lucretia Anthony, the great-granddaughter of Aaron Anthony, remembered that "Mr. Covey was really noted for his cruelty and meanness." Inventory of the estate of Edward Covey, 15 May 1875, Talbot County Inventories, TNC#3, 578, MdTCH; Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 203, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 240 (free schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 117–31.—and .
In the history of his life in bondage, we find, well developed, that inherent and continuous energy of character which will ever render him distinguished. What his hand found to do, he did with his might; even while conscious that he was wronged out of his daily earnings, he worked, and worked hard. At his daily labor he went with a will; with keen, well set eye, brawny chest, lithe figure, and fair sweep of arm, he would have been king among calkers, had that heen his mission.
It must not he overlooked, in this glance at his education. that Mr. Douglass lacked one aid to which so many men of mark have been deeply indebted-he had neither a mother's care, nor a mother's culture, save that which slavery grudgingly meted out to him. Bitter nurse! may not even her features relax with human feeling, when she gazes at such offspring! How susceptible he was to the kindly influences of mother-culture, may be gathered from his own words. on page 57 : "It has been a life-long, standing grief
to me, that I know so little of my mother, and that I was so early separated from her. The counsels of her love must have been beneficial to me. The side view of her face is imaged on my memory, and I take fe w steps in life. without feeling her presence; but the image is mute, and I have no striking words of hers treasured up."†Except for a few minor errors, Smith slightly misquotes a passage from Bondage and Freedom, 34.22–27/57.24–31
From the depths of chattel slavery in Maryland, our author escaped into the caste-slavery of the north, in New Bedford, Massachusetts.†Douglass lived in New Bedford, Massachusetts, after his escape from slavery, staying in the city from 1838 until 1842. William S. McFeely, Frederick Douglass (New York, 1991), 74–92. Here he found oppression assuming another, and hardly less bitter, form; of that very handicraft which the greed of slavery had taught him, his half-freedom denied him the exercise for an honest living; he found himself one of a class—free colored men—whose position he has described in the following words:
"Aliens are we in our native land. The fundamental principles of the republic, to which the humblest white man, whether born here or elsewhere, may appeal with confidence, in the hope of awakening a favorable response, are held to be inapplicable to us. The glorious doctrines of your revolutionary fathers, and the more glorious teachings of the Son of God, are construed and applied against us. We arc literally scourged beyond the beneficent range of both authorities. human and divine. * * * * American humanity hates us, scorns us, disowns and denies, in a thousand ways, our very personality. The outspread wing of American christianity, apparently broad enough to give shelter to a perishing world, refuses to cover us. To us, its bones are brass, and its features iron. In running thither for shelter and succor, we have only fled from the hungry blood-hound to the devouring wolf—from a corrupt and selfish world, to a hollow and hypocritical church."—, 1854.†Smith misdates Douglass' s address to the annual convention of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, in New York City, on 11 May 1853, not 1854. , 27 May 1853; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:425–26.
Four years or more, from 1837 to 1841, he struggled on, in New Bedford, sawing wood, rolling casks, or doing what labor he might, to support himself and young family; four years he brooded over the scars which slavery and semi-slavery had inflicted upon his body and soul; and then, with his wounds yet unhealed, he fell among the Garrisonians†In May 1840 the American abolitionist movement divided into hostile, competing factions. Boston editor William Lloyd Garrison led the most perfectionist-inclined group, most members of which abandoned the nation's religious and political institutions as hopelessly corrupted by tolerance toward slavery. John R. McKivigan, The War against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism in the Northern Churches, 1830–1865 (Ithaca, N. Y., 1984), 56–92.—a glorious waif to those most ardent reformers. It happened one day, at Nantucket,†On 10–12 August 1841, Douglass attended a special summer abolitionist convention on the island of Nantucket called by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison also attended this gathering and strongly applauded Douglass 's novice performance as an abolitionist orator. Lib., 20 August 1841; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 86–90. that he, diffidently and reluctantly, was led to address an anti-slavery meeting. He was about the age when the younger Pitt†William Pitt (1759–1806), often referred to as "the younger Pitt," was the second son of the Earl of Chatham. He was elected to Parliament in 1781 and became a noted opponent of Lord North's policies in the American Revolution. At the age of twenty-four he became the youngest prime minister of Britain, a position he held for seventeen years. Pitt was a reformer who sought positive relations with the United States and Ireland, a reduced national debt, parliamentary reform, and a reorganization of the British East India Company. When the king refused to approve his bill emancipating Catholics, he resigned in protest in 1801, but was persuaded to return in 1804 when war with France seemed imminent. John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Years of Acclaim, 3 vols. (New York, 1969-96); Magnus Magnusson, ed., Cambridge Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, 1990), 1166–67; DNB, 15:1253–72. entered the House of Commons; like Pitt, too, he stood up a born orator.
William Lloyd Garrison,†The son of impoverished Nova Scotian immigrants to Massachusetts, William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79) learned the printer's trade as a youth and went on to become one of the nation's most influential reform journalists. In 1831 he brought out the first issue of the Boston Liberator, which endorsed immediate emancipation. Later Garrison became an advocate for temperance, women's rights, and many other causes. His uncompromising radical positions helped cause the schism in the abolitionist movement in 1840. Thereafter he served as president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and led the "Garrisonian" wing of aholitionism until the Civil War. John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); DAB, 7:168–72. who was happily present. writes thus of Mr. Douglass' maiden effort: " I shall never forget his first speech at the convention—the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind—the powerful
impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise. * * * I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one in physical proportions and stature commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural eloquence a prodigy."†Smith slightly misquotes a portion of William Lloyd Garrison's preface, not introduction, to Douglass's first autobiography, which was actually published in 1845. Douglass Papers, ser, 2, 1:3.
It is of interest to compare Mr. Douglass 's account of this meeting with Mr. Garrison's. Of the two, I think the latter the most correct. It must have been a grand burst of eloquence! The pent up agony, indignation and pathos of an abused and harrowed boyhood and youth, bursting out in all their freshness and overwhelming earnestness!
This unique introduction to its great leader, led immediately to the employment of Mr. Douglass as an agent by the American Anti-Slavery Society.†Inspired by the success of the British emancipation movement, a group of sixty-two American abolitionists, representing Quakers, free blacks, New York evangelicals, and New England radicals such as William Lloyd Garrison, met in Philadelphia in December 1833 and founded the American Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison drafted most of the society's original Declaration of Sentiments, which endorsed a blend of immediatist principles and moral suasion tactics. By the time Douglass became a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society in the early 1840s, the organization had suffered a serious schism; many abolitionists had quit in protest against Garrison's stands on women's rights, religious orthodoxy, and an independent antislavery political party. Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority(De Kalb, Ill., 1974), 52–53, 113–26; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York, 1976), 50–51, 89–96. So far as his self-relying and independent character would permit, he became, after the strictest sect, a Garrisonian. It is not too much to say, that he formed a complement which they needed, and they were a complement equally necessary to his '"make-up." With his deep and keen sensitiveness to wrong, and his wonderful memory, he came from the land of bondage full of its woes and its evils, and painting them in characters of living light and, on his part, he found, told out in sound Saxon phrase, all those principles of justice and right and liberty, which had dimly brooded over the dreams of his youth, seeking definite forms and verbal expression. It must have heen an electric flashing of thought, and a knitting of soul, granted to but few in this life, and will be a life-long memory to those who participated in it. In the society, moreover, of Wendell Phillips,†Boston-born and Harvard-educated Wendell Phillips (1811–84) ranked second only to Garrison in influence in the American Anti-Slavery Society in the 1840s and 1850s. A highly gifted orator, Phillips was in demand as a lecturer even in nonabolitionist circles. Besides abolition, Phillips championed woman suffrage, prohihition, penal reform, Indian rights, and legislative protection for workers. James Brewer Stewart, Wendell Phillips: Liberty's Hero (Baton Rouge, 1986); Irving H. Bartlett, Wendell Phillips: Brahmin Radical (Boston, 1961); DAB, 14:546–47. Edmund Quincy,†Edmund Quincy (1808–77), one of the most active and articulate Garrisonian reformers, was once described by Douglass as not only ''one of the best in our ranks" but also "the least appreciated by the rest of [the] Abolitionists." A member of one of Boston's most distinguished families—his father, Josiah (1777–1864), was a congressman, mayor, and president of Harvard—Quincy had seemed destined for the relatively peaceful life of a scholar and author until the mob murder of Elijah P. Lovejoy in 1837 shocked him into joining the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. He soon became one of Garrison's closest associates. He helped found the Non-Resistance Society in 1839, served as a corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society from 1844 to 1853, and was a vice-president and member of the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society during the 1850s. A respected novelist and biographer, Quincy often edited the Liberator during Garrison 's absences. He also edited or frequently contributed to the National Antislavery Standard and the Liberty Bell. NS, 21 January 1848; Tribute of the Massachusetts Historical Society to the Memory of Edmund Quincy and John Lothrop Motley (Boston, 1877), 6; NCAB, 6: 93–94; DAB, 15:306–07. William Lloyd Garrison, and other men of earnest faith and refined culture, Mr. Douglass enjoyed the high advantage of their assistance and counsel in the labor of self-culture, to which he now addressed himself with wonted energy. Yet, these gentlemen, although proud of Frederick Douglass, failed to fathom, and bring out to the light of day, the highest qualities of his mind; the force of their own education stood in their own way; they did not delve into the mind of a colored man for capacities which the pride of race led them to believe to be restricted to their own Saxon blood. Bitter and vindictive sarcasm, irresistible mimicry, and a pathetic narrative of his own experiences of slavery, were the intellectual manifestations which they encouraged him to exhibit on the platform or in the lecture desk. A visit to England, in 1845, threw Mr. Douglass among men and
* Letter, Introduction to Life of Frederick Douglass. Boston, 1841.
women of earnest souls and high culture, and who, moreover, had never drank of the bitter waters of American caste. For the first time in his life, he breathed an atmosphere congenial to the longings of his spirit, and felt his manhood free and unrestricted. The cordial and manly greetings of the British and Irish audiences in public, and the refinement and elegance of the social circles in which he mingled, not only as an equal, but as a recognized man of genius, were, doubtless genial and pleasant resting places in his hitherto thorny and troubled journey through life. There are joys on the earth, and, to the wayfaring fugitive from American slavery or American caste, this is one of them.
But his sojourn in England was more than a joy to Mr. Douglass. Like the platform at Nantucket, it awakened him to the consciousness of new powers that lay in him. From the pupilage of Garrisonism he rose to the dignity of a teacher and a thinker; his opinions on the hroader aspects of the great American question were earnestly and incessantly sought, from various points of view, and he must, perforce, bestir himself to give suitahle answer. With that prompt and truthful perception which has led their sisters in all ages of the world to gather at the feet and support the hands of reformers, the gentlewomen of England* were foremost to encourage and strengthen him to carve out for himself a path fitted to his powers and energies, in the life-battle against slavery and caste to which he was pledged. And one stirring thought, inseparable from the British idea of the evangel of freedom, must have smote his ear from every side—
"Hereditary bondmen! know ye not
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?"†Quotation from Lord Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto II, stanza LXXVI. George Gordon Lord Byron, Byron: Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and other Romantic Poems, ed. John D. Jump (Totowa, N.J., 1975), 56.
The result of this visit was, that on his return to the United States, he etablished a newspaper. This proceeding was sorely against the wishes and the advice of the leaders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, but our author had fully grown up to the conviction of a truth which they had once promulged, but now forgotten, to wit: that in their own elevation—self-elevation—colored men have a blow to strike "on their own hook,'' against slavery and caste. Differing from his Boston friends in this matter, diffident in his own abilities, reluctant at their dissuadings, how beautiful is the loyally
*One of these ladies,†Julia Griffiths (c.1812–95) was a British abolitionist and reformer originally from Newcastle-upon-Tyne. Douglass befriended her during his initial tour of Great Britain in 1845–47. Griffiths came to Rochester in 1848 and became a strong supporter and ally of Douglass in his publication of the North Star and later Frederick Douglass' Paper. She lived for a time in the Douglass home and worked as business manager of the paper, taking charge of financial matters and aiding Douglass in his work as editor. Griffiths was a successful fundraiser who continued her antislavery activities in the United States through her affiliation with the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society. Following unsubstantiated rumors hinting that Douglass and Griffiths shared more than a business relationship, she returned to Britain in 1855. From 1856 to 1859, Griffiths traveled throughout Britain as an abolitionist lecturer and formed fifteen women's antislavery groups. Each of these groups supported Douglass and was strongly at odds with the Garrisonian wing of abolitionism. In 1859 Griffiths married H. O. Crofts, a minister from Halifax. Karen I. Halbersleben, Women's Pariticipation in the British Antislavery Movement, 1824–1865 (Lewiston, N.Y., 1993), 190–95; Clare Midgley, Women against Slavery: The British Campaigns, 1780–1870 (London, 1992), 140–42; Nathan Irvin Huggins, Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass, ed. Oscar Handlin (New York, 1980), 45–46; Waldo E. Martin. Jr., The Mind of Frederick Douglass (Chapel Hill, 1984), 40–41; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 163–65. impelled by the same noble spirit which carried Miss Nightingale to Scutari,†Florence Nightingale (1820–1910), nurse and medical reformer, chose at seventeen to enter nursing despite her upper-class rearing and classical education. Responsible for significantly improving sanitation and management of a hospital in London in 1853, she used her new fame to win a commission in 1854 to supervise hospitals in the Crimea, where Great Britain was then battling Russia. She elevated the quality of care and the sanitation remarkably and by 1855 had reduced the death rate in the field hospitals from 42 to 2 percent. In 1856 she returned to England an international heroine and launched a crusade for the reform of hospitals, nursing, and public health to which she would devote most of the balance of her life. Cecil Woodham-Smith, Florence Nightingale, 1820–1910 (New York, 1951); Jennifer S. Uglow, ed., The Continuum Dictionary of Women's Biography (New York, 1989), 401–02; Jessica Ben diner and Elmer Bendiner, Biographical Dictionary of Medicine (New York, 1990), 180–81. has devoted her time, her untiring energies, to a great extent her means, and her high literary abilities, to the advancement and support of Frederick Douglass' Paper,†In the spring of 1851, New York's leading political abolitionist, Gerrit Smith, approached Douglass with a proposal to merge the latter's financially struggling with the official organ of the New York State Liberty party. Smith promised Douglass the editorship of the new journal along with a monthly subsidy for two years. Douglass accepted, and the new newspaper, the Frederick Douglass' Paper, prospered moderately thanks to Smith's generosity and the energetic fundraising of Julia Griffiths. McKivigan, "The Frederick Douglass-Gerrit Smith Friendship," 214–19. the only organ of the downtrodden, edited and published by one of themselves, in the United States.
with which he still clung to their principles in all things else, and even in this.
Now came the trial hour. Without cordial support from any large body of men or party on this side the Atlantic, and too far distant in space and immediate interest to expect much more, after the much already done, on the other side, he stood up, almost alone, to the arduous labor and heavy expenditure of editor and lecturer. The Garrison party, to which he still adhered, did not want a newspaper—there was an odor of about it; the Liberty party could hardly be expected to give warm support to a man who smote their principles as with a hammer; and the wide gulf which separated the free colored people from the Garrisonians, also separated them from their brother, Frederick Douglass.
The arduous nature of his labors, from the date of the establishment of his paper, may be estimated by the fact, that anti-slavery papers in the United States. even while the organs of, and when supported by, anti-slavery parties. have. with a single exception, failed to pay expenses.†Antislavery periodicals during the ante-bellum era required massive subsidies from wealthy patrons in order to remain in existence. Even William Lloyd Garrison's long-running generated little income for the editor, whose family expenses had to be subsidized by his abolitionist associates, especially Wendell Phillips, Francis Jackson, and Edmund Quincy. The exception to this general pattern, to which Smith might have referred, was the Washington (D.C.) National Era, edited by Gamaliel Bailey. Bailey began this weekly newspaper in January 1847 with the financial help of the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Within a year Bailey took over complete control of the National Era and repaid his debt to the abolitionist society by May 1849. Adopting a moderate antislavery political stance, Bailey built the paper's circulation base to a peak of twenty-eight thousand in 1853. Bailey's relative prosperity led some abolitionists to charge him with enriching himself at the expense of the antislavery movement. Stanley Harrold, Gamaliel Baily and Antislavery Union (Kent, Ohio, 1986), 90–91, 93, 139–41; Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison, 123, 130, 144. Mr. Douglass has maintained, and does maintain, his paper without the support of any party, and even in the teeth of the opposition of those from whom he had reason to expect counsel and encouragement. He has been compelled, at one and the same time, and almost constantly, during the past seven years, to contribute matter to its columns as editor, and to raise funds for its support as lecturer. It is within bounds to say, that he has expended twelve thousand dollars of his own hard earned money,†Less than a year after the publication of Bondage and Freedom, Douglass admitted that he was having serious financial problems. In May 1856 Douglass claimed that Frederick Douglass' Paper was fifteen hundred dollars in debt and feared the venture would fold. The weekly publication continued to struggle until the summer of 1860, when it ceased publication. Frederick Douglass to Gerrit Smith, May 23, 1856, Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU; Penelope L. Bullock, The Afro-American Periodical Press, 1838–1909 (Baton Rouge, 1981), 52. in publishing this paper, a larger sum than has been contributed by any one individual for the general advancement of the colored people. There had been many other papers published and edited by colored men,†There had been at least nine newspapers edited by blacks by the time Douglass started the North Star in 1847. These included six published in New York City: Freedom's Journal (1827–29), published by Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm; Rights of All (1829), published by Samuel Cornish; Weekly Advocate (1837) and Colored American (1837–41), both published by Samuel Cornish, Phillip Bell, and Charles Ray; Mirror of Liberty (1838–40), published by David Ruggles; and Ram's Horn, published by Thomas Van Rensselaer. Newspapers published in other cities included National Reformer (1838–39), published in Philadelphia by William Whipper; Mystery (1843–47), published in Pittsburgh by Martin Delany; and Northern Star and Freemen's Advocate (1842), published in Albany by Stephen Myers. Frankie Hutton, The Early Black Press in America, 1827–1860 (Westport, Conn., 1993), 165–66. beginning as far back as 1827, when the Rev. Samuel E. Cornish†Samuel Cornish (c.1795–1859), a black Presbyterian minister, helped to found the First Colored Presbyterian Church of New York in 1822. In 1827 Cornish was coeditor, with John Russwurm, of Freedom's Journal, the first black newspaper in the United States. Resigning the editorship after only six months, Cornish then served as an agent for the New York Manumission Society's African Free Schools. In 1829 he startcd his own abolitionist newspaper, Rights of All, which failed in less than a year. From 1837 to 1839, Cornish edited Colored American, and later served as pastor of a black Presbyterian church in Newark, New Jersey. Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, eds., The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison, 6 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971–81). 6:328n (hereafter cited as Garrison Letters); Hutton, Early Black Press, 6–9. and John B. Russworm†John Brown Russwurm (1799–1851) was the coeditor of Freedom's Journal, the first black-owned and-operated newspaper in the United States. After graduating in 1826 from Bowdoin College in Maine, he met Samuel Cornish and began Freedom's Journal. In his native New York City, Russwurm was highly regarded within his community. While working as coeditor, he also taught at a free evening school in New York City. Believing that blacks should take the lead in the uplift of their own people, Russwurm saw colonization to Liberia as the best option for blacks to improve their status. This stand resulted in Russwurm's departure from the Freedom's Journal and migration to the colony of Liberia in 1829. John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York, 1999), 19:117–18; Hutton, Early Black Press, 4-7, 123–24. (a graduate of Bowdoin college, and afterward Governor of Cape Palmas) published the FREEDOM'S JOURNAL,†Freedom's Journal was the first newspaper published and distributed by and for blacks in America. The press was based in New York City, where it operated until its demise in 1830. Though aimed at the uplift of black America, the paper also covered many topics of personal interest to its community and readers. After six months' coeditorship, John B. Russwurm and Samuel Cornish split over the issue of the colonization of free blacks. Freedom's Journal lingered under the leadership of Russwurm until 1830, when he departed for Liberia. P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816–1865 (New York, 1961), 167–68; Bullock, Afro-American Periodical Press, 1–2; Hutton, Early Black Press, 4–7, 42–44. in New York city; probably not less than one hundred newspaper enterprises have been started in the United States, by free colored men, born free, and some of them of liberal education and fair talents for this work: but, one after another, they have fallen through, although, in several instances, anti-slavery friends contributed to their support.* It had almost been given up, as an impracticable thing, to maintain a colored newspaper, when Mr. Douglass, with fewest early advantages of all his competitors, essayed, and has proved, the thing perfectly practicable, and,
*Mr. Stephen Myers,†Stephen Myers (1800–85), a black abolitionist and Underground Railroad activist, published a weekly newspaper in 1842, the Northern Star and Freeman's Advocate. Myers's newspaper was concerned with temperance as well as abolition, and he was a popular lecturer for both causes. In the 1850s he was active in the Vigilance Committee in upstate New York, and it was widely believed that his house in Albany was the last stop on one route of the Underground Railroad. I. Garland Penn, The Afro-American Press and Its Editors (Springfield, Mass., 1891), 48–51; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 95, 149; Hutton, Early Black Press, 112–13, 121–22, 165. of Albany, deserves mention as one of the most persevering among the colored editorial fraternity.
moreover, of great public benefit. This paper, in addition to its power in holding up the hands of those to whom it is especially devoted, also affords irrefutable evidence of the justice. safety and practicability of Immediate Emancipation;†Central to the platform of the abolitionist movement that arose in the United States in the early 1830s was the demand for immediate emancipation. Whereas earlier opponents of slavery had favored measures such as African colonization to facilitate the gradual elimination of bondage, the evangelically inspired "immediatists" regarded slaveholding as a sinful practice that must be instantly abandoned. This immediatist ideology enabled antebellum abolitionists to prod the nation's religious and political institutions and even antislavery gradualists to adopt increasingly stronger positions against slavery. David Brion Davis, "The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislavery Thought." Mississippi Valley Historical Review, 49:228 (September 1962); Anne C. Loveland, "Evangelicalism and 'Immediate Emancipation' in American Antislavery Thought ," JSH, 32:177 (May 1966). it further proves the immense loss which slavery inflicts on the land while it dooms such energies as his to the hereditary degradation of slavery.
It has been said in this Introduction, that Mr. Douglass had raised himself by his own efforts to the highest position in society. As a successful editor, in our land, he occupies this position. Our editors rule the land, and he is one of them. As an orator and thinker, his position is equally high, in the opinion of his countrymen. If a stranger in the United States would seek its most distinguished men—the movers of public opinion—he will find their names mentioned, and their movements chronicled, under the head of "By MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH"†The first long-distance telegraph in the United States began operation in 1844. The service allowed messages to be transmitted via an electrical current that passed through an electromagnet on the receiving end. This magnet then depressed a writing instrument that marked a moving strip of paper placed beneath it. Requiring only one wire between stations, the system greatly facilitated communication in the United States. Newspapers were among the first to use the telegraph to transmit press dispatches. This revolution in communication led to an expansion in the scope and variety of news stories, allowing news from all regions of the country to he disseminated more quickly and to a wider audience. Menaham Blondheim, News over the Wires: The Telegraph and the Flow of Public Information in America, 1844–1897 (Cambridge, Mass., 1994), 34–40. in the daily papers. The keen caterers for the public attention, set down, in this column, such men only as have won high mark in the public esteem. During the past winter—1854-5—very frequent mention of Frederick Douglass was made under this head in the daily papers; his name glided as often—this week from Chicago, next week from Boston—over the lightning wires, as the name of any other man, of whatever note. To no man did the people more widely nor more earnestly say, "" And, somehow or other, revolution seemed to follow in his wake. His were not the mere words of eloquence which Kossuth†Louis Kossuth (1802–94), lawyer, politician, and Magyar nationalist, led the 1848 revolution for Hungarian independence from Hapsburg rule. A member of the Hungarian Diet when the revolution began, Kossuth served as president of the Committee of National Defense before becoming governor of the short-lived Hungarian Republic in April 1849. When Austrian and Russian forces broke the back of Hungarian resistance in August 1849, Kossuth fled to exile and subsequent confinement in Turkey. The Hungarian leader's plight aroused widespread sympathy in the United States, and after his release by Turkish officials in 1851, Kossuth boarded a U.S. warship, which took him as far as Gibraltar on the first leg of a journey to America by way of England. Arriving in New York on 5 December 1851, he spent the next seven months in a triumphal tour of the United States. Abolitionists identified Kossuth with the cause of freedom and the rights of oppressed minorities and hoped to enlist his aid in the antislavery struggle. They were disappointed and irritated, however, when Kossuth chose to concentrate on the issue of Hungarian independence and flatly refused to "meddle with any domestic concerns of the United States." After leaving America in July 1852, Kossuth spent some eight years in England before settling in Italy, where he remained until his death. John H. Komlos, Louis Kossuth in America, 1851–1852 (Buffalo, 1973), 13–52: Donald S. Spencer, Louis Kossuth and Young America: A Study of Sectionalism and Foreign Policy, 1848–1852 (Columbia, Mo., 1977). 65–81; J. O. Thorne, ed., Chambers Biographical Dictionary, rev. ed. (Edinburgh, 1969), 746. speaks of, that delight the ear and then pass away. No! They were -able, -able words, that brought forth fruits in the revolution in Illinois,†The "revolution in Illinois" likely refers to an 1855 law passed by the Illinois legislature titled "An act to reclaim persons who have been decoyed or kidnapped and taken away beyond the boundaries of this state." This legislation repealed an 1827 law allowing the governor of lllinois to hand over fugitives from other states on demand. The 1855 law allowed the governor to restore the freedom of fugitives captured and deported from the state. John Codman Hurd, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, 2 vols. (Boston, 1858–62), 2:134, 136–37; Paul Finkelman, An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity (Chapel Hill, 1981), 96–98, 150–55. and in the passage of the franchise resolutions by the Assembly of New York.†Douglass became active in the campaign for franchise revisions in the state of New York in the 1840s. At a speech given before the National Convention of Colored Men in Rochester, New York, in July 1853, Douglass advocated unrestricted franchise rights for black men. Despite numerous petition drives, the state of New York did not rescind the 1821 act that placed a $250 property qualification on black voters until 1860. Even at that late date, the proposed amendment was defeated by referendum. Franchise discrimination against blacks was finally removed with the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870. Phyllis F. Field, The Politics of Race in New York: The Struggle for Black Suffrage in the Civil War Era (Ithaca, N.Y., 1982), 33, 35–39, 93, 97, 220; Charles H. Wesley, "The Negroes of New York in the Emancipation Movement." JNH, 24:92–93, 96, 100–102 (January 1939); Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:xxxiii.
And the secret of his power, what is it? He is a Representative American man*Smith is probably making a loose comparison with Ralph Waldo Emerson's Representative Men: Seven Lectures, which was a course of lectures delivered in 1845 and 1846. The lectures were first published in 1850. The Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson, 11 vols. (Boston, 1876–1904), vol. 4.—a type of his countrymen. Naturalists tell us that a full grown man is a resultant or representative of all animated nature on this globe; beginning with the early embryo state, then representing the lowest forms of organic life,* and passing through every subordinate grade or type, until he reaches the last and highest—manhood.* Smith advances the now-outdated biological theory that the individual development of every organism retraces the path of all of its evolutionary ancestors. Richard Milner, ed., The Encyclopedia of Evolution: Humanity's Search for Its Origins (New York, 1990), 44. In like manner, and to the fullest extent, has Frederick Douglass passed through every gradation of rank comprised in our national make-up, and bears upon his person and upon his soul every thing that is American. And he has not only full sympathy with every thing American; his proclivity or bent, to active toil and visible progress. are in the strictly national direction, delighting to outstrip "all creation."
* The German physiologists have even discovered vegetable matter—starch—in the human body. See Med. Chirurgical Rev., Oct., 1854. p. 339.*Smith refers to a series of medical studies reviewed in a British medical journal. The citation listed here is incorrect. The journal name was changed from Medico-Chirurgical Review in 1847 and began a new run in 1848 under the name British and Foreign Medico-Chirur gical Review. J. T. Arlidge, "Cellulose as an Animal Constituent," British and For eign Medico-Chirurgical Review, 14:339–46 (1854).
Nor have the natural gifts, already named as his, lost anything by his severe training. When unexcited, his mental processes are probably slow, but singularly clear in perception, and wide in vision, the unfailing memory bringing up all the facts in their every aspect; incongruities he lays hold of incontinently, and holds up on the edge of his keen and telling wit. But this wit never descends to frivolity; it is rigidly in the keeping of his truthful common sense, and always used in illustration or proof of some point which could not so readily be reached any other way. "Beware of a Yankee when he is feeding" is a shaft that strikes home in a matter never so laid bare by satire before. "The Garrisonian views of disunion. if carried to a successful issue, would only place the people of the north in the same relation to American slavery which they now bear to the slavery of Cuba or the Brazils,"†Smith paraphrases Douglass's criticism of the Garrisonian abolitionist position of disunionism, made in an address to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society and then published in the Frederick Douglass' Paper. In May 1844 the American Anti-Slavery Society, under the control of followers of William Lloyd Garrison since 1840, adopted a resolution calling for northern secession from the union as a means of depriving the institution of slavery of outside support. Garrisonians found their disunionist position an extremely effective propaganda device to castigate northerners for their complicity with slavery stemming from cooperation with the South under what they deemed the "proslavery" U.S. Constitution. FDP, 23 March 1855; Perry, Radical Abolitionism, 161–66. is a statement. in a few words, which contains the result and the evidence of an argument which might cover pages, but could not carry stronger conviction, nor be stated in less pregnable form. In proof of this, I may say, that having been submitted to the attention of the Garrisonians in print, in March, it was repeated before them at their business meeting in May†Douglass, joined by William Goodell, James McCune Smith, and other supporters of the view that the U.S. Constitution was an antislavery document, attended the public business meeting of the American Anti-Slavery Society, held in New York City on 10 May 1855. These political abolitionists informally debated leading Garrisonians over the latters' views on the Constitution. FDP, 25 May 1855.—the platform, par excellence,†From the French for preeminently; above all. on which they invite free fight, ,†French term meaning to excess; extravagance; in the extreme. to all comers. It was given out in the clear, ringing tones, wherewith the hall of shields was wont to resound of old, yet neither Garrison, nor Phillips, nor May,†Samuel Joseph May (1797-1871) mixed abolitionism with a variety of other humanitarian concerns during his long career as a Unitarian clergyman. Boston-born and Harvard-educated, May studied theology at Cambridge and was ordained in 1822. In the course of his forty-year ministry he championed such causes as temperance, women's rights, pacifism, universal education, and abolitionism. Originally a supporter of African colonization, May joined the abolitionist ranks in 1830, supported Prudence Crandall's efforts to establish a school for black youths in 1833, and enjoyed a long tenure as an agent of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. During the 1840s and 1850s he helped many fugitive slaves reach Canada and helped rescue Jerry McHenry from slave catchers in Syracuse, New York, in 1851. After the Civil War, he worked with black colleagues such as Jermain W. Loguen and Frederick Douglass to fight racial segregation in New York schools. Donald Yacovone, Samuel Joseph May and the Dilemmas of the Liberal Persuasion, 1797-1871 (Philadelphia, 1991); Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, Bound with Them in Chains: A Biographical History of the Antislavery Movement (Westport, Conn., 1972), 276–307; NCAB, 2:313; DAB, 12:447–48. nor Remond,†Noted black antislavery lecturer Charles Lenox Remond (1810–73) was born to free parents in Salem, Massachusetts, where, like his father, an immigrant from Curaçao, he worked as a barber. Remond became active in reform movements at an early age. A member of the Colored Association of Massachusetts when it merged with the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, he became an officer in the latter organization. By 1838 Remond had begun his career as a lecturer under the auspices of the American Anti-Slavery Society. A delegate to the 1840 World's Anti-Slavery Convention in London, Remond traveled and lectured in the British Isles for some sixteen months. Upon his return, Remond was employed as a lecture agent by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, and he and Douglass frequently traveled together on lecture tours. Their close association was troubled as a rift between Douglass and Garrison threatened, and in 1852 Remond announced his intention to cancel his subscription to Frederick Douglass' Paper in protest against Douglass's adoption of non-Garrisonian views of the U.S. Constitution. During the Civil War, Remond was a recruiting officer for the black Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry. Illness curtailed his reform activities after the war. FDP, 20 May 1852; New York Daily Times, 26 December 1873; Washington (D.C.) New National Era, 8 January 1874; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 46; Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism," NHB, 40:696–701 (May–June 1977); NCAB, 2:303; DAB, 15:499–500. nor Foster,†Born in Canterbury, New Hampshire, radical abolitionist Stephen Symonds Foster (1809–81) studied at Dartmouth College. In 1837, a year before his graduation, he helped to organize the New Hampshire Young Men's Anti-Slavery Society. Foster briefly attended Union Theological Seminary in New York, but by 1839 he had repudiated the ministry. He developed his criticisms of American churches most fully in The Brotherhood of Thieves: or, A True Picture of the American Church Clergy (1843). His practice of interrupting a church service to speak out against complicity with slavery frequently provoked violent reaction. Although Foster and his wife, Abby Kelley, whom he married in 1845, were agents for the American Anti-Slavery Society for nearly twenty years, their relationship with the Garrisonians was at best one of strained cooperation. Although Foster believed that the Constitution was a proslavery document, he periodically dabbled in politics. In 1843–44 he endorsed the Liberty party. In the late 1850s, having altered his view of the nature of the Constitution, Foster sought to establish a disunion party "whose avowed aim . . . [would] be the overthrow of the government . . . & whose will . . . [would] be expressed through the ballot box." In the mid-1850s he also argued in favor of slave rebellion in his Revolution the Only Remedy for Slavery (1855). A proponent of distributing land to the freedmen, Foster was disappointed with federal Reconstruction policies. He devoted the last years of his life to agitating on behalf of temperance and women's rights. Parker Pillsbury, Acts of the Anti-Slavery Apostles (Concord, N.H., 1883), 123–55; Lillie B. Chace Wyman, "Reminiscences of Two Abolitionists," New England Magazine, n.s., 27:536–50 (January 1903); Parker Pillsbury, "Stephen Symonds Foster," Granite Monthly, 5:369–5 (August 1882); Pease and Pease, Bound with Them in Chains, 191–217; Louis Filler, "Parker Pillsbury: An Anti-Slavery Apostle," New England Quarterly, 19:315–37 (September 1946); Jane Hanna Pease, "The Freshness of Fanaticism: Abby Kelley Foster: An Essay in Reform" (Ph.D. diss., University of Rochester, 1969), 65–84, 118–21, 125–26, 133–34, 143–44, 161–65, 184–87, 195–205, 217–18, 237–44; Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 6 vols. (New York, 1888–89), 2:514–15; NCAB, 2:328–29; DAB, 6:558–59. nor Burleigh,†Charles Calistus Burleigh (1810–78) was born in Plainfield, Connecticut, and received his early schooling at Plainfield Academy. He had begun to study the law when an attack he published on the Connecticut "Black Law" attracted the attention of abolitionist Samuel J. May. Through May, Burleigh was offered the editorship of the Unionist, a new antislavery paper financed by Arthur Tappan. Burleigh was instrumental in protecting William Lloyd Garrison from a mob in Boston in October 1835, and shortly thereafter became a regular contributor to the Liberator. In the late 1830s Burleigh became one of the editors of the Pennsylvania Freeman, later the organ of the Eastern Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Active in a number of reform movements, Burleigh plunged into the Anti-Sabbatarian campaign after he was arrested in West Chester, Pennsylvania, in 1847 for selling antislavery literature on Sunday. In 1845 he published a pamphlet, Thoughts on the Death Penalty, condemning capital punishment. He participated in the woman suffrage conventions at Cleveland and New York in 1854, and the American Equal Rights Association meeting in 1867. In the 1870s he joined his brother, William Henry, in the campaign for temperance reform. C. B. Galbreath, "Anti-Slavery Movement in Columbiana County," Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly, 30:389–91 (October 1921): Elizabeth Cady Stanton et al., eds., History of Woman Sufferage, 6 vols. (Rochester, N. Y., 1881–1922), 1:148–51; DAB, 3:284–85; ACAB, 1:455. with his subtle steel of "the ice brook's temper,"†Othello, act 5, sc. 2, line 253. ventured to break a lance upon it! The doctrine of the dissolution of the Union, as a means for the abolition of American slavery, was silenced upon the lips that gave it birth, and in the presence of an array of defenders who compose the keenest intellects in the land.
","†Douglass made this assertion in a speech on 11 August 1852 to an audience of more than two thousand antislavery activists in Pittsburgh to support the convention that formed the Free Soil party. FDP, 20 August 1852; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:389–93. is an aphorism struck out by Mr. Douglass in that great gathering of the friends of freedom, at Pittsburgh. in 1852, where he towered among the highest, because, with abilities inferior to none, and moved more deeply than any, there was neither policy nor party to trammel the outpourings of his soul. Thus we find, opposed to all the disadvantages which a black man in the United States labors and struggles under, is this one vantage ground—when the chance comes, and the audience where he may have a say, he stands forth the freest, most deeply moved and most earnest of all men.
It has been said of Mr. Douglass, that his descriptive and declamatory powers, admitted to be of the very highest order, take precedence of his logical force. Whilst the schools might have trained him to the exhibition of the formulas of deductive logic, nature and circumstances forced him into the exercise of the higher faculties required by induction. The first ninety
pages of this "Life in Bondage," afford specimens of observing, comparing, and careful classifying, of such superior character, that it is difficult to believe them the results of a child's thinking; he questions the earth, and the children and the slaves around him again and again, and finally looks to ""†Smith slightly misquotes Bondage and Freedom, 52.29/89.21. for the why and the wherefore of the unnatural thing, slavery. "" is the only prayer and worship of the God-forsaken Dodos in the heart of Africa. Almost the same was his prayer. One of his earliest observations was that white children should know their ages,† Smith describes an observation by Douglass in Bondage and Freedom, 22.14/35.11. while the colored children were ignorant of theirs; and the songs of the slaves grated on his inmost soul, because a something told him that harmony in sound, and music of the spirit, could not consociate with miserable degradation.†Smith paraphrases Bondage and Freedom, 57.22/98.4
To such a mind, the ordinary processes of logical deduction are like proving that two and two make four. Mastering the intermediate steps by an intuitive glance, or recurring to them as Ferguson†James Ferguson (1710–76) was a British astronomer whose published works included Astronomy Explained on Sir Isaac Newton 's Principles (1756), The Young Gentleman's and Lady's Astronomy (1768), and—perhaps accounting for Smith's reference to geometry—The Art of Drawing in Perspective (1775). DNB, 6:1207–11. resorted to geometry, it goes down to the deeper relation of things, and brings out what may seem, to some, mere statements, but which are new and brilliant generalizations, each resting on a broad and stable basis. Thus, Chief Justice Marshall gave his decisions,†John Marshall (1755–1835), chief justice of the United States Supreme Court (1801–1835), founded the tradition of judicial review. DAB, 6:315-19. and then told Brother Story†Joseph Story (1779–1845) was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts, and was descended from Elisha Story, who settled in Boston about 1700. A very precocious youth, Story entered Harvard at the age of fifteen and graduated second in his class in 1798. Story then returned home to study law and was admitted to the bar in the summer of 1801. While he began a private practice, he also entered into state politics on the side of the Republicans, despite his residence in arch-Federalist Essex County. Though serving in the Massachusetts legislature and in Congress, he was uncomfortable conforming to party discipline and left electoral politics in 1811. That year he was appointed an associate justice of the Supreme Court. An admirer of Chief Justice John Marshall, Story would in the coming years concur repeatedly with him in opinions that strengthened the federal government, the inviolability of contracts, the right of the Supreme Court to review congressional enactments, and the authority of the federal courts over that of the state courts. Story remained on the Court until a few months before his death. By then he had also made his mark as one of the chief architects of the Harvard Law School and as a commentator on various branches of the law, embodied in his famous Commentaries. R. Kent Newmyer, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story: Statesman of the Old Republic (Chapel Hill, 1985); John F. Ohles, ed., Biographical Dictionary of American Educators, 3 vols. (Westport, Conn., 1978), 3:1243– 44; ACAB, 5:710–11; NCAB, 2:468–69; DAB, 9:102–08. to look up the authorities—and they never differed from him. Thus, also, in his "Lecture on the Anti-Slavery Movement,"† "The Anti-Slavery Movement" was an address prepared by Douglass in late 1854 specifically for use on the lecture circuit. The speech argued that William Lloyd Garrison had neither discovered antislavery nor framed its principles. Douglass charged Garrison with racism and exposed the weakness of his disunion philosophy. The speech contended that the Liberty party was the only true friend of the slave. First delivered on 19 March 1855 in Rochester, New York, the address provoked a bitter response from the Garrisonians. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:14. delivered before the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society, Mr. Douglass presents a mass of thought, which, without any showy display of logic on his part, requires an exercise of the reasoning faculties of the reader to keep pace with him. And his "Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered,"†This speech by Douglass, delivered during commencement week at Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio, in 1854, was subsequently published as a pamphlet: The Claims of he Negro Ethnologically Considered: An Address, before the Literary Societies of Western Reserve College, at Commencement, July 12, 1854 (Rochester, N.Y., 1854). is full of new and fresh thoughts on the dawning science of race-history.
If, as has been stated, his intellection is slow, when unexcited, it is most prompt and rapid when he is thoroughly aroused. Memory, logic, wit, sarcasm, invective, pathos and bold imagery of rare structural beauty, well up as from a copious fountain, yet each in its proper place, and contributing to form a whole, grand in itself, yet complete in the minutest proportions. It is most difficult to hedge him in a corner, for his positions are taken so deliberately, that it is rare to find a point in them undefended aforethought. Professor Reason†The son of Haitian émigrés, Charles Lewis Reason (1818–93) was a teacher in or principal of various black schools in New York City and Philadelphia, and briefly a professor of belles lettres, French, and mathematics at Central College in McGrawville, New York. He was the first black man to hold a professorship in an American college. After the Civil War, he was one of the leaders in the successful effort to integrate the city school system. Reason was no less active in the antebellum struggle to pressure the New York legislature into abolishing the property qualifications for black voters. His opposition to Negro colonization began in 1838, when he joined in the call for a "'Great Anti-Colonization Meeting" in New York City, and carried through into the 1850s, when he was outspoken in his criticism of the African Civilization Society, the black colonization organization. Cleveland Gazette, 5 September 1885; William J. Simmons, Men of Mark: Eminent, Progressive, and Rising (Chicago, 1970), 1105–09; Robert C. Dick, Black Protest: lssues and Tactics (Westport, Conn., 1974 ), 21, 50, 190: Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 114, 145, 172; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 10, 86–87, 148, 175, 258, 270–71; Anthony R. Mayo, "Charles Lewis Reason." NHB, 5:212–15 (June 1942); Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 41–42, 53, 136, 188, 237, 279, 345, 350, 353, 368. tells me the following: "On a recent visit of a public nature, to Philadelphia, and in a meeting composed mostly of his colored brethren, Mr. Douglass proposed a comparison of views in the matters of the relations and duties of 'our people;' he holding that prejudice was the result of condition, and could be conquered by the efforts of the degraded themselves. A gentleman present, distinguished for logical acumen and subtlety.
and who had devoted no small portion of the last twenty-five years to the study and elucidation of this very question, held the opposite view, that prejudice is innate and unconquerable. He terminated a series of well dovetailed, Socratic questions†Devised by Socrates (470?–399 B.C.), the Athenian philosopher, the socratic method of teaching is composed of a series of easily answered questions leading to a logical conclusion foreseen by the questioner. to Mr. Douglass, with the following : 'If the legislature at Harrisburgh†The Pennsylvania state legislature met in Harrisburg after the state capital was moved there from Lancaster in October 1812. Huberits Cummings, "Pennsylvania's State Houses and Capitols," in The Capitols of Pennsylvania (n.p., n.d.), 6–7; Thomas C. Cochran, Pennsylva nia: A Bicentennial History (New York, 1978), 92. should awaken, to-morrow morning, and find each man's skin turned black and his hair woolly, what could they do to remove prejudice?' 'Immediately pass laws entitling black men to all civil, political and social privileges,' was the instant reply—and the questioning ceased."†Charles L. Reason's communication to James McCune Smith has not survived. Its contents apparently referred to Douglass 's appearance at one of three lectures delivered in Philadelphia on 29, 30, and 31 January 1855. Most likely the incident recounted occurred on 29 January, when Douglass spoke for two hours at the Israel Church on Gaskill Street. A number of Garrisonian abolitionists later complained that Douglass had used the occasion to malign their group's stance on the U.S. Constitution. "R. T." to William Lloyd Garrison, 2 February 1855, in Lib., 9 February 1855; Isaiah C. Weers to Douglass, n.d., in FDP, 30 March 1855; FDP, 23 February, 2 March 1855.
The most remarkable mental phenomenon in Mr. Douglass, is his style in writing and speaking. In March, 1855, he delivered an address in the assembly chamber before the members of the legislature of the state of New York.†Douglass's speech, titled "The Rights of Man," was actually delivered in Albany, New York, 16 February 1855. Albany Evening Journal, 15, 17 February 1855. An eye witness* describes the crowded and most intelligent audience. and their rapt attention to the speaker, as the grandest scene he ever witnessed in the capitol. Among those whose eyes were riveted on the speaker full two hours and a half, were Thurlow Weed†Thurlow Weed (1797–1882), the son of an improvident New York farmer., was apprenticed to a newspaper office at age fifteen. During the 1820s he worked as a printer and a journalist and served two terms in the state legislature as a representative from Rochester. In 1830 he founded the Albany Evening Journal as the official state organ for the Anti-Masonic party and later became a leader of the coalition that emerged as the Whig party. Weed had frequently praised Douglass's abolitionist work, but argued that the powers behind slavery could be most effectively battled under the aegis of the Whig party and later the Republican party. Though disappointed by the failure of his longtime ally William H. Seward to obtain the Republican presidential nomination in 1860, he supported Lincoln's wartime policies and toured Great Britain during the winter of 1861–62 to conciliate ill feelings aroused by the Trent affair. Weed retired from journalism in 1863 except for a brief period in 1867 when he edited the New York Commercial Advertiser. His influence in national and state politics declined after the Civil War along with that of his ally Seward, although in 1872 he persuaded New York Republicans to choose Douglass as one of their presidential electors. Albany Evening Journal, 10 June 1845; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Thurlow Weed: Wizard of the Lobby (Boston, 1947); Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 267: NCAB, 3:12–13; DAB, 19:598–600. and Lieutenant Governor Raymond;†Henry Jarvis Raymond (1820–69), joumalist and politician, was born in Lima, New York. After graduating from the University of Vermont in 1840, he moved to New York City to work for Horace Greeley's New York Daily Tribune. In 1848, uncomfortable under the sway of the liberal reformist Greeley, the more conservative Raymond left his mentor's Daily Tribune to become the editor of the New York Courier and Enquirer and soon after of Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Increasingly disturbed by the political partisanship of city newspapers, Raymond and another associate inaugurated the New York Daily Times in September 1851 with the intention of more dispassionately reporting the day's events. Raymond would remain editor of the prospering paper until his death in 1869, but he was also a key figure at both the state and national level in the Whig and Republican parties, culminating in a seat in Congress from 1865 to 1867. Francis Brown, Raymond of the Times (New York, 1951); Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774–1996 (Alexandria, Va., 1997), 1711; NCAB, 8:482–83; DAB, 15:408–12. the latter, at the conclusion of the address, exclaimed to a friend, "I would give twenty thousand dollars, if I could deliver that address in that manner." Mr. Raymond is a first class graduate of Dartmouth, a rising politician, ranking foremost in the legislature; of course, his ideal of oratory must be of the most polished and finished description.
The style of Mr. Douglass in writing, is to me an intellectual puzzle. The strength, affluence and terseness may easily be accounted for, because the style of a man is the man; but how are we to account for that rare polish in his style of writing, which, most critically examined, seems the result of careful early culture among the best classics of our language; it equals if it do not surpass the style of Hugh Miller, which was the wonder of the British literary public, until he unraveled the mystery in the most interesting of autobiographies. But Frederick Douglass was still calking the seams of Baltimore clippers,†Douglass was apprenticed as a ship's caulker in William Gardiner's Baltimore shipyard from 1836 until his escape from slavery in September 1838. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 58–59. and had only written a "pass," at the age when Miller's style was already formed.
I asked William Whipper,†William Whipper (1804–76), a black abolitionist from Pennsylvania, was a leading spokesman for the American Moral Reform Society and editor of its journal, the National Reformer, in 1838 and 1839. He was active in black rights conventions, served as a "conductor" on the Underground Railroad, and advocated Canadian emigration. Hutton, Early Black Press, 33–34; Richard P. McCormick, "William Whipper: Moral Reformer," Pennsylvania History, 43:23–25, 44 (January 1976). of Pennsylvania, the gentleman alluded to above, whether he thought Mr. Douglass's power inherited from the Negroid, or from what is called the Caucasian side of his make-up? After some reflection, he frankly answered. "I must admit, although sorry to do so, that the Caucasian predominates." At that time, I almost agreed with him; but, facts narrated in the first part of this work, throw a different light on this interesting question.
* Mr. Wm. H. Topp.†William H. Topp (c.1812–57), a successful Albany merchant tailor, was a prominent figure in New York's black convention movement. In 1849 Topp was among the first to support Douglass's proposal to form a National League to represent the interests of black Americans. An early associate of William Lloyd Garrison, Topp later changed his views on political abolitionism and supported the Liberty party. NASS, 19 December 1857: Delany, Condition of the Colored People of the United Stutes, 102; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 2, 104, 172, 219. of Albany.
We are left in the dark as to who was the paternal ancestor of our author: a fact which generally holds good of the Romuluses and Remuses† Twin sons of the god of Mars and legendary founders of Rome. who are to inaugurate the new birth of our republic. In the absence of testimony from the Caucasian side, we must see what evidence is given on the other side of the house.
''My grandmother, though advanced in years, * * * was yet a woman of power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure, elastic and muscular." (p. 46.)†Smith reproduces passages from Bondage and Freedom, 28.22, 24–25/46.15–16.18–20.
After describing her skill in constructing nets, her perseverance in using them, and her wide-spread fame in the agricultural way he adds. "It happened to her—as it will happen to any careful and thrifty person residing in an ignorant and improvident neighborhood—to enjoy the reputation of being born to good luck."†Smith substitutes "neighborhood" for "community" when he quotes Bondage and Freedom, 22.34–36/36.8–11. And his grandmother was a black woman.
"My mother was tall, and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy complexion; had regular features; and among other slaves was remarkably sedate in her manners." "Being a field hand, she was obliged to walk twelve miles and return, between nightfall and daybreak, to see her children." (p. 54.)†Smith paraphrases as well as quotes short passages from Bondage and Freedom, 31–2/52–54. "I shall never forget the indescribable expression of her countenance when I told her that I had had no food since morning. * * * There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt Katy at the same time; * * * * she read Aunt Katy a lecture which she never forgot." ( p. 56.)†With just one punctuation error, Smith quotes from Bondage and Freedom, 33.31–32, 33–35, 36/56.14–16, 17–19, 21. "I learned, after my mother's death, that she could read, and that she was the only one of all the slaves and colored people in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning." (p. 57. )†Bondage and Freedom, 34.28–32/57.32–58.5. "There is, in ','*With just one punctuation error. Smith quotes from Bondage and Freedom, 31.24–/52.21–26 the head of a figure—on page 157—the features of which so resemble those of my mother, that I often recur to it with something of the feeling which I suppose others experience when looking upon the pictures of dear departed ones." (p. 52. )†. The figure to which Douglass refers is a sketch of the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses the Great, found in James Cowles Prichard, The Natural History of Man: Comprising Inquiries into the Modifying lnfluence of Physical and Moral Agencies on the Different Tribes of the Human Family (London, 1848), 157.
The head alluded to is copied from the statue of Ramses the Great,†Ramses II (1304–1237 B.C.), also known as Ramses the Great, reigned as pharaoh of Egypt for sixty-seven years, a period that marked a high point in Egyptian prosperity. He built many temples and monuments and is considered the builder of the columned hall at Karnak, as well as the temples at Abu Simbel. Rosalie David and Antony E. David, eds., A Biographical Dictionary of Ancient Egypt (Norman, Okla., 1992), 118–20; Peter A. Clayton, Chronicle of the Pharaohs: The Reign-by-Reign Record of the Rulers and Dynasties of Ancient Egypt (London, 1994), 146–55. an Egyptian king of the nineteenth dynasty. The authors of the "Types of Mankind"†A reference to J. C. Nott and George R. Gliddon, Types of Mankind: or, Ethnological Researches, Based upon the An cient Monuments, Paintings, Sculptures, and Crania of Races . . . (Philadelphia, 1854), 148. give a side view of the same on page 148, remarking that the profile, "like Napoleon's,†Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821), emperor of France. is superbly European!" The nearness of its resemblance to Mr. Douglass' mother, rests upon the evidence of his memory, and judging from his almost marvelous feats of recollection of forms and outlines recorded in this book, this testimony may he admitted.
These facts show that for his energy, perseverance, eloquence, invective, sagacity, and wide sympathy, he is indebted to his negro blood. The very marvel of his style would seem to be a development of that other
marvel,—how his mother learned to read. The versatility of talent which he wields, in common with Dumas,†Alexandre Dumas (1802–70), a French novelist and playwright, was one of the pioneers of the Romantic theater in France. His best-known novels include The Three Musketeers (1844) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1844–45 ). Dumas's grandmother had heen a black slave on the West Indies island of Santo Domingo. Drabble, Oxford Companion to English Literature, 294; Jacques Barzun, ed., European Writers: The Romantic Century, 14 vols, (New York, 1985), 6: 723–24. Ira Aldridge,†Frederick Ira Aldridge (c.1807–67), a black actor from New York City, was renowned in Europe as a Shakespearean actor and tragedian from the 1830s through the 1850s. Aldridge developed an interest in acting as a youth, and knowing that opportunities for a black actor were limited in the United States, immigrated to England at the age of seventeen to pursue a career in the theater. Although he had no formal training, Aldridge began acting in minor roles soon after his arrival in 1824. In a few years he hecame a celebrated star of the European stage, traveling for twenty-seven years throughout Britain, France, Prussia, Hungary. and even Russia. Aldridge's talent landed him traditional black roles, such as Othello, but he also performed widely in nonblack roles, such as Hamlet, Richard III, and Shylock. He never returned to the United States, choosing to become a citizen of Great Britain in 1863. Herbert Marshall and Mildred Stock, Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian (1958; Washington, D.C., 1993), ix–xix, 292; Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York, 1982), 8–9; DAB, 1:160–61. and Miss Greenfield,†Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (1817–76) was born of slave parents in Natchez, Louisiana, but moved at an early age with her widowed owner to Philadelphia. Once there, her owner joined the Quakers and freed her slaves, most of them going to Liberia. Greenfield remained with her former mistress until the latter's death in 1845. Greenfield's musical gifts became evident early, but no teacher in Philadelphia would take her for fear of alienating the white students. Through perseverance, her elegant voice improved, and while performing before charmed passengers on a ferry in upstate New York, she was invited to give a recital in Buffalo. Performing wonderfully there, she soon gained enough acclaim to tour the North from Chicago to Boston. Proclaimed the "Black Swan," Greenfield won a crowd of admiring patrons who raised enough money for her to go for further training and concerts in Europe, where her recitals were enthusiastically received. She determined, however, against extended study in Europe and in the summer of 1854 returned to a warm reception in Philadelphia. Little is known of the Black Swan after 1854, but she remained in Philadelphia, where she taught, gave occasional concerts, and was a devout congregant at Shiloh Baptist Church. ASB, 6 March 1852; Edward T. James et al., eds., Notable American Women, 1607–1950: A Biographical Dictionary, 3 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1971), 2:87–89; ACAB, 2:755. would seem to be the result of the grafting of the Anglo-Saxon on good, original, negro stock. If the friends of "Caucasus"†A region named for a mountain range that extends 750 miles between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea through the modern nations of Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Saul B. Cohen. ed., The Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 3 vols. (New York, 1998), 1:566. choose to claim, for that region, what remains after this analysis—to wit: combination—they are welcome to it. They will forgive me for reminding them that the term "Caucasian" is dropped by recent writers on Ethnology; for the people about Mount Caucasus, are, and have ever been, Mongols.†A historically nomadic central Asiatic people chiefly inhabiting Mongolia, a large territory between China proper and Siberia. The great "white race" now seek paternity. according to Dr. Pickering,†Charles Pickering (1805–78), doctor, botanist, and ethnologist, was born in Pennsylvania. Early interested in the natural sciences and receiving his medical degree in 1826, he was appointed the chief zoologist of a U.S.-sponsored expedition in 1838 along the coasts of South America to the South Pacific. Responsible for gathering information on and specimens of diverse plants and animals. Pickering also speculated on the origins of racial diversity among humans in Races of Men and Their Geographical Distribution (1848) and The Geographical Distribution of Animals and Plants (1854 ). Pickering argued very controversially in Races of Men that God had actually performed several distinct acts of creation, with only one—that through Adam and Eve—begetting Caucasians. His later years were devoted to extensive botanical and anthropological reearches. William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes toward Race in America, 1815–59 (Chicago, 1960), 92–97, 100; ACAB, 5:1; NCAB, 13:176; DAB, 14:562 in Arabia—"Arida Nutrix"†Literally, a dry or parsimonious wet nurse. P. G. W. Glare, ed., Oxford Latin Dictionary (Oxford, 1982), 169, 1209. of the best breed of horses &c . Keep on, gentlemen; you will find yourselves in Africa, by-and-by. The Egyptians, like the Americans, were a , with some negro blood circling around the throne, as well as in the mud hovels.
This is the proper place to remark of our author, that the same strong self-hood, which led him to measure strength with Mr. Covey, and to wrench himself from the embrace of the Garrisonians, and which has borne him through many resistances to the personal indignities offered him as a colored man, sometimes becomes a hyper-sensitiveness to such assaults as men of his mark will meet with, on paper. Keen and unscrupulous opponents have sought, and not unsuccessfully, to pierce him in this direction; for well they know, that if assailed, he will smite back.
It is not without a feeling of pride, dear reader, that I present you with this book. The son of a self-emancipated bond-woman, I feel joy in introducing to you my brother, who has rent his own bonds, and who, in his every relation—as a public man, as a husband and as a father—is such as does honor to the land which gave him birth. I shall place this book in the hands of the only child spared†A series of tragic deaths had recently occurred in James McCune Smith's family. He and his wife, Malvina Barnet Smith, lost their six-year-old daughter, Amy, on Christmas Eve of 1849. Their three remaining children, Frederick Douglass (b. 1854), Peter Williams (b. 1852), and Anna Gertrude (b. 1850), all died between 13 August and 19 September 1854. On 6 October 1855, James McCune Smith wrote to Gerrit Smith: "We have a renewed blessing in our house in the shape of a little girl who with her mother is doing very well." This fifth child was probably born between March 1855 and his writing of the introduction to Bondage and Freedom. FDP, 6 October 1854; James McCune Smith to Gerrit Smith, 6 October 1856, Gerrit Smith Papers, NSyU; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 4: 276. me, bidding him to strive and emulate its noble example. You may do likewise. It is an American book, for Americans, in the fullest sense of the idea. It shows that the worst of our institutions, in its worst aspect, cannot keep down energy, truthfulness, and earnest struggle for the right. It proves the justice and practicability of Immediate Emancipation. It shows that any man in our land, "no matter in what battle his liberty may have been cloven down, * * * * no matter what complexion an Indian or an African sun may have burned upon him," not only may "stand forth redeemed and disenthralled,"†Smith is quoting from a 1794 speech of John Philpot Curran (1750–1817), an Irish patriot, lawyer, and politician, defending Archibald Hamilton Rowan, secretary of the Dublin Society of United Irishmen, who was on trial for encouraging Irish volunteers to take up arms for their defense. Douglass also quoted from this speech in his lecture "The Claims of the Negro Ethnologically Considered," delivered in Hudson, Ohio, on 12 July 1854. Thomas Davis, ed., The Speeches of the Right Honorable John Philpot Curran (Dublin, 1845), 182; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:524. but may also stand up a candidate for the highest suffrage of a great people—the tribute of their honest, hearty admiration. Reader,
, May 23. 1855.
JAMES M'CUNE SMITH.
Woodcut before page 33 (original text). 1855 edition.*This engraving, and the one found on page 335 in the 1855 edition, were made by Nathaniel Orr, a prominent New York wood engraver. Originally from Ireland, Orr was the younger brother of John William Orr (1815–87), who was reputed to be one of the best-known wood engravers of his generation. The brothers worked in partnership from 1844 to 1846, then went their separate ways. Nathaniel Orr's engravings appear in such works as an 1849 edition of Benjamin Franklin's autobiography and an 1860 publication of the American Tract Society titled The Morning Glory, Princeton University Library, Early American Book Illustrators and Wood Engravers, 1670–1870 (Princeton, 1958), 91, 221–22; idem, Early American Book Illustrators and Wood Engravers, 1670–1870, Vol. II Supplement (Princeton, 1968), 127.
Yale Collection of American Literature . Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
LIFE AS A SLAVE.
CHAPTER I.
THE AUTHOR'S CHILDHOOD.
PLACE OF BIRTH—CHARACTER OF THE DISTRICT—TUCKAHOE—ORIGIN OF THE NAME—CHOPTANK RIVER—TIME OF BIRTH—GENEALOGICAL TREES—MODE OF COUNTING TIME—NAMES OF GRANDPARENTS—THEIR POSITION—GRANDMOTHER ESPECIALLY ESTEEMED—"BORN TO GOOD LUCK"—SWEET POTATOES—SUPERSTITION—THE LOG CABIN—ITS CHARMS—SEPARATING CHILDREN—AUTHOR'S AUNTS—THEIR NAMES—FIRST KNOWLEDGE OF BEING A SLAVE—"OLD MASTER"—GRIEFS AND JOYS OF CHILDHOOD—COMPARATIVE HAPPINESS OF THE SLAVE-BOY AND THE SON OF A SLAVEHOLDER.
IN Talbot county, Eastern Shore, Maryland, near Easton,†Talbot County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, had been an important tobacco-rowing region since colonial times. In 1788 the state legislature designated Easton, until then known as Talbot Town, as the administrative center for state operations for all nine of the Eastern Shore counties. Dickson J. Preston, Talbot County: A History (Centreville, Md., 1983), 140, 191, 256; Paul Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland (Indianapolis, 1931), 104–05. the county town of that county, there is a small district of country, thinly populated, and remarkable for nothing that I know of more than for the worn-out, sandy, desert-like appearance of its soil, the general dilapidation of its farms and fences, the indigent and spiritless character of its inhabitants, and the prevalence of ague†A fit of shaking or shivering, often accompanying a violent fever. and fever.
The name of this singularly unpromising and truly famine stricken district is Tuckahoe,†Hillsborough (or Hillsboro) is situated northeast of Easton on Tuckahoe Creek, a tributary of the Choptank River that forms part of the eastern boundary of Talbot County. Tuckahoe is an Algonquin term meaning "root" or "mushroom." Preston, Talbot County, 140, 191, 256; Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland, 104–05. Emendation Note: 1855 printing, 5: Tuckanoe a name well known to all Marylanders, black and white. It was given to this section of country probably, at the first, merely in derision; or it may possibly have been applied to it, as I have heard, because some one of its earlier inhabitants had been guilty of the petty meanness of stealing a hoe—or taking a hoe—that did not belong to him. Eastern Shore men usually pronounce the word as ; , therefore, is, in Maryland parlance, Tuckahoe. But, whatever may have been its origin—and about this I will not be positive—that name has stuck to the district in question; and it is seldom mentioned but with contempt and derision, on account of the barrenness of its soil, and the ignorance, indolence, and poverty of its people. Decay and ruin are everywhere visible, and the thin population of the place would have quitted it long ago, but for the Choptank river,†The Choptank River is the longest and best-known of all Eastern Shore rivers. It forms part of the eastern boundary of Talbot County and stretches from the Chesapeake Bay to the town of Denton in Caroline County. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 170–84. which runs through it, from which they take abundance of shad and herring, and plenty of ague and fever.
It was in this dull, flat, and unthrifty district, or neighborhood, surrounded hy a white population of the lowest order, indolent and drunken to a proverb, and among slaves. who seemed to ask, "" every time they lifted a hoe, that I—without any fault of mine—was born, and spent the first years of my childhood.
The reader will pardon so much about the place of my birth, on the score that it is always a fact of some importance to know where a man is born, if, indeed, it be important to know anything about him. In regard to the of my birth, I cannot be as definite as I have been respecting the .†As nearly as can be determined, Douglass was born in February 1818. Ledger books kept by his master, Aaron Anthony, contain a table, "My Black People," with the notation "Frederick Augustus son of Harriott Feby 1818." Further evidence for the year 1818 is presented in Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 31–34, 218–19nn1–5; Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, 165, Dodge Collection, MdAA. Nor, indeed, can I impart much knowledge concerning my parents. Genealogical trees do not flourish among slaves. A person of some consequence here in the north, sometimes designated , is literally abolished in slave law and slave practice. It is only once in a while that an exception is found to this statement. I never met with a slave who could tell me how old he was. Few slave-mothers know anything of the months of the year, nor of the days of the month. They keep no family records, with marriages. births. and deaths. They measure the ages of their children by spring time, winter time, harvest time, planting time, and the like; but these soon become undistinguishable and forgotten. Like other slaves, I cannot tell how old I am. This destitution was among my earliest troubles. I learned when I grew up, that my master—and this is the case with masters generally—allowed no questions to be put to him, by which a slave might learn his age. Such questions are deemed evidence of impatience, and even of impudent curiosity. From certain events, however, the dates of which I have since learned, I suppose myself to have been born about the year 1817.
The first experience of life with me that I now remember—and I remember it but hazily—began in the family of my grandmother and grandfather, Betsey†Betsey Bailey (1774–1849), the maternal grandmother of Frederick Douglass, grew up a slave on the Skinner plantation in Talbot County, Maryland. In 1797 she became the property of Aaron Anthony, who aquired her and several other slaves through his marriage to Ann Skinner. Anthony moved her to his farm on Tuckahoe Creek in Talbot County. She married Isaac Bailey, a free black who earned his living as a sawyer, and lived with him in her cabin. There she bore nine daughters and three sons. She was also a midwife, a service for which Anthony paid her. Upon Anthony's death in 1826, Bailey was inherited by Andrew Skinner Anthony, Aaron's son; when Andrew died in 1833, she became the slave of John Planner Anthony. Despite this succession of masters and the death of her own husband, she remained in her cabin on the Tuckahoe Creek farm, living alone, nearly destitute, and going blind. In 1840 Thomas Auld, John Anthony's uncle, learned of Bailey's condition and sent for her, caring for her in his Talbot County home until her death. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger A. 1700–1818, folder 94, Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 77, 159, 165–68, Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 180, all in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Douglass to Thomas Auld, 3 September 1848, 3 September 1849, NS, 8 September 1848, 7 September 1849, reprinted in Lib., 22 September 1848, 14 September 1849; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 8, 16–20, 167. and Isaac Baily.†Born sometime before 1775. Isaac Bailey was a free black man and the husband of Betsey Bailey, a slave owned by Aaron Anthony. Isaac and Betsey lived together on Anthony's Tuckahoe Creek farm. A sawyer, Bailey was frequently employed by both Anthony and Edward Lloyd V to provide lumber for their plantations. Occasionally he hired one of Anthony's slaves to assist him in his work. He also sometimes earned wages as a plowman and harvest laborer on Anthony's farms. Bailey appears in the 1820 Talbot County census as a free black presiding over a large household with four adult women and nine children. The 1840 census lists him as Iiving with one adult woman and a young boy. Bailey died during the 1840s. Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, Ledger C, 1809–27, folder 96, Anthony Family Papers, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 336; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 9; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 17–20. They were quite advanced in life, and had long lived on the spot where they then resided. They were considered old settlers in the neighborhood , and, from certain circumstances. I infer that my grandmother. especially, was held in high esteem. far higher than is the lot of most colored persons in the slave states. She was a good nurse, and a capital hand at making nets for catching shad and herring; and these nets were in great demand, not only in Tuckahoe, but at Denton†Denton is the county scat of Caroline County, Maryland. Located about twenty-six miles northeast of Cambridge, it has long been a crossing point on the Choptank River. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 1: 818; Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland, 158. and Hillsboro,†Hillsboro or Hillsborough is a small town in Caroline County, Maryland, located on Tuckahoe Creek about six miles west northwest of Denton. It was named for Lord Hillsboro, a relative of Lord Baltimore. R. Bernice Leonard, Tavern in the Town (St. Michaels, Md., 1992), 7; Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 2: 1283. neighboring villages. She was not only good at making the nets, but was also somewhat famous for her good fortune in taking the fishes referred to. I have known her to be in the water half the day. Grandmother was likewise more provident than most of her neighbors in the preservation of seedling sweet potatoes, and it happened to her—as it will happen to any careful and thrifty person residing in an ignorant and improvident community—to enjoy the reputation of having been born to "good luck." Her "good luck" was owing to the exceeding care which she took in preventing the succulent root from getting bruised in the , and in placing it beyond the reach of frost, by actually burying it under the hearth of her cabin during the winter
months. In the time of planting sweet potatoes, "Grandmother Betty," as she was familiarly called, was sent for in all directions, simply to place the seedling potatoes in the hills; for superstition had it, that if "Grandmamma Betty but touches them at planting, they will be sure to grow and flourish." This high reputation was full of advantage to her, and to the children around her. Though Tuckahoe had but few of the good things of life, yet of such as it did possess grandmother got a full share, in the way of presents. If good potato crops came after her planting, she was not forgotten by those for whom she planted; and as she was remembered by others, so she remembered the hungry little ones around her.
The dwelling of my grandmother and grandfather had few pretensions. It was a log hut, or cabin, built of clay, wood, and straw. At a distance it resembled—though it was much smaller, less commodious and less substantial—the cabins erected in the western states by the first settlers. To my child's eye, however, it was a noble structure, admirably adapted to promote the comforts and conveniences of its inmates. A few rough, Virginia fence-rails, flung loosely over the rafters above, answered the triple purpose of floors, ceilings, and bedsteads. To be sure, this upper apartment was reached only by a ladder—but what in the world for climbing could be better than a ladder? To me, this ladder was really a high invention, and possessed a sort of charm as I played with delight upon the rounds of it. In this little hut there was a large family of children; I dare not say how many. My grandmother—whether because too old for field service, or because she had so faithfully discharged the duties of her station in early life, I know not--enjoyed the high privilege of living in a cabin separate from the quarter, with no other burden than her own support, and the necessary care of the little children, imposed. She evidently esteemed it a great fortune to live so. The children were not her own, but her grandchildren—the children of her daughters. She took delight in having them around her, and in attending to their few wants. The practice of separating children from their mothers, and hiring the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system. But it is in harmony with the grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce man to a level with the brute. It is a successful method of obliterating from the mind and heart of the slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of , as an institution.
Most of the children, however, in this instance, being the children of my grandmother's daughters, the notions of family, and the reciprocal duties and benefits of the relation, had a better chance of being understood than
where children are placed—as they often are—in the hands of strangers, who have no care for them, apart from the wishes of their masters. The daughters of my grandmother were five in number. Their names were JENNY,†Jenny Bailey (1799–?) was the daughter of Betsey Bailey and was Douglass's aunt. She was owned by Aaron Anthony and either worked on his Tuckahoe farms or was hired out to other local farmers. In 1825, after having had three children, Jenny ran away with her husband, Noah, and was never seen again. In retaliation, Anthony sold her two living children into the Deep South. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 21, 27, 37, 64–65, 205–06. ESTHER,†Hester Bailey (1810–?) was one of twelve children horn to Isaac and Betsey Bailey and owned by Aaron Anthony of Talbot County. The last trace of Hester and the one child she bore was recorded in 1827, when she was awarded to Thomas Auld after the death of Aaron Anthony. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distrihutions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 18, 27, 206, 221n2. MILLY,†Milly Bailey (1790–?) was the daughter of Betsey Bailey and the aunt of Douglass. She was owned by Aaron Anthony and worked on his Tuckahoe farms. She had seven children. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 17, 27, 205–06. PRISCILLA,†Priscilla Bailey (1816–?), the eleventh of twelve children born to Isaac and Betsey Bailey, was a slave belonging to Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, his son Richard Lee Anthony inherited her. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distrihutions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 18, 206. and HARRIET.†Harriet Bailey (1792–1825) was the second child of Isaac and Betsey Bailey. She was owned by her mother's master, Aaron Anthony. From 1808 to her death, she was hired out by Anthony to local farmers as a field hand. In February 1818, while serving Perry Steward, a tenant farmer on Anthony's Holme Hill Farm in Tuckahoe Creek, she gave birth to Frederick Augustus Bailey, her fourth of six or seven children. In late 1825 or early 1826 she died on the Holme Hill Farm. Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, 165, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 8, 9, 17, 34–35, 62–64, 205–06, 219n9. The daughter last named was my mother, of whom the reader shall learn more by-and-by†Textual note: and-by] A trace of the hyphen occurs in the 1857 printing..
Living here, with my dear old grandmother and grandfather, it was a long time before I knew myself to be . I knew many other things before I knew that. Grandmother and grandfather were the greatest people in the world to me; and being with them so snugly in their own little cabin—I supposed it be their own—knowing no higher authority over me or the other children than the authority of grandmamma, for a time there was nothing to disturb me; but, as I grew larger and older, I learned by degrees the sad fact, that the "little hut," and the lot on which it stood, belonged not to my dear old grandparents, but to some person who lived a great distance off, and who was called, by grandmother, "OLD MASTER."†Aaron Anthony (1767–1826), Frederick Douglass's first owner and possibly his father, was born at Tuckahoe Neck in present-day Caroline County, Maryland. Anthony's father was a poor and illiterate farmer who died when Aaron was only two years old. Despite his impoverished origins, Anthony acquired a rudimentary education and a small amount of property. He became the captain in 1795 of the Sally Lloyd, the family schooner of Edward Lloyd IV, the wealthiest planter in Talbot County. In 1797 he increased his wealth through his marriage to Ann Catherine Skinner, the daughter of an old and prominent Eastern Shore family, who brought with her the slave family into which Douglass was later born. Soon thereafter Anthony became chief overseer and general manager of the Lloyd family's thirteen farms, one of the largest estates in the United States. He remained in this position for the remainder of his life, all the while accumulating land and slaves of his own. By the time of his death in 1826, Anthony had become a moderately wealthy planter in his own right, accumulating three farms totaling 597 1/2 acres, thirty slaves worth $3,065, and personal property. His entire estate was valued al $8,042. Anthony Family Bible, Oxford Museum, Oxford, Md.; Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 58, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Inventory of estate of Aaron Anthony, 13 January 1827, Talbot County Inventories, box 13, 5–9, MdTCH; Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 285, 299–304; Charles B. Clark, ed., The Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, 3 vols. (New York, 1950), 1:491–92; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 22–30; idem, "Aaron Anthony" (typescript, Easton, Md., 1977), MdTCH. I further learned the sadder fact, that not only the house and lot, but that grandmother herself, (grandfather was free) and all the little children around her, belonged to this mysterious personage, called by grandmother, with every mark of reverence, "Old Master." Thus early did clouds and shadows begin to fall upon my path. Once on the track—troubles never come singly—I was not long in finding out another fact, still more grievous to my childish heart. I was told that this "old master," whose name seemed ever to he mentioned with fear and shuddering, only allowed the children to live with grandmother for a limited time, and that in fact as soon as they were hig enough, they were promptly taken away, to live with the said "old master." These were distressing revelations indeed; and though I was quite too young to comprehend the full import of the intelligence, and mostly spent my childhood days in gleesome sports with the other children, a shade of disquiet rested upon me.
The absolute power of this distant "old master" had touched my young spirit with but the point of its cold, cruel iron, and left me something to brood over after the play and in moments of repose. Grandmammy was, indeed, at that time, all the world to me; and the thought of being separated from her, in any considerable time, was more than an unwelcome intruder. It was intolerable.
Children have their sorrows as well as men and women; and it would be well to remember this in our dealings with them. SLAVE-children children, and prove no exceptions to the general rule. The liability to be separated from my grandmother, seldom or never to see her again, haunted me.
I dreaded the thought of going to live with that mysterious "old master," whose name I never heard mentioned with affection, but always with fear. I look back to this as among the heaviest of my childhood's sorrows. My grandmother! my grandmother! and the little hut, and the joyous circle under her care, but especially , who made us sorry when she left us but for an hour, and glad on her return,—how could I leave her and the good old home?
But the sorrows of childhood, like the pleasures of after life, are transient. It is not even within the power of slavery to write indelible sorrow, at a single dash, over the heart of a child.
"'The tear down childhood's cheek that flows,
Is like the dew-drop on the rose.—
When next the summer breeze comes by.
And waves the bush,—the flower is dry."†Douglass quotes canto IV, stanza XI of the poem "Rokeby" by Sir Walter Scott, The Complete Poetical Works of Scott Boston, 1900), 257.
There is, after all, but little difference in the measure of contentment felt by the slave-child neglected and the slaveholder's child cared for and petted. The spirit of the All Just mercifully holds the balance for the young.
The slaveholder, having nothing to fear from impotent childhood, easily affords to refrain from cruel inflictions; and if cold and hunger do not pierce the tender frame, the first seven or eight years of the slave-boy's life are about as full of sweet content as those of the most favored and petted children of the slaveholder. The slave-boy escapes many troubles which befall and vex his white brother. He seldom has to listen to lectures on propriety of behavior, or on anything else. He is never chided for handling his little knife and fork improperly or awkwardly, for he uses none. He is never reprimanded for soiling the table-cloth, for he takes his meals on the clay floor. He never has the misfortune, in his games or sports, of soiling or tearing his clothes, for he has almost none to soil or tear. He is never expected to act like a nice little gentleman, for he is only a rude little slave. Thus, freed from all restraint, the slave-boy can be, in his life and conduct, a genuine boy, doing whatever his boyish nature suggests; enacting, by turns, all the strange antics and freaks of horses, dogs, pigs, and barn-yard†Textual note: All examined copies have "barn-door," but "barn-door fowls" is nonsensical. Douglass's obvious intention to modify "fowls" with "barn-yard" was probably thwarted by an inattentive compositor. fowls, without in any manner compromising his dignity, or incurring reproach of any sort. He literally runs wild; has no pretty little verses to learn in the nursery; no nice little speeches to make for aunts, uncles, or cousins, to show how smart he is; and, if he can only manage to keep out of the way of the heavy feet and fists of the older slave boys, he may trot on, in his joyous and roguish tricks, as happy as any little heathen
under the palm trees of Africa. To be sure, he is occasionally reminded, when he stumbles in the path of his master—and this he early learns to avoid—that he is eating his "," and that he will be made to "" by-and-by. The threat is soon forgotten; the shadow soon passes, and our sable boy continues to roll in the dust, or play in the mud, as best suits him, and in the veriest freedom. If he feels uncomfortable, from mud or from dust, the coast is clear; he can plunge into the river or the pond, without the ceremony of undressing, or the fear of wetting his clothes; his little tow-linen shirt†Rough, unbleached cloth manufactured from tow, the shortest fibers taken from flax or hemp.—for that is all he has on—is easily dried; and it needed ablution as much as did his skin. His food is of the coarsest kind, consisting for the most part of corn-meal mush, which often finds its way†Emendation note: it way. from the wooden tray to his mouth in an oyster shell. His days, when the weather is warm, are spent in the pure, open air, and in the bright sunshine. He always sleeps in airy apartments; he seldom has to take powders, or to be paid to swallow pretty little sugar-coated pills, to cleanse his blood, or to quicken his appetite. He eats no candies; gets no lumps of loaf sugar; always relishes his food; cries but little, for nobody cares for his crying; learns to esteem his bruises but slight, because others so esteem them. In a word, he is, for the most part of the first eight years of his life, a spirited, joyous, uproarious, and happy boy, upon whom troubles fall only like water on a duck's back. And such a boy, so far as I can now remember, was the boy whose life in slavery I am now narrating.
CHAPTER II.
THE AUTHOR REMOVED FROM HIS FIRST HOME.
THE NAME "OLD MASTER" A TERROR--COLONEL LLOY'D PLANTATION—WYE RIVER—WHENCE ITS NAME—POSITION OF THE LLOYDS—HOME ATTRACTION—MEAT OFFERING—JOURNEY FROM TUCKAHOE TO WYE RIVER—SCENE ON REACHING OLD MASTER'S—DEPARTURE OF GRANDMOTHER—STRANGE MEETING OF SISTERS AND BROTHERS—REFUSAL TO BE COMFORTED—SWEET SLEEP.
THAT mysterious individual referred to in the first chapter as an object of terror among the inhabitants of our little cabin, under the ominous title of "old master," was really a man of some consequence. He owned several farms in Tuckahoe; was the chief clerk and butler on the home plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd;†Edward Lloyd V (1779–1834) of Wye House was the scion of Talbot County's first family. One of the state's largest landowners and slave owners, he was also Maryland's most successful wheat grower and cattle raiser of his era. As a charter member of the Maryland Agricultural Society, a founder of at least two banks, and a speculator in coal lands, he became the wealthiest of a long line of Lloyds that reached back to colonial Maryland. In terms of slaves alone, his huge holdings increased from 420 in 1810 to 545 in 1830. An eager student of politics as an adolescent and a frequent auditor of political debate at the Annapolis State House, Lloyd became a Republican delegate to the state legislature as soon as he reached the age of majority in 1800. The following year, he was active in securing passage of a bill removing all restrictions to white male suffrage. From 1806 to 1808 he was a U.S. congressman, voting in 1807 against a bill to end the African slave trade. For the next two years he was governor of Maryland, and from 1811 to 1816 he returned to the state legislature. In 1819 he was elected to the U.S. Senate, from which he resigned in 1826 to return to the Maryland senate, where he was president until 1831. Edward Lloyd V married Sally Scott Murray on 30 November 1797 and had six children with her. 1810 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 342; Oswald Tilghman, History of Talbot County, Maryland, 1661–1861, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1915), 1:184–210; Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 283–90; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 26, 30, 48–54, 57–58, 74, 82; BDAC, 1403. had overseers on his own farms; and gave directions to overseers on the farms belonging to Col. Lloyd. This plantation is situated on Wye river†Maryland's Wye River is an estuary on the Eastern Shore that extends about thirteen miles south from a point east of Queenstown to Eastern Bay. A branch, the Wye East River, about fifteen miles long, extends south and southeast from near Wye Mills, along the borders of Talbot and Queen Annes counties, to the Wye River near its mouth. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 3: 3497; Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 294–308.--the river receiving its name, doubtless, from Wales, where
the Lloyds originated. They (the Lloyds) are an old and honored family in Maryland, exceedingly wealthy. The home plantation, where they have resided, perhaps for a century or more, is one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed, in the state.
About this plantation, and about that queer old master—who must be something more than a man. and something worse than an angel—the reader will easily imagine that I was not only curious, but eager, to know all that could be known. Unhappily for me, however, all the information I could get concerning him but increased my great dread of being carried thither—of being separated from and deprived of the protection of my grandmother and grandfather. It was, evidently, a great thing to go to Col. Lloyd's; and I was not without a little curiosity to see the place; but no amount of coaxing could induce in me the wish to remain there. The fact is, such was my dread of leaving the little cabin, that I wished to remain little forever, for I knew the taller I grew the shorter my stay. The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads up stairs, and its clay floor down stairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship of all the rest, the ladder stairway, and the hole curiously dug in front of the fire-place, beneath which grandmammy placed the sweet potatoes to keep them from the frost, was MY HOME—the only home I ever had; and I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old well, with its stately and skyward-pointing beam, so aptly placed between the limbs of what had once been a tree, and so nicely balanced that I could move it up and down with only one hand, and could get a drink myself without calling for help. Where else in the world could such a well be found, and where could such another home be met with? Nor were these all the attractions of the place. Down in a little valley, not far from grandmammy's cabin, stood Mr. Lee's mill,†Levi Lee owned a mill near Holme Hill Farm and the Tuckahoe River in 1820. In that year he headed a large household of eight family members and six slaves. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talhot County, 48; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 36. where the people came often in large numbers to get their corn ground. It was a water-mill; and I never shall be able to tell the many things thought and felt, while I sat on the hank and watched that mill, and the turning of that ponderous wheel. The mill-pond. too, had its charms; and with my pinhook, and thread line, I could get , if I could catch no fish. But, in all my sports and plays, and in spite of them, there would, occasionally, come the painful foreboding that I was not long to remain there, and that I must soon be called away to the home of old master.
I was A SLAVE—born a slave—and though the fact was
incomprehensible to me, it conveyed to my mind a sense of my entire dependence on the will of I had never seen; and, from some cause or other, I had been made to fear this somebody above all else on earth. Born for another's benefit, as the †According to common usage the term refers to the first of its kind to be produced, the first-born; or the first-born of the season. As Douglass was not the first-born among his siblings, the reference appears to be to his position as the eldest of the children currently under his grandmother's charge. of the cabin flock, I was soon to be selected as a meat†Textual note: As part of an analogy comparing his condition to that of a sacrificial lamb. Douglass obviously intended to refer to himself as a "meat offering." offering†According to the Old Testament, a meat offering is a type of animal sacrifice intended as a gift to God, symbolic of God's meal and of God's presence among the people. The sacrifice is usually accompanied by cereal and drink offerings. Exod. 29:38–42; David Noel Freedman, ed., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (New York, 1992), 5:877–88. to the fearful and inexorable demi-god, whose huge image on so many occasions haunted my childhood's imagination. When the time of my departure was decided upon, my grandmother, knowing my fears, and in pity for them, kindly kept me ignorant of the dreaded event about to transpire. Up to the morning (a beautiful summer morning) when we were to start, and, indeed, during the whole journey—a journey which, child as I was, I remember as well as if it were yesterday—she kept the sad fact hidden from me. This reserve was necessary; for, could I have known all, I should have given grandmother some trouble in getting me started. As it was, I was helpless, and she-dear woman!—led me along by the hand, resisting, with the reserve and solemnity of a priestess, all my inquiring looks to the last.
The distance from Tuckahoe to Wye river—where my old master lived—was full twelve miles, and the walk was quite a severe test of the endurance of my young legs. The journey would have proved too severe for me, but that my dear old grandmother—blessings on her memory!—afforded occasional relief by "toting" me (as Marylanders have it) on her shoulder. My grandmother, though advanced in years—as was evident from more than one gray hair, which peeped from between the ample and graceful folds of her newly-ironed bandana turban—was yet a woman of power and spirit. She was marvelously straight in figure, elastic, and muscular. I seemed hardly to be a burden to her. She would have "toted" me farther, but that I felt myself too much of a man to allow it, and insisted on walking. Releasing dear grandmamma from carrying me, did not make me altogether†Textual emendation: altogther independent of her, when we happened to pass through portions of the somber woods which lay between Tuckahoe and Wye river. She often found me increasing the energy of my grip, and holding her clothing, lest something should come out of the woods and eat me up. Several old logs and stumps imposed upon me, and got themselves taken for wild heasts. I could see their legs, eyes, and ears, or I could see something like eyes, legs, and ears, till I got close enough to them to see that the eyes were knots, washed white with rain, and the legs were broken limbs, and the ears, only ears owing to the point from which they were seen. Thus early I learned that the point from which a thing is viewed is of some importance.
As the day advanced the heat increased; and it was not until the afternoon
that we reached the much dreaded end of the journey. I found myself in the midst of a group of children of many colors; black, brown, copper colored, and nearly white. I had not seen so many children before. Great houses loomed up in different directions, and a great many men and women were at work in the fields. All this hurry, noise, and singing was very different from the stillness of Tuckahoe. As a new comer, I was an object of special interest; and. after laughing and yelling around me, and playing all sorts of wild tricks, they (the children) asked me to go out and play with them. This I refused to do, preferring to stay with grandmamma. I could not help feeling that our being there boded no good to me. Grandmamma looked sad. She was soon to lose another object of affection, as she had lost many before. I knew she was unhappy, and the shadow fell from her brow on me, though I knew not the cause.
All suspense, however, must have an end; and the end of mine, in this instance, was at hand. Affectionately patting me on the head, and exhorting me to be a good boy, grandmamma told me to go and play with the little children. "They are kin to you," said she: "go and play with them." Among a number†Textual emendation: num- of cousins were Phil,† In an inventory of Aaron Anthony's estate in December 1826, Phil, the son of Katy Emblem, was listed as born in 1815. At the distribution of Anthony's estate in September 1827, Phil was transferred to Richard L. Anthony. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distrihution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 52. Tom,†Tom Bailey (1814–?) the fourth of Milly Bailey's seven children and Douglass's cousin, was a slave belonging to Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, Bailey became the property of Thomas Auld. Auld granted Bailey his freedom in 1845. The last record of Bailey's existence is a letter to Douglass from his son Lewis, who visited Talbot County in 1865. During his visit, Lewis wrote, he met with Bailey, who was still living in St. Michaels. Lewis Douglass to Douglass, 9 June 1865, FD Papers DHU; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 91, 174, 206, 221n29, 230n25. Steve,†Another slave owned by Aaron Anthony, Steve was the son of "young" Betty and was born in 1819. After Aaron Anthony's death, Steve was inherited by Andrew S. Anthony. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger 8, 1812–26, folder 95, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA. and Jerry,†This slave's identity cannot be determined with complete certainty. He may have been another child of one of Douglass's aunts, Milly or Betty Bailey. More likely, he was Jerry Emblem (1813–?), the son of Katy Emblem and owned by Aaron Anthony. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, 159, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 52–53, 206. Nance†Douglass's cousin Nancy Bailey (1819–?) was a child of Douglass's aunt Milly Bailey. At the distribution of Aaron Anthony's estate in September 1827, Nancy, her brother Tom, and Douglass were transferred to Thomas Auld. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA. and Betty.†The inventory of Anthony's estate in December 1826 induded two women named Betty, one of whom was fifty-three and the other twenty-six. It is unlikely that either of these is the cousin with whom Douglass played as a child. He probahly is referring to Betty Bailey (1811–?), the daughter of Milly Bailey. She was sold south in 1825. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folders 95, 159, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 206.
Grandmother pointed out my brother PERRY,†Perry Bailey (1813–?), Frederick Douglass's brother and the oldest of seven children born to Harriet Bailey, was the slave of Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, Perry was inherited by Anthony's son, Andrew J. Anthony, Andrew died in 1832, leaving Perry, now married to a slave named Maria, to John P. Anthony, who sold Maria to a slave owner in Brazos County, Texas. Perry followed his wife to Texas, where a post-emancipation labor shortage allowed him to earn "fifteen dollars gold wages a month." In 1867 Perry, Maria, and their four children traveled to Rochester to reunite with Frederick. Elated by this reunion.Douglass built a cottage for them on his Rochester estate, where the family stayed for two years. In 1869 Perry and Maria returned to Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Perry died sometime after 1878. Perry Downs to Douglass, 21 February 1867, FD Papers, DHU; Douglass to J. J. Spelman, 11 July 1867, reprinted in New York Independent, 25 July 1867; Douglass to Theodore Tilton, 2 September 1867, FD Papers, NHi; Anna Downs to Douglass, 5 October 1869, General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 497–99, FD Papers, DLC; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 175–77, 206. my sister SARAH,†Sarah Bailey (1814–?) was Frederick Douglass's oldest sister and the second of seven children born to Harriet Bailey. Sarah belonged to Aaron Anthony, but after his death in 1826 she became the chattel of his son, Andrew Skinner Anthony. In 1832 Andrew sold Bailey, her son Henry, and four other slaves to Perry Cohee of Lawrence County, Mississippi. Douglass and Sarah remained separated until 1883, when she, then living in Louisville, Kentucky, and calling herself Mrs. Sarah Pettit, wrote to Douglass and reestablished their relationship. Sarah O. Pettit to Douglass, 26 September 1883, General Correspondence File, reel 3, frame 778–80, FD Papers, DLC; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, Sale of Slaves, Andrew S. Anthony to Perry Cohee, 14 July 1832, Talbot County Records, V.50, 192–93, both in MdTCH. and my sister ELIZA,†The third of six children born to Harriet Bailey, and the sister of Frederick Douglass, Eliza Bailey (1816–c.1876) was a slave owned by Aaron Anthony. When Anthony died in 1826, Eliza became the property of Thomas Auld, Anthony's son-in-law. Eliza married Peter Mitchell, a free black who worked as a field hand in Talbot County, with whom she had nine children. In 1836 Mitchell bought Eliza and their then two children from Thomas Auld for one hundred dollars. After settling on an acre of land that they rented from Samuel and John Hambleton of Talbot County, they raised their own vegetables and meat and hired themselves out as a domestic and a field hand, respectively. Eliza and her brother Frederick were separated after the latter's escape from slavery in 1838. On 6 June 1844, Mitchell freed Eliza and the other children because state laws no longer required removal from Maryland upon manumission. Eliza and Frederick were reunited in 1865 when Douglass stopped in Baltimore while on a speaking tour. New York Independent, 2 March 1865; Lewis Douglass to Douglass, 9 June 1865, FD Papers, DHU; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, Sale of Slaves, Thomas Auld to Peter Mitchell, 25 January 1836, Talbot County Records, V.52, 258, Manumission of Eliza Mitchell, 1 July 1844, Talbot County Records, V.58, 234–35, all in MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 164–65, 184, 206–07, 229n7. who stood in the group. I had never seen my brother nor my sisters before; and, though I had sometimes heard of them, and felt a curious interest in them, I really did not understand what they were to me, or I to them. We were brothers and sisters, but what of that? Why should they be attached to me, or I to them? Brothers and sisters we were by blood; but slavery had made us strangers. I heard the words brother and sisters, and knew they must mean something; but slavery had robbed these terms of their true meaning. The experience through which I was passing, they had passed through before. They had already heen initiated into the mysteries of old master's domicile, and they seemed to look upon me with a certain degree of compassion; but my heart clave to my grandmother. Think it not strange, dear reader, that so little sympathy of feeling existed between us. The conditions of brotherly and sisterly feeling were wanting—we had never nestled and played together. My poor mother, like many other slavewomen, had , but NO FAMILY! The domestic hearth, with its holy lessons and precious endearments. is abolished in the case of a slave-mother and her children. "Little children, love one another,"†Douglass probably conflates a number of biblical texts, including 1 John 3:18, John 13:34, 1 Thess. 4:9. are words seldom heard in a slave cabin.
I really wanted to play with my brother and sisters, but they were strangers to me, and I was full of fear that grandmother might leave without
taking me with her. Entreated to do so, however, and that, too, by my dear grandmother, I went to the back part of the house, to play with them and the other children. , however, I did not, but stood with my back against the wall, witnessing the playing of the others. At last, while standing there, one of the children, who had been in the kitchen, ran up to me, in a sort of roguish glee, exclaiming, "Fed, Fed! grandmammy gone! grandmammy gone!" I could not believe it; yet, fearing the worst, I ran into the kitchen, to see for myself, and found it even so. Grandmammy had indeed gone. and was now far away, "clean'' out of sight. I need not tell all that happened now. Almost heart-broken at the discovery, I fell upon the ground. and wept a boy's bitter tears, refusing to be comforted. My brother and sisters came around me, and said, "Don't cry," and gave me peaches and pears, but I flung them away, and refused all their kindly advances. I had never heen deceived before; and I felt not only grieved at parting—as I supposed forever—with my grandmother, but indignant that a trick had been played upon me in a matter so serious.
It was now late in the afternoon. The day had heen an exciting and wearisome one, and I knew not how or where, but I suppose I sobbed myself to sleep. There is a healing in the angel wing of sleep, even for the slaveboy; and its balm was never more welcome to any wounded soul than it was to mine, the first night I spent at the domicile of old master. The reader may be surprised that I narrate so minutely an incident apparently so trivial, and which must have occurred when I was not more than seven years old; but as I wish to give a faithful history of my experience in slavery, I cannot withhold a circumstance which, at the time, affected me so deeply. Besides, this was, in fact, my first introduction to the realities of slavery.
CHAPTER III
THE AUTHOR'S PARENTAGE.
AUTHOR'S FATHER SHROUDED IN MYSTERY—AUTHOR'S MOTHER—HER PERSONAL APPEARANCE—INTERFERENCE OF SLAVERY WITH THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS OF MOTHER AND CHILDREN—SITUATION OF AUTHOR'S MOTHER—HER NIGHTLY VISITS TO HER BOY—STRIKING INCIDENT—HER DEATH—HER PLACE OF BURIAL.
IF the reader will now be kind enough to allow me time to grow bigger, and afford me an opportunity for my experience to become greater, I will tell him something, by-and-by, of slave life, as I saw, felt, and heard it, on Col. Edward Lloyd's plantation, and at the house of old master, where I had now,
despite of myself, most suddenly, but not unexpectedly, been dropped. Meanwhile, I will redeem my promise to say something more of my dear mother.
I say nothing of , for he is shrouded in a mystery I have never been able to penetrate. Slavery does away with fathers, as it does away with families. Slavery has no use for either fathers or families, and its laws do not recognize their existence in the social arrangements of the plantation. When they exist, they are not the outgrowths of slavery, but are antagonistic to that system. The order of civilization is reversed here. The name of the child is not expected to be that of its father, and his condition does not necessarily affect that of the child. He may be the slave of Mr. Tilgman;†In 1820 several male members of the Tilghman family, all of whom lived in Talbot County, each owned large numbers of slaves. John owned fifty-two, William H. had twenty-two, Robert owned forty-four, William G . held sixty-nine, and James had thirty-five. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7, 22, 25, 50. and his child, when born, may be the slave of Mr. Gross. He may be a ; and yet his child may be a . He may be white, glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood; and his child may be ranked with the blackest slaves. Indeed, he be, and often is, master and father to the same child. He can he father without being a husband, and may sell his child without incurring reproach, if the child be by a woman in whose veins courses one thirty-second part of African blood. My father was a white man, or nearly white. It was sometimes whispered that my master was my father.
But to return, or rather, to begin. My knowledge of my mother is very scanty, but very distinct. Her personal appearance and bearing are ineffaceahly stamped upon my memory. She was tall, and finely proportioned; of deep black, glossy complexion; had regular features, and, among the other slaves, was remarkably sedate in her manners. There is in "," the head of a figure—on page 157—the features of which so resemble those of my mother, that I often recur to it with something of the feeling which I suppose others experience when looking upon the pictures of dear departed ones.
Yet I cannot say that I was very deeply attached to my mother; certainly not so deeply as I should have been had our relations in childhood been different. We were separated, according to the common custom, when I was but an infant, and, of course, before I knew my mother from any one else.
The germs of affection with which the Almighty, in his wisdom and mercy, arms the helpless infant against the ills and vicissitudes of his lot, had been directed in their growth toward that loving old grandmother, whose gentle hand and kind deportment it was the first effort of my infantile understanding to comprehend and appreciate. Accordingly, the tenderest affection which a beneficent Father allows, as a partial compensation to the mother for the pains and lacerations of her heart, incident to the maternal
relation, was, in my case, diverted from its true and natural object, by the envious, greedy, and treacherous hand of slavery. The slave-mother can be spared long enough from the field to endure all the bitterness of a mother's anguish, when it adds another name to a master's ledger, but not long enough to receive the joyous reward afforded by the intelligent smiles of her child. I never think of this terrible interference of slavery with my infantile affections, and its diverting them from their natural course, without feelings to which I can give no adequate expression.
I do not remember to have seen my mother at my grandmother's at any time. I remember her only in her visits to me at Col. Lloyd's plantation, and in the kitchen of my old master. Her visits to me there were few in number, brief in duration, and mostly made in the night. The pains she took, and the toil she endured, to see me, tells me that a true mother's heart was hers, and that slavery had difficulty in paralyzing it with unmotherly indifference.
My mother was hired out to a Mr. Stewart,†From 1817 to 1821 Perry Ward Steward (?–1821), a tenant farmer, rented Holme Hill Farm from Aaron Anthony and hired the slave Harriet Bailey as a domestic servant. A Perry W. Stewart was listed in the 1820 Census as the head of a large household of eleven. Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790–1818, folder 94, 18, 19, 22, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 336; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 35, 219n7. who lived about twelve miles from old master's, and, being a field hand. she seldom had leisure, by day, for the performance of the journey. The nights and the distance were both obstacles to her visits. She was obliged to walk, unless chance flung into her way an opportunity to ride; and the latter was sometimes her good luck. But she always had to walk one way or the other. It was a greater luxury than slavery could afford, to allow a black slave-mother a horse or a mule, upon which to travel twenty-four miles, when she could walk the distance. Besides, it is deemed a foolish whim for a slave-mother to manifest concern to see her children, and, in one point of view, the case is made out—she can do nothing for them. She has no control over them; the master is even more than the mother, in all matters touching the fate of her child. Why, then, should she give herself any concern? She has no responsibility. Such is the reasoning, and such the practice. The iron rule of the plantation, always passionately and violently enforced in that neighborhood, makes flogging the penalty of failing to be in the field before sunrise in the morning, unless special permission be given to the absenting slave. "I went to see my child," is no excuse to the ear or heart of the overseer.
One of the visits of my mother to me, while at Col. Lloyd's. I remember very vividly, as affording a bright gleam of a mother's love. and the earnestness of a mother's care.
I had on that day offended "Aunt Katy,"†Kate (1789–?) was the daughter of Sarah Emblem, who was owned by Aaron Anthony. She had seven children and presided for years over Anthony's kitchen. At the distribution in 1827 following Anthony's death, she and her children were awarded to Richard Anthony. After his death a year later, she was transferred to Andrew Anthony. Upon his death in 1833, she was assigned to White Barwick, the new husband of Andrew's widow, Ann. Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, 159, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27, 91, 225n8. (called "Aunt" by way of respect,) the cook of old master's establishment. I do not now remember the nature of my offense in this instance, for my offenses were numerous in that quarter, greatly depending, however, upon the mood of Aunt Katy, as to
their heinousness; but she had adopted, that day, her favorite mode of punishing me, namely, making me go without food all day—that is, from after breakfast. The first hour or two after dinner, I succeeded pretty well in keeping up my spirits; but though I made an excellent stand against the foe, and fought bravely during the afternoon, I knew I must be conquered at last, unless I got the accustomed reenforcement of a slice of corn bread, at sundown. Sundown came, but , and, in its stead, there†Textual note: Although each examined copy contains "their," it clashes with the context. The compositor may somehow have been induced to substitute "their" for "there" by the similarity in pronunciation.came the threat, with a scowl well suited to its terrible import, that she "meant to '" Brandishing her knife, she chopped off the heavy slices for the other children, and put the loaf away, muttering, all the while, her savage designs upon myself. Against this disappointment, for I was expecting that her heart would relent at last. I made an extra effort to maintain my dignity; but when I saw all the other children around me with merry and satisfied faces, I could stand it no longer. I went out behind the house, and cried like a fine fellow! When tired of this. I returned to the kitchen, sat by the fire, and brooded over my hard lot. I was too hungry to sleep. While I sat in the corner, I caught sight of an ear of Indian corn on an upper shelf of the kitchen. I watched my chance, and got it, and, shelling off a few grains, I put it back again. The grains in my hand, I quickly put in some ashes, and covered them with embers, to roast them. All this I did at the risk of getting a brutal thumping, for Aunt Katy could beat, as well as starve me. My corn was not long in roasting, and, with my keen appetite. it did not matter even if the grains were not exactly done. I eagerly pulled them out, and placed them on my stool, in a clever little pile. Just as I began to help myself to my very dry meal, in came my dear mother. And now. dear reader, a scene occurred which was altogether worth beholding, and to me it was instructive as well as interesting. The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need—and when he did not dare to look for succor—found himself in the strong, protecting arms of a mother; a mother who was, at the moment (being endowed with high powers of manner as well as matter) more than a match for all his enemies. I shall never forget the indescribable expression of her countenance, when I told her that I had had no food since morning; and that Aunt Katy said she "meant to starve the life out of me." There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt Katy at the same time; and, while she took the corn from me, and gave me a large ginger cake, in its stead, she read Aunt Katy a lecture which she never forgot. My mother threatened her with complaining to old master in my behalf; for the latter, though harsh and cruel himself, at times, did not sanction the meanness injustice, partiality and oppressions enacted by Aunt Katy in the
kitchen. That night I learned the fact, that I was not only a child, but child. The "sweet cake" my mother gave me was in the shape of a heart, with a rich, dark ring glazed upon the edge of it. I was victorious, and well off for the moment; prouder, on my mother's knee, than a king upon his throne. But my triumph was short. I dropped off to sleep, and waked in the morning only to find my mother gone, and myself left at the mercy of the sable virago,†A man-like female, heroic warrior; a noisy domineering woman, a scold. dominant in my old master's kitchen, whose fiery wrath was my constant dread.
I do not remember to have seen my mother after this occurrence. Death soon ended the little communication that had existed between us; and with it, I believe, a life—judging from her weary, sad, downcast countenance and mute demeanor—-full of heart-felt sorrow. I was not allowed to visit her during any part of her long illness; nor did I see her for a long time before she was taken ill and died. The heartless and ghastly form of rises between mother and child, even at the bed of death. The mother, at the verge of the grave, may not gather her children, to impart to them her holy admonitions, and invoke for them her dying benediction. The bond-woman lives as a slave, and is left to die as a beast; often with fewer attentions than are paid to a favorite horse. Scenes of sacred tenderness, around the death-bed, never forgotten, and which often arrest the vicious and confirm the virtuous during life, must be looked for among the free, though they sometimes occur among the slaves. It has been a life-long, standing grief to me, that I knew so little of my mother; and that I was so early separated from her. The counsels of her love must have been beneficial to me. The side view of her face is imaged on my memory, and I take few steps in life, without feeling her presence; but the image is mute, and I have no striking words of her's treasured up.
I learned, after my mother's death, that she could read, and that she was the one of all the slaves and colored people in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage. How she acquired this knowledge, I know not, for Tuckahoe is the last place in the world where she would be apt to find facilities for learning. I can, therefore, fondly and proudly ascribe to her an earnest love of knowledge. That a "field hand" should learn to read, in any slave state, is remarkable; but the achievement of my mother, considering the place, was very extraordinary; and, in view of that fact, I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, not to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated —a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental
endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt. Summoned away to her account, with the impassable gulf of slavery between us during her entire illness, my mother died without leaving me a single intimation of my father was. There was a whisper, that my master was my father; yet it was only a whisper, and I cannot say that I ever gave it credence. Indeed, I now have reason to think he was not; nevertheless, the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that, by the laws of slavery, children, in all cases, are reduced to the condition of their mothers. This arrangement admits of the greatest license to brutal slaveholders, and their profligate sons, brothers, relations and friends, and gives to the pleasure of sin, the additional attraction of profit. A whole volume might be written on this single feature of slavery, as I have observed it.
One might imagine, that the children of such connections, would fare better, in the hands of their masters, than other slaves. The rule is quite the other way; and a very little reflection will satisfy the reader that such is the case. A man who will enslave his own blood, may not be safely relied on for magnanimity. Men do not love those who remind them of their sins—unless they have a mind to repent—and the mulatto child's face is a standing accusation against him who is master and father to the child. What is still worse, perhaps, such a child is a constant offense to the wife.†Although many white women ignored evidence of illicit interracial relationships in their families, evidence indicates that there were occasions when white slaveowning women lashed out at slave women whom they viewed as rivals for their husband's affection. The presence of biracial children, probably fathered by white men on the plantation, were daily reminders of the men's infidelity. Some plantation mistresses who suspected or knew that their husbands had fathered light-skinned children sold the children to be shed of the constant reminder. Direct retaliation against slave women was even more likely when children were not involved. Deborah Gray White, Ar'n't I a Woman? Female Slaves in the Plantation South (New York, 1985), 39–42; Catherine Clinton, The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South (New York, 1982), 211–14. She hates its very presence, and when a slaveholding woman hates, she wants not means to give that hate telling effect. Women—white women, I mean—are IDOLS at the south, not WIVES, for the slave women are preferred in many instances; and if these but nod, or lift a finger, woe to the poor victim: kicks, cuffs and stripes are sure to follow. Masters are frequently compelled to sell this class of their slaves, out of deference to the feelings of their white wives; and shocking and scandalous as it may seem for a man to sell his own blood to the traffickers in human flesh, it is often an act of humanity toward the slave-child to be thus removed from his merciless tormentors.
It is not within the scope of the design of my simple story, to comment upon every phase of slavery not within my experience as a slave.
But, I may remark, that, if the lineal descendants of Ham†The reference is to Genesis 9:25. Douglass refers to the account in which Noah curses Canaan, the son of Ham, for an offense that Ham had committed against his father Noah. Through an obscure history the meaning of the curse, "a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren," had evolved in Christian Europe as a justification for the enslavement of Africans, the "sons of Ham." Proslavery advocates in the American South used this argument extensively in the renewed debates of the 1840s. David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1975), 539–41, 555–56; Larry E. Tise, Proslavery: A History of the Defense of Slavery in America, 1701–1840 (Athens, Ga., 1987), 106, 118, 189: George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny, 1817–1914 (NewYork, 1971), 60–61."> are only to be enslaved, according to the scriptures, slavery in this country will soon become an unscriptural institution; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who—like myself—owe their existence to white fathers, and, most frequently, to their masters and master's sons. The slave-woman is at the mercy of the fathers, sons or brothers of her master. The thoughtful know the rest.
After what I have now said of the circumstances of my mother, and my relations to her, the reader will not be surprised, nor be disposed to censure me, when I tell but the simple truth, viz: that I received the tidings of her death with no strong emotions of sorrow for her, and with very little regret for myself on account of her loss. I had to learn the value of my mother long after her death, and by witnessing the devotion of other mothers to their children.
There is not, beneath the sky, an enemy to filial affection so destructive as slavery. It had made my brothers and sisters strangers to me; it converted the mother that bore me, into a myth; it shrouded my father in mystery, and left me without an intelligible beginning in the world.
My mother died when I could not have been more than eight or nine years old, on one of old master's farms in Tuckahoe.†Harriet Bailey died on the Holme Hill Farm after a long illness in late 1825 or early 1826. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 64. in the neighborhood of Hillsborough. Her grave is, as the grave of the dead at sea, unmarked. and without stone or stake.
CHAPTER IV.
A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SLAVE PLANTATION.
ISOLATION OF LLOYD'S PLANTATION—PUBLIC OPINION THERE NO PROTECTION TO THE SLAVE—ABSOLUTE POWER OF THE OVERSEER—NATURAL AND ARTIFICIAL CHARMS OF THE PLACE—ITS BUSINESS-LIKE APPEARANCE—SUPERSTITION ABOUT THE BURIAL GROUND—GREAT IDEAS OF COL. LLOYD—ETIQUETTE AMONG SLAVES—THE COMIC SLAVE DOCTOR—PRAYING AND FLOGGING—"OLD MASTER" LOSING ITS TERRORS—HIS BUSINESS—CHARACTER OF "AUNT KATY"—SUFFERING FROM HUNGER—OLD MASTER'S HOME—JARGON OF THE PLANTATION—GUINEA SLAVES—MASTER DANIEL—FAMILY OF COL. LLOYD—FAMILY OF CAPT ANTHONY—HIS SOCIAL POSITION—NOTIONS OF RANK AND STATION.
IT is generally supposed that slavery, in the state of Maryland, exists in its mildest form, and that it is totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities, which mark and characterize the slave system, in the southern and south-western states of the American union. The argument in favor of this opinion, is the contiguity of the free states, and the exposed condition of slavery in Maryland to the moral, religious and humane sentiment of the free states.
I am not about to refute this argument, so far as it relates to slavery in that State, generally; on the contrary, I am willing to admit that, to this general point, the argument is well grounded. Public opinion is, indeed, an
unfailing restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it can reach them; but there are certain secluded and out-of-the way places, even in the state of Maryland, seldom visited by a single ray of healthy public sentiment-where slavery, wrapt in its own congenial, midnight darkness, , and , develop all its malign and shocking characteristics; where it can be indecent without shame, cruel without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of exposure.
Just such a secluded, dark, and out-of-the-way place, is the "home plantation" of Col. Edward Lloyd, on the Eastern Shore, Maryland. It is far away from all the great thoroughfares, and is proximate to no town or village. There is neither school-house,†As late as 1833 the community of St. Michaels did not have a public school for the children of local planters and farmers. Preston, , 110. nor town-house in its neighborhood. The school-house is unnecessary, for there are no children to go to school. The children and grand-children of Col. Lloyd were taught in the house, by a private tutor—a Mr. Page†Joel Page (1784–1832) was born in Conway, Franklin County, Massachusetts. In 1805 he graduated from Yale College, and sometime soon after that became the resident tutor in the household of Edward Lloyd V. Among his tutees over the years was Edward Lloyd VI. Page became a beloved member of the Lloyd household and remained there until he died in 1832 of complications related to psychological disorder. He was interred in the Lloyd burial grounds. Franklin Bowditch Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, 6 vols. (New York, 1911), 5:788; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:211; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 59, 221n24.—a tall, gaunt sapling of a man, who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole year. The overseers' children go off somewhere to school; and they, therefore, bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad, to embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not even the mechanics—through whom there is an occasional out-burst of honest and telling indignation, at cruelty and wrong on other plantations—are white men, on this plantation. Its whole public is made up of, and divided into, three classes—SLAVEHOLDERS, SLAVES and OVERSEERS. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and coopers, are slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and iron-hearted as it†Emendation note: at is, and ready, as it ever is, to side with the strong against the weak—the rich against the poor—is trusted or permitted within its secluded precincts. Whether with a view of guarding against the escape of its secrets, I know not, but it is a fact, that every leaf and grain of the produce of this plantation, and those of the neighboring farms belonging to Col. Lloyd, are transported to Baltimore in Col. Lloyd's own vessels;†The property holdings of Edward Lloyd V were extensive. When Douglass first came to Wye Plantation in 1824, Lloyd reportedly held about nine thousand acres comprising the plantation and a dozen outlying farms. Each of the individual farms was operated by an overseer and employed the labor of 18 to 47 slaves. At that time the slave population of the estate was 181, including the 15 slaves held by Aaron Anthony. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 48. every man and boy on board of which—except the captain—are owned by him. In return, everything brought to the plantation, comes through the same channel. Thus, even the glimmering and unsteady light of trade, which sometimes exerts a civilizing influence, is excluded from this "tabooed" spot.
Nearly all the plantations or farms in the vicinity of the "home plantation" of Col. Lloyd, belong to him; and those which do not, are owned by personal friends of his, as deeply interested in maintaining the slave system, in all its rigor, as Col. Lloyd himself. Some of his neighbors are said to be even more stringent than he. The Skinners,† The Skinner family was spread throughout the Eastern Shore but had been in Talbot County since the 1660s, when Andrew Skinner I purchased a large plantation on a small peninsula in the Miles River Neck district. This remained the principal Skinner residence throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Skinners farmed tobacco there until after the Revolution, when they made the conversion with many others in the region to wheat and corn cultivation. Richard Skinner was very active in county affairs at the time of the Revolution, serving as its clerk of court (1777–85) and as a select member of the local Committee of Observation in 1775. Prominent members of the family in the early nineteenth century included the prosperous Andrew Skinner, who in 1830 owned forty-one slaves; Elizabeth Skinner, who held twenty-nine in the same year, and Mordechai Skinner, who owned twenty-seven in 1820. The history of Frederick Douglass and his ancestors, the Baileys, is bound up with that of the Skinners. In 1746 an inventory of the estate of the recently deceased Richard Skinner indicated his ownership of Douglass's great-grandmother, Jenny Bailey. In 1797, when Ann Catherine Skinner married Aaron Anthony, she brought into his possession her slaves Betsey Bailey and her daughters Harriet and Milly. At this time Anthony removed them to his Tuckahoe farm. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 18; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 18, 39; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1: 21, 46, 65, 69; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 3–7, 16–17, 214n15: idem, Talbot County, 115. the Peakers,†Peaker was a common, local corruption of the Paca family name. The first Paca to appear in Maryland was Robert, who in 1660 was brought to the Western Shore county of Anne Arundel as an indentured servant. The death of his master soon after their arrival allowed Robert to marry his widow and come into her sizable land holdings. Despite success as a farmer and grocer, Robert's estate was encumbered with debt upon his death, and his stepson, widow, and son sought new opportunity in Baltimore County after extinguishing the debt. As land was cheaper there, they began investing heavily in it, and its value soon increased and laid the foundation for the family's prosperity. The Pacas became affluent planters in Baltimore and Harford counties and often served in official positions in the government, church, and militia. The most famous Paca in the eighteenth century was William (1740–99), who by the 1760s was a very successful attorney in Annapolis. William, however, became a leading opponent of British colonial policy from the Stamp Act in 1765 onward and became a signer of the Declaration of Independence. He contributed much of his own money to the patriot cause and during the Revolution and afterward held numerous important governmental and judicial positions. In 1770 his wife inherited half of Wye Island in Queen Armes County, and he died there in 1799. Pacas continued to live there at elegant Wye Hall in the nineteenth century and to socialize with the nearby Lloyds and Tilghmans. Gregory A. Stiverson and Phebe R. Jacobsen, William Paca: A Biography (Baltimore, 1976); ACAB, 4:618: DAB, 14:123–24. the Tilgmans,
the Lockermans,†Although Loockermans resided in several Eastern Shore counties, including Caroline, Talbot, and Queen Annes, their original plantation was in Dorchester County, where Jacob Loockerman, a naturalized Dutchman from New Amsterdam, settled about 1680 and soon began holding a series of prominent official positions. Throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Loockermans played important roles in Eastern Shore affairs. Jacob Loockerman (1759–1839) was the clerk of court in Talbot County for many years and lived at Oak Hill, near Easton, where by the late 1820s he owned twenty-two slaves and 1,210 acres. His son, Theodore Richard Loockerman (1798–1851), was a leading Easton lawyer, represented Talbot in the state legislature, and was president of the Branch Bank at Easton at the time of his death. Whitman H. Ridgway, Community Leadership in Maryland, 1790–1840 (Chapel Hill, 1979), 333, 338; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1: 415, 480–81, 617: 2: 21; Joseph S. Ames. "Genealogies of Four Families of Dorchester County: Harrison, Haskins, Caile, Loockerman," MdHM, 11:193–202 (June 1916), 11:295–300 (September 1916). and the Gipsons,† Jacob Gibson (1759–1818), a slave owner locally feared for his volatile temper, resided at Marengo, a plantation bordering the Lloyd property. Appointed an associate judge for Talbot County in 1802, Gibson won election to the legislature in 1806. Residents remembered him because of his numerous vitriolic broadsides and newspaper essays as well as his physical assaults on his enemies. The 1810 U.S. census listed him as the owner of thirty-four slaves, whom Gibson reputedly ruled over as a stern taskmaster. Gibson's plantation belonged to his son Fayette at the time to which Douglass refers. 1810 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 342; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:231–56; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 60, 221n28. are in the same boat; being slaveholding neighbors, they may have strengthened each other in their iron rule. They are on intimate terms, and their interests and tastes are identical.
Public opinion in such a quarter, the reader will see, is not likely to be very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. On the contrary, it must increase and intensify his wrongs. Public opinion seldom differs very widely from public practice. To be a restraint upon cruelty and vice, public opinion must emanate from a humane and virtuous community. To no such humane and virtuous community, is Col. Lloyd's plantation exposed. That plantation is a little nation of its own, having its own language, its own rules, regulations and customs. The laws and institutions of the state, apparently touch it nowhere. The troubles arising here, are not settled by the civil power of the state. The overseer is generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate and executioner. The criminal is always dumb. The overseer attends to all sides of a case.
There are no conflicting rights of property, for all the people are owned by one man; and they can themselves own no property. Religion and politics are alike excluded. One class of the population is too high to he reached by the preacher; and the other class is too low to he cared for by the preacher. The poor have the gospel preached to them, in this neighborhood, only when they are able to pay for it. The slaves, having no money, get no gospel. The politician keeps away, because the people have no votes, and the preacher keeps away, because the people have no money. The rich planter can afford to learn politics in the parlor. and to dispense with religion altogether.
In its isolation, seclusion, and self-reliant independence, Col. Lloyd's plantation resembles what the baronial domains were, during the middle ages in Europe. Grim, cold, and unapproachable by all genial influences from communities without, ; full three hundred years behind the age, in all that relates to humanity and morals.
This, however, is not the only view that the place presents. Civilization is shut out, but nature cannot be. Though separated from the rest of the world; though public opinion, as I have said, seldom gets a chance to penetrate its dark domain; though the whole place is stamped with its own peculiar, iron-like individuality; and though crimes, high-handed and atrocious, may there be committed, with almost as much impunity as upon the deck of a pirate ship,—it is, nevertheless, altogether, to outward seeming, a most strikingly interesting place, full of life, activity, and spirit; and presents a very favorable contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe.
Keen as was my regret and great as was my sorrow at leaving the latter, I was not long in adapting myself to this, my new home. A man's troubles are always half disposed of, when he finds endurance his only remedy. I found myself here; there was no getting away; and what remained for me, but to make the best of it? Here were plenty of children to play with, and plenty of places of pleasant resort for boys of my age, and boys older. The little tendrils of affection, so rudely and treacherously broken from around the darling objects of my grandmother's hut, gradually began to extend, and to entwine about the new objects by which I now found myself surrounded.
There was a windmill (always a commanding object to a child's eye) on Long Point†A tract of land between the Miles and Wye rivers at the southernmost end of the Broad Creek Neck between Harris Creek and Broad Creek, in Talbot County, Maryland. In the nineteenth century the property was owned by the Harrison family, who lived in the mansion house built by Ralph Elston in the late eighteenth century. Swepson Earle, The Chesapeake Bay Country (Baltimore, 1923), 363–64; idem, ed., Maryland's Colonial Eastern Shore (1916; Bowie, Md., 1996), 37–38.—a tract of land dividing Miles river† Originally known as the St. Michaels River, the twelve-mile-long Miles River lies entirely within Talbot County, flowing southwest for its first eight miles and then northwest to meet the Chesapeake Bay at the town of St. Michaels. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 236, 239-40, 255. from the Wye—a mile or more from my old master's house. There was a creek to swim in, at the bottom of an open flat space, of twenty acres or more, called "the Long Green"†The Long Green was a grassy expanse of about twenty acres in the center of Wye Plantation that stretched between the main house and the waterfront. Structures along the green included the slave quarters and other working structures such as the overseers' houses, icehouse, storage houses, carpenter's shop, and blacksmith's shop. J. Donnell Tilghman, "Wye House," MdHM, 48:100 (June 1953); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 39.--a very beautiful play-ground for the children.
In the river, a short distance from the shore, lying quietly at anchor, with her small boat dancing at her stern, was a large sloop—the Sally Lloyd;† In 1819 Edward Lloyd V ordered the construction of a new sloop to replace the aging schooner Elizabeth & Ann, which carried his crops to markets in Baltimore and Annapolis and brought back supplies to his scattered Talbot County farms. Thomas Auld had supervised the construction, in Joseph Kemp's St. Michaels shipyard, of the replacement vessel, named the Sally Lloyd in honor of the colonel's eldest daughter, Sally Scott Lloyd. Auld remained in Lloyd's employment as the master of the Sally Lloyd, which was manned by a slave crew. The latter gained celebrity status among the Lloyd slaves because it afforded them contact with the world outside the rural plantations and the ability to purchase small items in the cities for resale to other slaves. Various account books and cash books, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. called by that name in honor of a favorite daughter of the colonel. The sloop and the mill were wondrous things, full of thoughts and ideas. A child cannot well look at such objects without .
Then here were a great many houses; human habitations, full of the mysteries of life at every stage of it. There was the little red house, up the road, occupied by Mr. Sevier,†During the years 1809–12 and possibly thereafter. William Sevier worked for Aaron Anthony, probably as an overseer on his farms. In 1820 he was between twenty-six and forty years old. At that time Sevier occupied a small red frame house on the east side of Wye House's Long Green, and was Edward Lloyd V's overseer for the more than 150 slaves at the main plantation. Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790–1818, folder 94, 19, Aaron Anthony Ledger C, 1809–27, folder 96, 1, 3, 13, 87, 119, 124, 177, 286, 291, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 70–71, 222nn5–6. the overseer. A little nearer to my old master's, stood a very long, rough, low building, literally alive with slaves, of all ages, conditions and sizes. This was called "the Long Quarter."† Some of the slave quarters of Wye plantation were located on the Long Green. Tilghman, " Wye House," 100. Perched upon a hill, across the Long Green, was a wry tall, dilapidated, old brick building—the architectural dimensions of which proclaimed its erection for a different purpose—now occupied by slaves, in a similar manner to the Long Quarter. Besides these, there were numerous other slave houses and huts, scattered around in the neighborhood, every nook and corner of which was completely occupied. Old master's house, a long, brick building, plain, but substantial, stood in the center of the plantation life, and constituted one independent establishment on the premises of Col. Lloyd.
Besides these dwellings, there were barns, stables, store-houses, and tobacco-houses; blacksmiths' shops, wheelwrights' shops, coopers' shops—all objects of interest; but, above all, there stood the grandest building my eyes had then ever he held, called, by every one on the plantation, the "Great House."†Wye House, the principal residence of Edward Lloyd V, located on the plantation of the same name, was built to replace the original house destroyed by British troops during the American Revolution. Still standing, Wye House is a large wood-frame building, constructed in the "five-part" design, with a central block and corridors on each side and another wing at the end of each corridor. Douglass visited there in June 1881, and several younger members of the Lloyd family escorted him around the grounds. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 271; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 192–96. This was occupied by Col. Lloyd and his family. They occupied it; I enjoyed it. The great house was surrounded by numerous and variously shaped out-buildings. There were kitchens, wash-houses, dairies, summer-
house, green-houses, hen-houses, turkey-houses, pigeon-houses, and arbors, of many sizes and devices, all neatly painted, and altogether interspersed with grand old trees, ornamental and primitive, which afforded delightful shade in summer, and imparted to the scene a high degree of stately beauty. The great house itself was a large, white, wooden building, with wings on three sides of it. In front, a large portico, extending the entire length of the building, and supported by a long range of columns, gave to the whole establishment an air of solemn grandeur. It was a treat to my young and gradually opening mind, to behold this elaborate exhibition of wealth, power, and vanity. The carriage entrance to the house was a large gate, more than a quarter of a mile distant from it; the intermediate space was a beautiful lawn, very neatly trimmed, and watched with the greatest care. It was dotted thickly over with delightful trees, shrubbery, and flowers. The road, or lane, from the gate to the great house, was richly paved with white pebbles from the beach, and, in its course, formed a complete circle around the beautiful lawn. Carriages going in and retiring from the great house, made the circuit of the lawn, and their passengers were permitted to behold a scene of almost Eden-like beauty. Outside this select inclosure, were parks, where—as about the residences of the English nobility—rabbits, deer, and other wild game, might be seen, peering and playing about, with none to molest them or make them afraid. The tops of the stately poplars were often covered with the red-winged black-birds, making all nature vocal with the joyous life and beauty of their wild, warbling notes. These all belonged to me, as well as to Col. Edward Lloyd, and for a time I greatly enjoyed them.
A short distance from the great house, were the stately mansions of the dead, a place of somber aspect. Vast tombs, embowered beneath the weeping willow and the fir tree, told of the antiquities of the Lloyd family, as well as of their wealth. Superstition was rife among the slaves about this family burying ground. Strange sights had been seen there by some of the older slaves. Shrouded ghosts, riding on great black horses, had been seen to enter; balls of fire had been seen to fly there at midnight, and horrid sounds had been repeatedly heard. Slaves know enough of the rudiments of theology to believe that those go to hell who die slaveholders; and they often fancy such persons wishing themselves back again, to wield the lash. Tales of sights and sounds, strange and terrible, connected with the huge black tombs, were a very great security to the grounds about them, for few of the slaves felt like approaching them even in the day time. It was a dark, gloomy and forbidding place, and it was difficult to feel that the spirits of
the sleeping dust there deposited, reigned with the blest in the realms of eternal peace.
The business of twenty or thirty farms was transacted at this, called, by way of eminence, "great house farm." These farms all belonged to Col. Lloyd, as did, also, the slaves upon them. Each farm was under the management of an overseer. As I have said of the overseer of the home plantation, so I may say of the overseers on the smaller ones; they stand between the slave and all civil constitutions—their word is law, and is implicitly obeyed.
The colonel, at this time, was reputed to be, and he apparently was, very rich. His slaves, alone, were an immense fortune. These small and great, could not have been fewer than one thousand in number, and though scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to the Georgia traders,†By Georgia traders, Douglass probably refers to slave traders from the Deep South. It was not unusual for major slave traders to ship their "cargoes" by water to southern ports such as Savannah, Charleston, or Mobile, although New Orleans was the most frequent destination. On arrival, the slaves were sold to work in Alabama and Mississippi, where new land had opened to settlement after native peoples were expelled or negotiated out. Austin Woolfolk was the leading trader in Maryland and northern Virginia in the 1820s and 1830s and was known by reputation to slaves throughout the region. Winfield H. Collins, The Domestic Slave Trade of the Southern States (1904; Port Washington., N.Y., 1969), 100–105: Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionany of Afro-American Slavery, rev. ed. (Westport, Conn., 1997), 686–88. there was no apparent diminution in the number of his human stock; the home plantation merely groaned at a removal of the young increase, or human crop, then proceeded as lively as ever. Horse-shoeing, cart-mending, plow-repairing, coopering, grinding, and weaving, for all the neighboring farms, were performed here, and slaves were employed in all these branches. "Uncle Tony" was the blacksmith; "Uncle Harry"†Henry Bailey (1820–?) was the youngest of twelve children born to Douglass's maternal grandparents, Isaac and Betsey Bailey. Henry was owned by Aaron Anthony of Talbot County; when Anthony died in 1826. Henry became the property of Richard Lee Anthony. When Richard died in 1828. Thomas Auld. Richard's brother-in-law, became Henry's master. Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59. MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 18, 109, 206. was the cartwright; "Uncle Abel" was the shoemaker; and all these had hands to assist them in their several departments.
These mechanics were called "uncles" by all the younger slaves, not because they really sustained that relationship to any, but according to plantation , as a mark of respect, due from the younger to the older slaves. Strange, and even ridiculous as it may seem, among a people so uncultivated, and with so many stern trials to look in the face, there is not to be found, among any people, a more rigid enforcement of the law of respect to elders, than they maintain. I set this down as partly constitutional with my race, and partly conventional. There is no better material in the world for making a gentleman, than is furnished in the African. He shows to others, and exacts for himself, all the tokens of respect which he is compelled to manifest toward his master. A young slave must approach the company of the older with hat in hand, and woe betide him, if he fails to acknowledge a favor, of any sort, with the accustomed "," &c. So uniformly are good manners enforced among slaves, that I can easily detect a "bogus" fugitive by his manners.
Among other slave notabilities of the plantation, was one called by everybody Uncle Isaac Copper. It is seldom that a slave gets a surname from anybody in Maryland; and so completely has the south shaped the manners of the north, in this respect, that even abolitionists make very little
of the surname of a negro. The only improvement on the "Bills," "Jacks," "Jims," and "Neds" of the south, observable here is, that "William." "John," "James," "Edward," are substituted. It goes against the grain to treat and address a negro precisely as they would treat and address a white man. But, once in a while, in slavery as in the free states, by some extraordinary circumstance, the negro has a surname fastened to him, and holds it against all conventionalties. This was the case with Uncle Isaac Copper. When the "uncle" was dropped, he generally had the prefix "doctor," in its stead. He was our doctor of medicine, and doctor of divinity as well. Where he took his degree I am unable to say, for he was not very communicative to inferiors, and I was emphatically such, being but a boy seven or eight years old. He was too well established in his profession to permit questions as to his native skill, or his attainments . One qualification he undoubtedly had—he was a confirmed ; and he could neither work, nor would he bring anything if offered for sale in the market. The old man, though lame, was no sluggard. He was a man that made his crutches do him good service. He was always on the alert, looking up the sick, and all such as were supposed to need his counsel. His remedial prescriptions embraced four articles. For diseases of the body, and for those of the soul, and
I was not long at Col. Lloyd's before I was placed under the care of Doctor Isaac Copper. I was sent to him with twenty or thirty other children, to learn the "Lord's Prayer." I found the old gentleman seated on a huge three-legged oaken stool, armed with several large hickory switches; and, from his position, he could reach—lame as he was—any boy in the room. After standing awhile to learn what was expected of us, the old gentleman, in any other than a devotional tone, commanded us to kneel down. This done, he commenced telling us to say everything he said. "Our Father"— this we repeated after him with promptness and uniformity: "Who art in heaven"—was less promptly and uniformly repeated; and the old gentleman paused in the prayer, to give us a short lecture upon the consequences of inattention, both immediate and future, and especially those more immediate. About these he was absolutely certain, for he held in his right hand the means of bringing all his predictions and warnings to pass. On he proceeded with the prayer; and we with our thick tongues and unskilled ears, followed him to the best of our ability. This, however, was not sufficient to please the old gentleman. Everybody, in the south, wants the privilege of whipping somebody else. Uncle Isaac shared the common passion of his country, and , therefore, seldom found any means of keeping his disciples in
order short of flogging. "Say everything I say;" and bang would come the switch on some poor boy's undevotional head. ""—""—and down again would come the lash.
The whip is all in all. It is supposed to secure obedience to the slaveholder, and is held as a sovereign remedy among the slaves themselves, for every form of disobedience, temporal or spiritual. Slaves, as well as slaveholders. use it with an unsparing hand. Our devotions at Uncle Isaac 's combined too much of the tragic and comic, to make them very salutary in a spiritual point of view; and it is due to truth to say, I was often a truant when the time for attending the praying and flogging of Doctor Isaac Copper came on.
The windmill under the care of Mr. Kinney,†Richard Kinney or Kenny was born in England, and 1830 census records indicate that he was between thirty and forty years old. He was married and had eight people in his family. He also owned two male slaves, 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 16. a kind hearted old Englishman, was to me a source of infinite interest and pleasure. The old man always seemed pleased when he saw a troop of darkey little urchins, with their tow-linen shirts fluttering in the hreeze, approaching to view and admire the whirling wings of his wondrous machine. From the mill we could see other objects of deep interest. These were, the vessels from St. Michael's,†The town of St. Michaels, Talbot County, Maryland, was incorporated in 1805 by the Maryland General Assembly. It is believed to have been established early in the seventeenth century, although the exact date has been debated, one account placing the building of a Reformed church on that site in 1672. Located along the Miles River, the town became the local place of embarkation for vessels bound for Baltimore, Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:375–77, 381–85. on their way to Baltimore. It was a source of much amusement to view the flowing sails and complicated rigging, as the little crafts dashed by, and to speculate upon Baltimore, as to the kind and quality of the place. With so many sources of interest around me, the reader may be prepared to learn that I began to think very highly of Col. L. 's plantation. It was just a place to my boyish taste. There were fish to be caught in the creek if one only had a hook and line; and crabs, clams and oysters were to be caught by wading, digging and raking for them. Here was a field for industry and enterprise, strongly inviting; and the reader may he assured that I entered upon it with spirit.
Even the much dreaded old master. whose merciless fiat had brought me from Tuckahoe, gradually, to my mind, parted with his terrors. Strange enough, his reverence seemed to take no particular notice of me, nor of my coming. Instead of leaping out and devouring me, he scarcely seemed conscious of my presence. The fact is, he was occupied with matters more weighty and important than either looking after or vexing me. He probably thought as little of my advent, as he would have thought of the addition of a single pig to his stock!
As the chief butler on Col. Lloyd's plantation, his duties were numerous and perplexing. In almost all important matters he answered in Col. Lloyd's stead. The overseers of all the farms were in some sort under him, and received the law from his mouth. The colonel himself seldom addressed an overseer, or allowed an overseer to address him. Old master carried the keys of all the store houses; measured out the allowance for each
slave at the end of every month; superintended the storing of all goods brought to the plantation; dealt out the raw material to all the handicraftsmen; shipped the grain, tobacco, and all saleable produce of the plantation to market, and had the general oversight of the coopers' shop, wheelwrights' shop, blacksmiths' shop, and shoemakers' shop. Besides the care of these, he often had business for the plantation which required him to be absent two and three days.
Thus largely employed, he had little†Emendation note: litttle time, and perhaps as little disposition, to interfere with the children individually. What he was to Col. Lloyd, he made Aunt Katy to him. When he had anything to say or do about us, it was said or done in a wholesale manner, disposing of us in classes or sizes, leaving all minor details to Aunt Katy, a person of whom the reader has already received no very favorable impression. Aunt Katy was a woman who never allowed herself to act greatly within the margin of power granted to her, no matter how broad that authority might be. Ambitious, ill-tempered and cruel, she found in her present position an ample field for the exercise of her ill-omened qualities. She had a strong hold on old master—she was considered a first rate cook, and she really was very industrious. She was, therefore, greatly favored by old master, and as one mark of his favor, she was the only mother who was permitted to retain her children around her. Even to these children she was often fiendish in her brutality. She pursued her son Phil, one day, in my presence, with a huge butcher knife, and dealt a blow with its edge which left a shocking gash on his arm, near the wrist. For this, old master did sharply rebuke her, and threatened that if she ever should do the like again, he would take the skin off her back. Cruel, however, as Aunt Katy was to her own children, at times she was not destitute of maternal feeling, as I often had occasion to know, in the bitter pinches of hunger I had to endure. Differing from the practice of Col. Lloyd, old master, instead of allowing so much for each slave, committed the allowance for all to the care of Aunt Katy, to be divided after cooking it, amongst us. The allowance, consisting of coarse cornmeal, was not very abundant—indeed, it was very slender; and in passing through Aunt Katy's hands, it was made more slender still, for some of us. William, Phil and Jerry†Aunt Katy's sons appear among the slaves listed in the estate inventory of Aaron Anthony in December 1826: William (born 1822), Phil (born 1815), and Jerry (born 1813). At the division of Anthony's estate in September 1827, William was transferred with Douglass to Thomas Auld. Phil to Richard L. Anthony, and Jerry to Andrew S. Anthony, Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folders 71 and 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–26, folder 95, 159, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA. were her children, and it is not to accuse her too severely, to allege that she was often guilty of starving myself and the other children, while she was literally cramming her own. Want of food was my chief trouble the first summer at my old master's. Oysters and clams would do very well with an occasional supply of bread, but they soon failed in the absence of bread. I speak but the simple truth, when I say, I have often been so pinched with hunger,
that I have fought with the dog—"Old Nep"—for the smallest crumbs that fell from the kitchen table, and have been glad when I won a single crumb in the combat. Many times have I followed, with eager step, the waiting girl when she went out to shake the table cloth, to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the cats. The water, in which meat had been boiled, was as eagerly sought for by me. It was a great thing to get the privilege of dipping a piece of bread in such water; and the skin taken from rusty bacon, was a positive luxury. Nevertheless, I sometimes got full meals and kind words from sympathizing old slaves, who knew my sufferings, and received the comforting assurance that I should be a man some day. "Never mind, honey—better day comin" was even then a solace, a cheering consolation to me in my troubles. Nor were all the kind words I received from slaves. I had a friend in the parlor, as well, and one to whom I shall be glad to do justice, before I have finished this part of my story.
I was not long at old master's, before I learned that his surname was Anthony, and that he was generally called "Captain Anthony"—a title which he probably acquired by sailing a craft in the Chesapeake Bay. Col. Lloyd's slaves never called Capt. Anthony "old master," but always Capt. Anthony; and me they called "Captain Anthony Fed." There is not, probably, in the whole south, a plantation where the English language is more imperfectly spoken than on Col. Lloyd's. It is a mixture of Guinea†A unique dialect that combined elements of African language with English to form a distinct patois, spoken by enslaved workers on southern plantations in antebellum America. Though most common while the slave trade was active, in many areas the speech patterns persisted well into the nineteenth century. John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South, rev. ed. (New York, 1979), 26–27. and everything else you please. At the time of which I am now writing, there were slaves there who had been brought from the coast of Africa. They never used the "" in indication of the possessive case. "Cap'n Ant'ney Tom," "Lloyd Hill," "Aunt Rose Harry," means "Captain Anthony's Tom,"' "Lloyd's Hill,"' &c. "" means, "Whom do you belong to?" "" means, "Have you got any peaches?" I could scarcely understand them when I first went among them, so broken was their speech; and I am persuaded that I could not have been dropped anywhere on the globe, where I could reap less, in the way of knowledge. from my immediate associates, than on this plantation. Even "MAS' DANIEL" by his association with his father's slaves, had measurably adopted their dialect and their ideas, so far as they had ideas to be adopted. The equality of nature is strongly asserted in childhood, and childhood requires children for associates. makes no difference with a child. Are you a child with wants, tastes and pursuits common to children, not put on, but natural? then, were you black as ebony you would be welcome to the child of alabaster whiteness. The law of compensation holds here, as well as elsewhere. Mas' Daniel could not associate with ignorance without sharing
its shade; and he could not give his black playmates his company, without giving them his intelligence, as well. Without knowing this, or caring about it, at the time, I for some cause or other, spent much of my time with Mas' Daniel, in preference to spending it with most of the other boys.
Mas' Daniel was the youngest son of Col. Lloyd; his older brothers were Edward†Born in the Annapolis home of his maternal grandparents, Edward Lloyd VI (1798–1861) was the oldest child and principal heir of his father's great wealth. Educated at the Wye House plantation by tutors, the younger Lloyd received charge of a nearby plantation where his father built him the beautiful Wye Heights mansion upon his marriage in 1824 to Alicia McBlair, daughter of a Baltimore merchant. She died prematurely in 1838 after bearing five children. After inheriting the bulk of his father's land holdings, Lloyd successfully shifted from tobacco to grain farming and weathered the agricultural depression that struck most of the Eastern Shore in the 1840s and 1850s. Lloyd also purchased cotton-growing land in Mississippi in 1837 and later added more in Arkansas and Louisiana. He transferred some of his swelling slave population to those new plantations. Though reputedly a stern disciplinarian, he did try to avoid separating families during these relocations and when sales occurred. A lifelong Democrat, Lloyd served as a delegate to the Maryland constitutional convention of 1850 and as a state senator (1851–52). 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6–10 (slave schedule); Tilghman, , 1:210–21; Preston, , 42–43, 44–45, 70, 192; Tilghman, "Wye House," 89–108. and Murray†James Murray Lloyd (1803-47) was the middle don of Edward Lloud V and Sally Murray Scott. When he married, his father built a mansion for him called Presqu'ile, which quich quickly became a Talbot County showplace. In 1840 he was one of the region's richest farmers, owning 113 slaves. 1840 U.S. Censis, Maryland, Talbot County, 60; Stella Pickett Hardy, (New York, 1911), 387; Tilghman, , 1:207, 222; Preston, , 47, 49-50, 69, 70.—both grown up, and fine looking men. Edward was especially esteemed by the children, and by me among the rest; not that he ever said anything to us or for us, which could he called especially kind: it was enough for us, that he never looked nor acted scornfully toward us. There were also three sisters. all married; one to Edward Winder;† Edward Stoughton Winder, son of Levin Winder, the sixteenth governor of Maryland, and Mary Sloss, married Elizaheth Tayloe Lloyd, the eldest daughter of Edward Lloyd V, in 1820. Their son, Charles Sidney Winder, became a Confederate brigadier general. Edward probably died before 1850, as that year's census lists Elizabeth, rather than him, as the family head. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 52 (free schedule); Tilghman, 1: 207; Preston, , 221–22; Hardy, , 387; , 5:514. a second to Edward Nicholson;†Joseph Nicholson was the son of Rebecca Lloyd, Edward V's sister, and her husband, Joseph Hopper Nicholson (1770–1817), a Democratic-Republican congressman from Baltimore from 1799 through 1806 and thereafter a prominent Maryland jurist. The younger Nicholson was the nephew of Edward Lloyd V, not the son-in-law, as Douglass identifies him. Preston, , 70, 222n4; Hardy, , 500–511; , 13:505–06; , 1588. a third to Mr. Lownes.†Born in Kent County, Maryland, Charles Lowndes (1798–1885) entered the navy as a midshipman in 1815. He married Sally Scott Lloyd in the mid-1820s and by 1840 was a prosperous Talbot County farmer with thirty-five slaves. By the start of the Civil War, he had risen to the rank of captain in the U.S. Navy. Suspected of Confederate sympathies, he was placed on the retired list in 1862 and later promoted to commodore and placed on a war prize commission. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 70; Preston, , 47, 222; Rossiter Johnson, ed., , 10 vols. (Boston, 1904), 7:s.v.; Christopher Johnston, "Lowndes Family,", 2:279 (September 1907); , 4:44.
The family of old master consisted of two sons, Andrew† Andrew Skinner Anthony (1797–1833) was the eldest son of Aaron and Ann Catherine Skinner Anthony and the nephew of Edward Lloyd V. His father apprenticed him as a young man to James Neall, a cabinet-maker, in Easton, Maryland. After completing his apprenticeship, Anthony migrated to Indiana, where he married Ann Wingate of Martin County in 1823. He and his bride returned to Talbot County shortly thereafter. In 1826 Andrew's father died, and he inherited a third of his estate, including eight slaves. Although he increased his estate and owned twenty slaves, in his final years Andrew suffered from alcoholism and operated a whiskey shop. John Manross to Douglass, 14 January 1856, General Correspondence File, reel 1, frames 654–56, FD Papers, DLC; Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of , folder 93, 176, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 51; Preston, , 26, 29, 218n17, 224n10. and Richard;†Richard Lee Anthony (1800–28), the second of three children born to Aaron and Ann Catherine Skinner Anthony, was trained as a blacksmith for five years before inheriting land, money, and slaves after his father's death in November 1826. Douglass incorrectly asserts that Richard died before his father. Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folder 93, 173–74, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27–29, 52, 91, 218n17. his daughter, Lucretia, †Lucretia Planner Anthony Auld (1804–27) was the third child and only daughter of Aaron and Ann Catherine Skinner Anthony. In 1823 she married Thomas Auld, a boarder in her father's household and an employee of Edward Lloyd. Lucretia subsequently moved to Hillsborough, Maryland, where she and her husband opened a store and served as town postmaster. Following the deaths of her father and brother Richard Lee, Lucretia and her older brother Andrew inherited their father's estate. Her portion included the young slave Frederick Douglass. She died in 1827 and was survived by one child, Arianna Amanda Auld. Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Carl G. Auld); McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 27, Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 28, 30, 62, 87–88, 223n6; idem, Talbot County, 191; Emerson B. Roberts, "A Visitation of Western Talbot," MdHM, 41:244–45 (September 1946).and her newly married husband. Capt. Auld. This was the house family. The kitchen family consisted of Aunt Katy, Aunt Esther,†Hester Bailey. and ten or a dozen children, most of them older than myself. Capt. Anthony was not considered a rich slaveholder, but was pretty well off in the world. He owned about thirty "" of slaves, and three farms in Tuckahoe. The most valuable part of his property was his slaves, of whom he could afford to sell one every year. This crop, therefore, brought him seven or eight hundred dollars a year, besides his yearly salary, and other revenue from his farms.
The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on Col. Lloyd's plantation. Our family never visited the great house, and the Lloyds never came to our home. Equal non-intercourse was observed between Capt. Anthony's family and that of Mr. Sevier, the overseer.
Such, kind reader, was the community, and such the place, in which my earliest and most lasting impressions of slavery, and of slave-life. were received; of which impressions you will learn more in the coming chapters of this book.
CHAPTER V
GRADUAL INITIATION INTO THE MYSTERIES OF SLAVERY
GROWING ACQUAINTANCE WITH OLD MASTER STRAINED PASSION—HIS CHARACTER—EVILS OF UNRESTRAINED PASSION—APPARENT TENDERNESS—OLD MASTER A MAN OF TROUBLE—CUSTOM OF MUTTERING TO HIMSELF—NECESSITY OF BEING AWARE OF HIS WORDS—THE SUPPOSED OBTUSENESS OF SLAVE-CHILDREN—BRUTAL OUTRAGE—DRUNKEN OVERSEER—SLAVEHOLDERS' IMPATIENCE—WISDOM OF APPEALING TO SUPERIORS—THE SLAVEHOLDER'S WRATH BAD AS THAT OF THE OVERSEER—A BASE AND SELFISH ATTEMPT TO BREAK UP A COURTSHIP—A HARROWING SCENE.
ALTHOUGH my old master—Capt. Anthony—gave me at first, (as the reader will have already seen) very little attention, and although that little was of a remarkably mild and gentle description, a few months only were sufficient to convince me that mildness and gentleness were not the prevailing or governing traits of his character. These excellent qualities were displayed only occasionally. He could, when it suited him, appear to be literally insensible to the claims of humanity, when appealed to by the helpless against an aggressor, and he could himself commit outrages, deep, dark and nameless. Yet he was not by nature worse than other men. Had he been brought up in a free state, surrounded by the just restraints of free society—restraints which are necessary to the freedom of all its members, alike and equally—Capt. Anthony might have been as humane a man, and every way as respectable as many who now oppose the slave system; certainly as humane and respectable as are members of society generally. The slaveholder, as well as the slave, is the victim of the slave system. A man's character greatly takes its hue and shape from the form and color of things about him. Under the whole heavens there is no relation more unfavorable to the development of honorable character, than that sustained by the slaveholder to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here, and passions run wild. Like the fires of the prairie, once lighted, they are at the mercy of every wind, and must burn, till they have consumed all that is combustible within their remorseless grasp. Capt. Anthony could be kind, and, at times, he even showed an affectionate disposition. Could the reader have seen him gently leading me by the hand—as he sometimes did—patting me on the head, speaking to me in soft, caressing tones and calling me his "little Indian boy," he would have deemed him a kind old man, and, really, almost fatherly. But the pleasant moods of a slaveholder are remarkably brittle; they are easily snapped; they neither come often, nor remain long. His temper is subjected to perpetual trials; but, since these trials are never borne patiently, they add nothing to his natural stock of patience.
Old master very early impressed me with the idea that he was an unhappy man. Even to my child's eye, he wore a troubled, and at times, a haggard aspect. His strange movements excited my curiosity, and awakened my compassion. He seldom walked alone without muttering to himself; and he occasionally stormed about, as if defying an army of invisible foes. "He would do this, that, and the other; he'd be d---d if he did not,"—was the usual form of his threats. Most of his leisure was spent in walking, cursing and gesticulating, like one possessed by a demon. Most evidently, he was a wretched man, at war with his own soul, and with all the world
around him. To be overheard by the children, disturbed him very little. He made no more of presence, than of that of the ducks and geese which he met on the green. He little thought that the little black urchins around him, could see, through those vocal crevices, the very secrets of his heart. Slaveholders ever underrate the intelligence with which they have to grapple. I really understood the old man's mutterings, attitudes and gestures, ahout as well as he did himself. But slaveholders never encourage that kind of communication, with the slaves, by which they might learn to measure the depths of his knowledge. Ignorance is a high virtue in a human chattel; and as the master studies to keep the slave ignorant, the slave is cunning enough to make the master think he succeeds. The slave fully appreciates the saying, "where ignorance is bliss, 'tis folly to be wise."†Thomas Gray, "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College," lines 99–100, Francis T. Palgrave, ed., The Golden Treasury (London, 1906), 187. When old master's gestures were violent, ending with a threatening shake of the head, and a sharp snap of his middle finger and thumb, I deemed it wise to keep at a respectable distance from him; for, at such times, trifling faults stood, in his eyes, as momentous offenses; and, having both the power and the disposition, the victim had only to be near him to catch the punishment, deserved or undeserved.
One of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelty and wickedness of slavery, and the heartlessness of my old master, was the refusal of the latter to interpose his authority, to protect and shield a young woman, who had been most cruelly abused and beaten by his overrseer in Tuckahoe. This overseer—a Mr. Plummer†This individual is probably either James Plummer or Philemon Plummer. Both men were longtime residents of Talbot County and, at various times during Douglass's youth, worked for Aaron Anthony as overseers on his Tuckahoe farms. Philemon Plummer is listed in Anthony's accounting records for 1819. Aaron Anthony Day Books, folder 97, 30, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 71, 222n7.—was a man like most of his class, little better than a human brute; and, in addition to his general profligacy and repulsive coarseness, the creature was a miserable drunkard. He was, probably, employed by my old master, less on account of the excellence of his services, than for the cheap rate at which they could he obtained. He was not fit to have the management of a drove of mules. In a fit of drunken madness, he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old master's for protection. This young woman was the daughter of Milly,†Henny Bailey (1816–?), a cousin of Frederick Douglass, was one of seven children born to Milly Bailey, a slave on one of Aaron Anthony's farms. Henny was apparently ill fitted for work: Anthony estimated her value at fifty dollars in 1826, less than half the value he placed on her younger cousin Frederick. When Anthony died in 1826, his son-in-law Thomas Auld inherited Bailey and four other slaves. Sometime before 1840, Auld granted Bailey her freedom. The last record of Henny 's existence is an entry in the 1840 U.S. Census, which identifies her as a free black living in St. Michaels district. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, folder 71, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812–1826, folder 96, 159, both in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 91, 174, 225n14. an own aunt of mine. The poor girl, on arriving at our house, presented a pitiable appearance. She had left in haste. and without preparation; and, probably, without the knowledge of Mr. Plummer. She had traveled twelve miles, bare-footed, bare-necked and bare-headed. Her neck and shoulders were covered with scars, newly made; and, not content with marring her neck and shoulders, with the cowhide, the cowardly brute had dealt her a blow on the head with a hickory club, which cut a horrible gash, and left her face literally covered with blood. In this condition, the poor young woman came down, to implore
protection at the hands of my old master. I expected to see him boil over with rage at the revolting deed, and to hear him fill the air with curses upon the brutal Plummer; but I was disappointed. He sternly told her, in an angry tone, he "believed she deserved every bit of it," and, if she did not go home instantly, he would himself take the remaining skin from her neck and back. Thus was the poor girl compelled to return, without redress, and perhaps to receive an additional flogging for daring to appeal to old master against the overseer.
Old master seemed furious at the thought of being troubled by such complaints. I did not, at that time, understand the philosophy of his treatment of my cousin. It was stern, unnatural, violent. Had the man no bowels of compassion? Was he dead to all sense of humanity? No, I think I now understand it. This treatment is a part of the system, rather than a part of the man. Were slaveholders to listen to complaints of this sort against the overseers, the luxury of owning large numbers of slaves, would be impossible. It would do away with the office of overseer, entirely; or, in other words, it would convert the master himself into an overseer. It would occasion great loss of time and labor, leaving the overseer in fetters, and without the necessary power to secure obedience to his orders. A privilege so dangerous as that of appeal, is, therefore, strictly prohibited; and anyone exercising it, runs a fearful hazard. Nevertheless, when a slave has nerve enough to exercise it, and boldly approaches his master, with a well-founded complaint against an overseer, though he may he repulsed, and may even have that of which he complains repeated at the time, and, though he may be beaten by his master, as well as by the overseer, for his temerity, in the end the policy of complaining is, generally, indicated by the relaxed rigor of the overseer's treatment. The latter becomes more careful, and less disposed to use the lash upon such slaves thereafter. It is with this final result in view, rather than with any expectation of immediate good, that the outraged slave is induced to meet his master with a complaint. The overseer very naturally dislikes to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints; and, either upon this consideration, or upon advice and warning privately given him by his employer, he generally modifies the rigor of his rule, after an outbreak of the kind to which I have heen referring.
Howsoever the slaveholder may allow himself to act toward his slave, and, whatever cruelty he may deem it wise, for example's sake, or for the gratification of his humor, to inflict, he cannot, in the absence of all provocation, look with pleasure upon the bleeding wounds of a defenseless slavewoman. When he drives her from his presence without redress, or the hope
of redress, he acts, generally, from motives of policy, rather than from a hardened nature, or from innate brutality. Yet, let but his own temper be stirred, his own passions get loose, and the slave-owner will go far beyond the overseer in cruelty. He will convince the slave that his wrath is far more terrible and boundless, and vastly more to be dreaded. than that of the underling overseer. What may have been mechanically and heartlessly done by the overseer, is now done with a will. The man who now wields the lash is irresponsible. He may, if he pleases, cripple or kill, without fear of consequences; except in so far as it may concern profit or loss. To a man of violent temper—as my old master was—this was but a very slender and inefficient restraint. I have seen him in a tempest of passion, such as I have just described—a passion into which entered all the bitter ingredients of pride, hatred, envy, jealousy, and the thirst for revenge.
The circumstances which I am about to narrate. and which gave rise to this fearful tempest of passion, are not singular nor isolated in slave life, but are common in every slaveholding community in which I have lived. They are incidental to the relation of master and slave, and exist in all sections of slaveholding countries.
The reader will have noticed that, in enumerating the names of the slaves who lived with my old master, †Douglass is referring to his aunt Hester Bailey, whom he describes in his Narrative as being whipped by Aaron Anthony until she was "covered with blood." Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:15, 119; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 17. is mentioned. This was a young woman who possessed that which is ever a curse to the slave-girl; namely—personal beauty. She was tall, well formed, and made a fine appearance. The daughters of Col. Lloyd could scarcely surpass her in personal charms. Esther was courted by Ned Roberts,†Ned Roberts (1810–?) was a slave owned by Edward Lloyd V. It was 1825 when Aaron Anthony discovered that his slave Hester Bailey was continuing to see Ned Roberts. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. and he was as fine looking a young man, as she was a woman. He was the son of a favorite slave of Col. Lloyd. Some slaveholders would have been glad to promote the marriage of two such persons; but, for some reason or other, my old master took it upon him to break up the growing intimacy between Esther and Edward. He strictly ordered her to quit the company of said Roberts. telling her that he would punish her severely if he ever found her again in Edward's company. This unnatural and heartless order was, of course, broken. A woman's love is not to be annihilated by the peremptory command of any one, whose breath is in his nostrils. It was impossible to keep Edward and Esther apart. Meet they would, and meet they did. Had old master been a man of honor and purity, his motives, in this matter, might have been viewed more favorably. As it was, his motives were as abhorrent, as his methods were foolish and contemptible. It was too evident that he was not concerned for the girl"s welfare. It is one of the damning characteristics of the slave system, that it robs its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy life. The fear of God,
and the hope of heaven, are found sufficient to sustain many slave-women, amidst the snares and dangers of their strange lot; but, this side of God and heaven, a slave-woman is at the mercy of the power, caprice and passion of her owner. Slavery provides no means for the honorable continuance of the race. Marriage—as imposing obligations on the parties to it—has no existence here, except in such hearts as are purer and higher than the standard morality around them. It is one of the consolations of my life, that I know of many honorable instances of persons who maintained their honor, where all around was corrupt.
Esther was evidently much attached to Edward, and abhorred—as she had reason to do—the tyrannical and base behavior of old master. Edward was young, and fine looking, and he loved and courted her. He might have been her husband, in the high sense just alluded to; but WHO and was this old master? His attentions were plainly brutal and selfish, and it was as natural that Esther should loathe him, as that she should love Edward. Abhorred and circumvented as he was, old master, having the power, very easily took revenge. I happened to see this exhibition of his rage and cruelty toward Esther. The time selected was singular. It was early in the morning, when all besides was still, and before any of the family, in the house or kitchen, had left their beds. I saw but few of the shocking preliminaries, for the cruel work had begun before I awoke. I was probably awakened by the shrieks and piteous cries of poor Esther. My sleeping place was on the floor of a little, rough closet, which opened into the kitchen; and through the cracks of its unplaned hoards, I could distinctly†Emendation note: distinctly] dictinctly see and hear what was going on, without being seen by old master. Esther's wrists were firmly tied, and the twisted rope was fastened to a strong staple in a heavy wooden joist above, near the fire-place. Herc she stood, on a bench, her arms tightly drawn over her breast. Her back and shoulders were bare to the waist. Behind her stood old master, with cowskin in hand, preparing his barbarous work with all manner of harsh, coarse, and tantalizing epithets. The screams of his victim were most piercing. He was cruelly deliberate, and protracted the torture, as one who was delighted with the scene. Again and again he drew the hateful whip through his hand, adjusting it with a view of dealing the most pain-giving hlow. Poor Esther had never yet been severely whipped, and her shoulders were plump and tender. Each blow, vigorously laid on, brought screams as well as blood. "" she cried; "" but her piercing cries seemed only to increase his fury. His answers to them are too coarse and blasphemous to be produced here. The whole scene, with all its attendants, was revolting and
shocking, to the last degree; and when the motives of this brutal castigation are considered, language has no power to convey a just sense of its awful criminality. After laying on some thirty or forty stripes, old master untied his suffering victim, and let her get down. She could scarcely stand, when untied. From my heart I pitied her, and—child though I was—the outrage kindled in me a feeling far from peaceful; but I was hushed, terrified. stunned, and could do nothing, and the fate of Esther might be mine next. The scene here described was often repeated in the case of poor Esther. and her life, as I knew it, was one of wretchedness.
CHAPTER VI.
TREATMENT OF SLAVES ON LLOYD'S PLANTATION:
THE AUTHOR'S EARLY REFLECTIONS ON SLAVERY—PRESENTIMENT OF ONE DAY BEING A FREEMAN—COMBAT BETWEEN AN OVERSEER AND A SLAVE-WOMAN—THE ADVANTAGES OF RESISTANCE—ALLOWANCE DAY ON THE HOME—THE SINGING OF SLAVES—AN EXPLANATION—THE SLAVES' FOOD AND CLOTHING—NAKED CHILDREN—LIFE IN THE QUARTER—DEPRIVATION OF SLEEP—NURSING CHILDREN CARRIED IN THE FIELD--DESCRIPTION OF THE COWSKIN—THE ASH-CAKE—MANNER OF MAKING IT—THE DINNER HOUR-THE CONTRAST.
THE heart-rending incidents, related in the foregoing chapter, led me, thus early, to inquire into the nature and history of slavery. How did the relation commence? These were the perplexing questions which began now to claim my thoughts, and to exercise the weak powers of my mind, for I was still but a child, and knew less than children of the same age in the free states. As my questions concerning these things were only put to children a little older, and little better informed than myself, I was not rapid in reaching a solid footing. By some means I learned from these inquiries, that "'" made everybody; and that he made people to be masters and mistresses, and people to be slaves. This did not satisfy me, nor lessen my interest in the subject. I was told, too, that God was good, and that He knew what was best for me, and best for everybody. This was less satisfactory than the first statement; because it came, point blank, against all my notions of goodness. It was not good to let old master cut the flesh off Esther, and make her cry so. Besides, how did people know that God made black people to be slaves? Did they go up in the sky and learn it? or, did He come down and tell them
so? All was dark here. It was some relief to my hard notions of the goodness of God, that, although he made white men to be slaveholders, he did not make them to be slaveholders, and that, in due time, he would punish the bad slaveholders; that he would, when they died, send them to the bad place, where they would be " burnt up." Nevertheless, I could not reconcile the relation of slavery with my crude notions of goodness.
Then, too, I found that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory of slavery on both sides, and in the middle. I knew of blacks who were not slaves; I knew of whites who were not slaveholders; and I knew of persons who were white, who were slaves. , therefore, was a very unsatisfactory basis for slavery.
Once, however, engaged in the inquiry, I was not very long in finding out the true solution of the matter. It was not , but , not , but , that afforded the true explanation of the existence of slavery; nor was I long in finding out another important truth, viz: what man can make, man can unmake. The appalling darkness faded away, and I was master of the subject. There were slaves here, direct from Guinea;†There were slaves here, direct from Guinea] Guinea is an archaic term for the coastal region of west Africa. In its widest sense the term has been applied to the entire region from Angola to Senegal. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 1:1197. and there were many who could say that their fathers and mothers were stolen from Africa—forced from their homes, and compelled to serve as slaves. This, to me, was knowledge, but it was a kind of knowlcdge which filled me with a burning hatred of slavery, increased my suffering, and left me without the means of breaking away from my bondage. Yet it was knowledge quite worth possessing. I could not have been more than seven or eight years old, when I began to make this subject my study. It was with me in the woods and fields; along the shore of the river, and wherever my boyish wanderings led me; and though I was, at that time, quite ignorant of the existence of the free states, I distinctly remember being, , most strongly impressed with the idea of being a freeman some day. This cheering assurance was an inborn dream of my human nature—a constant menace to slavery—and one which all the powers of slavery were unable to silence or extinguish.
Up to the time of the brutal flogging of my Aunt Esther—for she was my own aunt—and the horrid plight in which I had seen my cousin from Tuckahoe, who had been so badly beaten by the cruel Mr. Plummer, my attention had not been called, especially, to the gross features of slavery. I had, of course, heard of whippings, and of savage †Meetings, encounters. between overseers and slaves, but I had always been out of the way at the times and places of their occurrence. My plays and sports, most of the time, took me from the corn and tobacco fields, where the great body of the hands were at
work, and where scenes of cruelty were enacted and witnessed. But, after the whipping of Aunt Esther, I saw many cases of the same shocking nature, not only in my master's house, but on Col. Lloyd's plantation. One of the first which I saw, and which greatly agitated me, was the whipping of a woman belonging to Col. Lloyd, named Nelly.†Nelly Kellem was the wife of Harry, a favored deck hand aboard Colonel Lloyd's sloop, the Sally Lloyd. In 1824 she was reported to be thirty-seven years old. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 70, 222n6. The offense alleged against Nelly, was one of the commonest and most indefinite in the whole catalogue of offenses usually laid to the charge of slaves, viz: "impudence." This may mean almost anything, or nothing at all, just according to the caprice of the master overseer, at the moment. But, whatever it is, or is not, if it gets the name of "impudence," the party charged with it is sure of a flogging. This offense may be committed in various ways; in the tone of an answer; in answering at all; in not answering; in the expression of countenance; in the motion of the head; in the gait, manner and hearing of the slave. In the case under consideration, I can easily believe that, according to all slaveholding standards, here was a genuine instance of impudence. In Nelly there were all the necessary conditions for committing the offense. She was a bright mulatto, the recognized wife of a favorite "hand" on board Col. Lloyd's sloop, and the mother of five sprightly children.†Nelly's husband, Harry Kellem, was a deck hand on Colonel Lloyd's sloop, the SalIy Lloyd. They had three known children: Henry, three years old in 1824; Wesley, age ten; and Charles, age sixteen. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 222n6. She was a vigorous and spirited woman, and one of the most likely, on the plantation, to be guilty of impudence. My attention was called to the scene, by the noise, curses and screams that proceeded from it; and, on going a little in that direction, I came upon the parties engaged in the skirmish. Mr. Sevier, the overseer, had hold of Nelly, when I caught sight of them; he was endeavoring to drag her toward a tree, which endeavor Nelly was sternly resisting; but to no purpose, except to retard the progress of the overseer's plans. Nelly—as I have said—was the mother of five children; three of them were present, and though quite small (from seven to ten years old, I should think,) they gallantly came to their mother's defense, and gave the overseer an excellent pelting with stones. One of the little fellows ran up, seized the overseer by the leg and bit him; but the monster was too busily engaged with Nelly, to pay any attention to the assaults of the children. There were numerous bloody marks on Mr. Sevier's face, when I first saw him, and they increased as the struggle went on. The imprints of Nelly's fingers were visible, and I was glad to see them. Amidst the wild screams of the children-""—""—there escaped, from between the teeth of the bullet-headed overseer, a few bitter curses, mingled with threats, that "he would teach the d---d b---h how to give a white man impudence." There is no doubt that Nelly felt herself superior, in some respects, to the slaves around her. She was a wife and a mother; her husband
was a valued and favorite slave. Besides, he was one of the first hands on hoard of the sloop, and the sloop hands—since they had to represent the plantation abroad—were generally treated tenderly. The overseer never was allowed to whip Harry;†Harry Kellem. why then should he be allowed to whip Harry's wife? Thoughts of this kind, no doubt, influenced her; but, for whatever reason, she nobly resisted, and, unlike most of the slaves, seemed determined to make her whipping cost Mr. Sevier as much as possible. The blood on his (and her) face, attested her skill, as well as her courage and dexterity in using her nails. Maddened by her resistance, I expected to see Mr. Sevier level her to the ground by a stunning blow; but no; like a savage bull-dog—which he resembled both in temper and appearance—he maintained his grip, and steadily dragged his victim toward the tree, disregarding alike her blows, and the cries of the children for their mother 's release. He would, doubtless, have knocked her down with his hickory stick, but that such act might have cost him his place. It is often deemed advisable to knock a slave down, in order to tie him, but it is considered cowardly and inexcusable, in an overseer, thus to deal with a . He is expected to tie her up, and to give her, what is called, in southern parlance, a "genteel flogging," without any very great outlay of strength or skill. I watched, with palpitating interest, the course of the preliminary struggle, and was saddened by every new advantage gained over her by the ruffian. There were times when she seemed likely to get the better of the brute, but he finally overpowered her, and succeeded in getting his rope around her arms, and in firmly tying her to the tree, at which he had heen aiming. This done, and Nelly was at the mercy of his merciless lash; and now, what followed, I have no heart to describe. The cowardly creature made good his every threat; and wielded the lash with all the hot zest of furious revenge. The cries of the woman. while undergoing the terrible infliction, were mingled with those of the children, sounds which I hope the reader may never be called upon to hear. When Nelly was untied, her back was covered with blood. The red stripes were all over her shoulders. She was whipped—severely whipped; hut she was not subdued, for she continued to denounce the overseer, and to call him every vile name. He had bruised her flesh, but had left her invincible spirit undaunted. Such floggings are seldom repeated hy the same overseer. They prefer to whip those who are most easily whipped. The old doctrine that submission is the best cure for outrage and wrong, does not hold good on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest, who is whipped easiest; and that slave who has the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he may have many hard stripes at the first, becomes, in
the end, a freeman, even though he sustain the formal relation of a slave. "You can shoot me but you can't whip me," said a slave to Rigby Hopkins;†Rigby Hopkins was a Methodist minister who had long lived and farmed in Talbot County. In 1830 he was between fifty and sixty years old and had in his household two white males, six white females, and one black female. Whereas in 1820 he owned seventeen slaves, in 1830 he had none, possibly preferring to rent black labor by then. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 19; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 31; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 130. and the result was that he was neither whipped nor†Textual note: Douglass clearly intended a "neither ... nor" construction, but the compositor's oversight turned "nor" into "not," a mistake that remained uncorrected in all printings and impressions. Emendation note: nor] not shot. If the latter had been his fate, it would have been less deplorable than the living and lingering death to which cowardly and slavish souls are subjected. I do not know that Mr. Sevier ever undertook to whip Nelly again. He probably never did, for it was not long after his attempt to subdue her, that he was taken sick. and died. The wretched man died as he had lived, unrepentant; and it was said—with how much truth I know not—that in the very last hours of his life, his ruling passion showed itself, and that when wrestling with death, he was uttering horrid oaths, and flourishing the cowskin, as though he was tearing the flesh off some helpless slave. One thing is certain, that when he was in health, it was enough to chill the blood, and to stiffen the hair of an ordinary man, to hear Mr. Sevier talk. Nature, or his cruel habits, had given to his face an expression of unusual savageness, even for a slave-driver. Tobacco and rage had worn his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that escaped their compressed grating, was commenced or concluded with some outburst of profanity. His presence made the field alike the field of blood, and of blasphemy. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, his death was deplored by no one outside his own house—if indeed it was deplored there; it was regarded by the slaves as a merciful interposition of Providence. Never went there a man to the grave loaded with heavier curses. Mr. Sevier's place was promptly taken by a Mr. Hopkins, and the change was quite a relief, he being a very different man. He was, in all respects, a better man than his predecessor; as good as any man can be, and yet be an overseer. His course was characterized by no extraordinary cruelty; and when he whipped a slave, as he sometimes did, he seemed to take no especial pleasure in it, but, on the contrary, acted as though he felt it to he a mean business. Mr. Hopkins stayed but a short time; his place—much to the regret of the slaves generally—was taken hy a Mr. Gore,†Austin Gore (1794–1871), also referred to as Orson Gore in the Lloyd family account and cash books, was the overseer of Edward Lloyd V's Davis's Farm plantation, where in 1823 a young slave named Bill Demby died. A friend of Gore's later challenged Douglass 's assertion that Gore coolly murdered Demby, insisting that he was "a respectable citizen living near St. Michaels, and . . . a worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal Church . . . all who know him, think him anything but a murderer." Lloyd apparently tolerated Gore's brutal actions; he later promoted him to be overseer of the much larger Wye House plantation. The 1830 U.S. census listed Gore as the head of a household that contained three boys and two girls under ten, his wife, and an elderly woman. A. C. C. Thompson. "To the Public—Falsehood Refuted," reprinted in NASS, 25 November 1845, and in Lib., 12 December 1845; Various account books and cash books. Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 14. of whom more will be said hereafter. It is enough, for the present, to say, that he was no improvement on Mr. Sevier, except that he was less noisy and less profane.
I have already referred to the business-like aspect of Col. Lloyd's plantation. This business-like appearance was much increased on the two days at the end of each month, when the slaves from the different farms came to get their monthly allowance of meal and meat. These were gala days for the slaves, and there was much rivalry among them as should he elected to go up to the great house farm for the allowance, and, indeed, to attend to
any business at this, (for them,) the capital. The beauty and grandeur of the place, its numerous slave population, and the fact that Harry, Peter and Jake† Of the slave crew of the Sally Lloyd, Harry was Harry Kellem, husband of Nancy. The business records of Edward Lloyd V give the birth year for a slave Peter as 1799. Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.—the sailors of the sloop—almost always kept, privately, little trinkets which they bought at Baltimore, to sell, made it a privilege to come to the great house farm. Being selected, too, for this office, was deemed a high honor. It was taken as a proof of confidence and favor; but, probably, the chief motive of the competitors for the place, was, a desire to break the dull monotony of the field, and to get beyond the overseer's eye and lash. Once on the road with an ox team. and seated on the tongue of his cart, with no overseer to look after him, the slave was comparatively free; and, if thoughtful, he had time to think. Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers. "," "make a noise," and "," are the words usually addressed to the slaves when there is silence amongst them. This may account for the almost constant singing heard in the southern states. There was, generally, more or less singing among the teamsters, as it was one means of letting the overseer know where they were, and that they were moving on with the work. But, on allowance day, those who visitcd the great house farm were peculiarly excited and noisy. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild notes. These were not always merry because they were wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a plaintive cast, and told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous outbursts of rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy. I have never heard any songs like those anywhere since I left slavery, except when in Ireland. There I heard the same , and was much affected by them. It was during the famine of 1845-6.†In the 1840s over 75 percent of the Irish population was dependent upon agriculture, most cultivating potatoes on small plots. A partial potato crop failure occurred in the fall of 1845. The potato blight spread in 1846, resulting in a complete crop failure and a famine throughout the country. In 1847 the blight was less severe, but living conditions, especially among the poor, were still terrible. Famine and starvation left people susceptible to disease, fever, dysentery, scurvy, cholera, influenza, and typhus. During the famine and afterward, England continued to export grain and animal products from Ireland. Government relief efforts were, on the whole, too little and too late. They consisted of the importation of Indian corn from the United States as a basic food source, employment of the poor through public works, the building of workhouses, and the establishment of soup kitchens and fever hospitals. Some private charity was helpful at a local level, with the Quakers as leading contributors. The most noticeable effect of the famine was the loss of population. From 1841 to 1851 Ireland lost two million people, many of them through massive emigration. From 1846 to 1851, 20,000 died from starvation and 339,000 from disease. From 31 August 1845 to 6 January 1846, Frederick Douglass visited Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Belfast while on an abolitionist speaking tour of Ireland. Edward Norman, A History of Modern Ireland (London, 1971), 108–17; Noel Kissane, The Irish Famine: A Documentary History (Dublin, 1995), 27, 46–48, 75, 107–08, 123; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 1:xcvi–xcvii. In all the songs of the slaves, there was ever some expression in praise of the great house far; something which would flatter the pride of the owner, and, possibly. draw a favorable glance from him.
"I am going away to the great house farm.
O yea!O yea! O yea!
My old master is a good old master.
Oh yea! 0 yea! 0 yea!"†Douglass also recalled this song in his first autobiography. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:20.
This they would sing, with other words of their own improvising—jargon to others, hut full of meaning to themselves. I have sometimes thought, that the mere hearing of those songs would do more to impress truly spiritual-ninded men and women with the soul-crushing and death-dealing character of slavery, than the reading of whole volumes of its mere physical
cruelties. They speak to the heart and to the soul of the thoughtful. I cannot better express my sense of them now, than ten years ago, when, in sketching my life, I thus spoke of this feature of my plantation experience:
"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude, and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension; they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my spirits, and filled my heart with ineffable sadness. The mere recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am writing these lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds. If any one wishes to be impressed with a sense of the soul-killing power of slavery, let him go to Col. Lloyd's plantation, and, on allowance day, place himself in the deep, pine woods, and there let him, in silence, thoughtfully analyze the sounds that shall pass through the chambers of his soul, and if he is not thus impressed, it will only be because 'there is no flesh in his obdurate heart.'"†This passage, concluding with a quotation from line 8 of William Cowper's "The Time Piece," appeared in Douglass's Narrative. William Cowper, The Poems of William Cowper, ed. J. C. Bailey (London, 1905), 267; Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:20–21.
The remark is not unfrequently made, that slaws are the most contented and happy laborers in the world. They dance and sing, and make all manner of joyful noises—so they do; but it is a great mistake to suppose them happy because they sing. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows, rather than the joys, of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears. Such is the constitution of the human mind, that, when pressed to extremes, it often avails itself of the most opposite methods. Extremes meet in mind as in matter. When the slaves on board of the "Pearl"†In mid-April 1848 seventy-seven slaves from the District of Columbia tried unsuccessfully to reach freedom on board the schooner Pearl, a small coasting vessel manned by Captain Edward Sayres and Chester English, a sailor and cook. Directing the attempted escape was supercargo Daniel Drayton of Philadelphia, himself a seasoned captain in the coasting trade who had collaborated in previous slave rescues. Arriving in Washington on 13 April, the Pearl surreptitiously took the black fugitives on board two nights later and started down the Potomac, only to be halted hy high winds at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. Alarmed slaveholders, aided by a Negro informant, gave pursuit and captured the anchored vessel in the predawn hours of 17 April. The following morning the bound and shackled prisoners were returned to Washington. An angry mob gathered at the District of Columbia jail threatening to lynch Drayton and Sayres, while a second mob attacked the office of the National Era, Gamaliel Bailey's antislavery newspaper. The Pearl incident generated considerable sympathy and indignation in abolitionist circles, yet public outcries failed to save either the slaves or their white rescuers from a harsh fate. Most of the Pearl fugitives were sold south. Chester English received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony. After lengthy court battles in which each was convicted on numerous counts of assisting in the escape of slaves, Drayton and Sayres were sentenced to heavy fines and imprisonment in the Washington jail before receiving a presidential pardon from Millard Fillmore in 1852. Lib., 21, 28 April, 5 May 1848; NS, 28 April, 5 May, 23 June 1848: FDP, 10 September 1852; Daniel Drayton, Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail: Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner Pearl (Boston, 1855), 20–122; Stanley Harrold, The Abolitionists and the Soulth, 1831–1861 (Lexington, Ky., 1995), 70, 154–55; John H. Painter, "The Fugitives of the Pearl," JNH, 1:243–64 (June 1916). were overtaken, arrested. and carried to prison—their hopes for freedom blasted—as they marched in chains they sang, and found (as Emily Edmunson†Emily Edmondson was born a slave in the Washington, D.C., area sometime in the early nineteenth century and was usually hired out to local households. In 1848 she and most of the rest of her large family numbered among the seventy-seven Washington-area slaves who unsuccessfully attempted to escape slavery on the Pearl, a ship commanded by the antislavery Captain Daniel Drayton. Most of the slaves were sold as punishment into the Deep South, and the Edmondsons were moved to New Orleans for sale there. The fortuitous discover of her recently freed brother, Hamilton, in New Orleans, however, led to the return of most of the Emondsons to Baltimore, where they hoped money could he raised to purchase their freedom. Their father in New York, who had bought his freedom at forty-two, labored relentlessly to raise the money and finally won the support of the famed minister Henry Ward Beecher, whose wealthy congregation combined to raise the $2,250 needed to purchase Emily and her sister Mary. Eventually most of the other Edmondsons were also acquired. The two sisters became popular singers at abolitionist rallies. Harriet Beecher Stowe also underwrote a further year of study for Emily at Oberlin College. In 1853 Emily moved to Washington D.C., married, and began assisting Myrtilla Miner, a white teacher, at her controversial Normal School for Colored Girls. Catherine M. Hanchett, " 'What Sort of People and Families . . . ': The Edmondson Sisters," Afro-Americans in New York Life and History, 6:21–37 (July 1982); Paynter, "Fugitives of the Pearl." tells us) a melancholy relief in singing. The singing of a man cast away on a desolate island, might be as appropriately considered an evidence of his contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave. Sorrow and desolation have their songs, as well as joy and peace. Slaves sing more to make themselves happy, than to express their happiness.
It is the boast of slaveholders, that their slaves enjoy more of the physical comforts of life than the peasantry of any country in the world. My experience contradicts this. The men and the women slaves on Col. Lloyd's farm, received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pickled pork, or their equivalent in fish. The pork was often tainted, and the fish was of the poorest quality—herrings, which would bring very little if offered for sale in any northern market. With their pork or fish, they had one bushel of Indian meal—unbolted†Bolting was the art of sifting the ground cornmeal, passing it through a sieve or bolting cloth. Unbolted meal was therefore unsifted.—of which quite fifteen per cent†Emendation note: per cent ] was fit only to feed pigs. With this, one pint of salt was given; and this was the entire monthly allowance of a full grown slave, working constantly in the open field, from morning until night, every day in the month except Sunday, and living on a fraction more than a quarter of a pound of meat per day, and less than a peck of corn-meal per week. There is no kind of work that a man can do which requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion, than the field-work of a slave. So much for the slave's allowance of food; now for his raiment. The yearly allowance of clothing for the slaves on this plantation, consisted of two tow-linen shirts—such linen as the coarsest crash†A coarse kind of linen; also the name of a tint in textile fabrics, the color of unbleached cotton. towels are made of; one pair of trowsers of the same material, for summer, and a pair of trowsers and a jacket of woolen, most slazily put together, for winter; one pair of yarn stockings, and one pair of shoes of the coarsest description. The slave's entire apparel could not have cost more than eight dollars per year. The allowance of food and clothing for the little children, was committed to their mothers, or to the older slavewomen having the care of them. Children who were unable to work in the field, had neither shoes, stockings, jackets nor trowsers given them. Their clothing consisted of two coarse tow-linen shirts—already described—per year; and when these failed them. as they often did, they went naked until the next allowance day. Flocks of little children from five to ten years old, might he seen on Col. Lloyd's plantation, as destitute of clothing as any little heathen on the west coast of Africa; and this, not merely during the summer months, but during the frosty weather of March. The little girls were no better off than the boys; all were nearly in a state of nudity.
As to beds to sleep on, they were known to none of the field hands; nothing but a coarse blanket—not so good as those used in the north to cover horses—was given them, and this only to the men and women. The children stuck themselves in holes and corners, about the quarters; often in the corner of the huge chimneys; with their feet in the ashes to keep them warm. The want of beds, however. was not considered a very great privation. Time to sleep was of far greater importance, for, when the day's work
is done, most of the slaves have their washing, mending and cooking to do; and, having few or none of the ordinary facilities for doing such things, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in necessary preparations for the duties of the coming day.
The sleeping apartments—if they may be called such—have little regard to comfort or decency. Old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down upon the common clay floor, each covering up with his or her blanket,—the only protection they have from cold or exposure. The night, however, is shortened at both ends. The slaves work often as long as they can see, and are late in cooking and mending for the coming day; and, at the first gray streak of morning, they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn.
More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault. Neither age nor sex finds any favor. The overseer stands at the quarter door, armed with stick and cowskin, ready to whip any who may be a few minutes behind time. When the horn is blown, there is a rush for the door, and the hndermost one is sure to get a blow from the overseer. Young mothers who worked in the field, were allowed an hour, about ten o'clock in the morning , to go home to nurse their children. Sometimes they were compelled to take their children with them, and to leave them in the corner of the fences, to prevent loss of time in nursing them. The overseer generally rides about the field on horseback. A cowskin and a hickory stick are his constant companions. The cowskin is a kind of whip seldom seen in the northern states. It is made entirely of untanned, but dried, ox hide, and is about as hard as a piece of well-seasoned live oak. It is made of various sizes, but the usual length is about three feet. The part held in the hand is nearly an inch in thickness; and, from the extreme end of the butt or handle, the cowskin tapers its whole length to a point. This makes it quite elastic and springy. A blow with it, on the hardest back, will gash the flesh, and make the blood start. Cowskins are painted red, blue and green, and are the favorite slave whip. I think this whip worse than the "cat-o'-nine-tails." It condenses the whole strength of the arm to a single point, and comes with a spring that makes the air whistle. It is a terrible instrument, and is so handy, that the overseer can always have it on his person, and ready for use. The temptation to use it is ever strong; and an overseer can, if disposed, always have cause for using it. With him, it is literally a word and a blow, and, in most cases, the blow comes first.
As a general rule, slaves do not come to the quarters for either breakfast or dinner, but take their "ash cake"†A cake baked under the ashes of a fire. with them, and eat it in the field. This
was so on the home plantation; probably, because the distance from the quarter to the field, was sometimes two, and even three miles.
The dinner of the slaves consisted of a huge piece of ash cake, and a small piece of pork, or two salt herrings. Not having ovens, nor any suitable cooking utensils, the slaves mixed their meal with a little water, to such thickness that a spoon would stand erect in it; and, after the wood had burned away to coals and ashes, they would place the dough between oak leaves and lay it carefully in the ashes, completely covering it; hence, the bread is called ash cake. The surface of this peculiar bread is covered with ashes, to the depth of a sixteenth part of an inch, and the ashes, certainly, do not make it very grateful to the teeth, nor render it very palatable. The bran, or coarse part of the meal, is baked with the fine, and bright scales run through the brcad. This bread, with its ashes and bran, would disgust and choke a northern man, but it is quite liked by the slaves. They eat it with avidity, and are more concerned ahout the quantity than about the quality. They arc far too scantily provided for, and are worked too steadily, to be much concerned for the quality of their food. The few minutes allowed them at dinner time, after partaking of their coarse repast, are variously spent. Some lie down on the "turning row,"†The unplanted end of a cultivated furrow where horse or mule and plow make their turn to go hack up a new row. and go to sleep; others draw together, and talk; and others are at work with needle and thread, mending their tattered garments. Sometimes you may hear a wild, hoarse laugh arise from a circle, and often a song. Soon, however, the overseer comes dashing through the field. ", and to ," is the cry; and, now, from twelve o'clock (mid-day) till dark, the human cattle are in motion, wielding their clumsy hoes;†Textual note: In this context, the intended word is undoubtedly "hoes." The stem of the "h" is missing in all examined texts. Emendation note: hoes] noes. hurried on by no hope of reward, no sense of gratitude, no love of children, no prospect of bettering their condition; nothing, save the dread and terror of the slave-driver's lash. So goes one day, and so comes and goes another.
But, let us now leave the rough usage of the field, where vulgar coarseness and brutal cruelty spread themselves and flourish, rank as weeds in the tropics; where a vile wretch, in the shape of a man, rides, walks, or struts about, dealing blows, and leaving gashes on broken--spirited men and helpless women, for thirty dollars per month—a business so horrible, hardening, and disgraceful, that, rather than engage in it, a decent man would blow his own brains out—and let the reader view with me the equally wicked, but less repulsive aspects of slave life; where pride and pomp roll luxuriously at case; where the toil of a thousand men supports a single family in easy idleness and sin. This is the great house; it is the home of the
LLOYDS! Some idea of its splendor has already been given—and, it is
here that we shall find that height of luxury which is the opposite of that depth of poverty and physical wretchedness that we have just now been contemplating. But, there is this difference in the two extremes; viz: that in the case of the slave, the miseries and hardships of his lot are imposed by others, and, in the master's case, they are imposed by himself. The slave is a subject, subjected by others; the slaveholder is a subject, but he is the author of his own subjection. There is more truth in the saying, that slavery is a greater evil to the master than to the slave, than many, who utter it, suppose. The self-executing laws of eternal justice follow close on the heels of the evil-doer here, as well as elsewhere; making escape from all its penalties impossible. But, let others philosophize; it is my province here to relate and describe; only allowing myself a word or two, occasionally, to assist the reader in the proper understanding of the facts narrated.
CHAPTER VII.
LIFE IN THE GREAT HOUSE.
COMFORTS AND LUXURIES—ELABORATE EXPENDITURE—HOUSE SERVANTS—MEN SERVANTS AND MAID SERVANTS—APPEARANCES—SLAVE ARISTOCRACY—STABLE AND CARRIAGE HOUSE—BOUNDLESS HOSPITALITY—FRAGRANCE OF RICH DISHES—THE DECEPTIVE CHARACTER OF SLAVERY—SLAVES SEEM HAPPY—SLAVES AND SLAVEHOLDERS ALIKE WRETCHED—FRETFUL DISCONTENT OF SLAVEHOLDERS—FAULT-FINDING—OLD BARNEY—HIS PROFESSION—WHIPPING—HUMILIATING SPECTACLE—CASE EXCEPTIONAL—WILLIAM WILKS—SUPPOSED SON OF COL. LLOYD—CURIOUS INCIDENT—SLAVES PREFER RICH MASTERS TO POOR ONES.
THE close-fisted stinginess that fed the poor slave on coarse corn-meal and tainted meat; that clothed him in crashy tow-linen, and hurried him on to toil through the field, in all weather, with wind and rain beating through his tattered garments; that scarcely gave even the young slave-mother time to nurse her hungry infant in the fence corner; wholly vanishes on approaching the sacred precincts of the great house, the home of the Lloyds. There the scriptural phrase finds an exact illustration; the highly favored inmates of this mansion are literally arrayed "in purple and fine linen,"†Luke 16:19. and fare sumptuously every day! The table groans under the heavy and blood-bought luxuries gathered with pains-taking care, at home and abroad. Fields, forests, rivers and seas, are made tributary here. Immense wealth, and its lavish expenditure, fill the great house with all that can please the eye, or tempt the taste. Here, appetite, not food, is the great .†Something for which a desire or longing is felt: something wanting and required or desired.
Fish, flesh and fowl, are here in profusion. Chickens, of all breeds; ducks, of all kinds, wild and tame, the common, and the huge Muscovite;†A greenish black goose like duck having heavy red wattles. Guinea fowls,†Any of several common African birds of the family Numididea. Several types of Guinea fowl have been domesticated and raised for flesh and eggs. The most common variety has a bony casque on its head, and dark gray plumage spotted with white. turkeys, geese, and pea fowls,†A peacock or peahen. are in their several pens, fat and fatting for the destined vortex. The graceful swan, the mongrels, the blacknecked wild goose; partridges, quails, pheasants and pigeons; choice water fowl, with all their strange varieties, are caught in this huge family net. Beef, veal, mutton and venison, of the most select kinds and quality, roll bounteously to this grand consumer. The teeming riches of the Chesapeake bay, its rock,†A fish that is a variety of the true cod. perch, drums,†A name of various American Sciaenoird fishes that have the power of making a drumming noise. crocus,†A freshwater drum fish. trout, oysters, crabs, and terrapin,†Any of the various edible North American turtles living in fresh or brackish water. are drawn hither to adorn the glittering table of the great house. The dairy, too, probably the finest on the Eastern Shore of Maryland—supplied by cattle of the best English stock, imported for the purpose, pours its rich donations of fragrant cheese, golden butter, and delicious cream, to heighten the attraction of the gorgeous, unending round of feasting. Nor are the fruits of the earth forgotten or neglected. The fertile garden, many acres in size, constituting a separate cstahlishment, distinct from the common farm--with its scientific gardener, imported from Scotland, (a Mr. McDermott,)†In 1824 Aaron Anthony hired William McDerrnott to work for Edward Lloyd V. McDermott lived and ate at Anthony's house at least through the spring of 1825. Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790–1818, folder 94, 42–43, Dodge Collection, MdAA. with four men under his direction, was not behind, either in the abundance or in the delicacy of its contributions to the same full board. The tender asparagus, the succulent celery, and the delicate cauliflower; egg plants, beets, lettuce, parsnips. peas, and French beans,†A bean of which the whole young pod is eaten. early and late; radishes, cantelopes, melons of all kinds; the fruits and flowers of all climes and of all descriptions. from the hardy apple of the north, to the lemon and orange of the south, culminated at this point. Baltimore gathered figs, raisins, almonds and juicy grapes from Spain. Wines and brandies from France; teas of various flavor, from China; and rich, aromatic coffee from Java, all conspired to swell the tide of high life, where pride and indolence rolled and lounged in magnificence and satiety.
Behind the tall-backed and elaborately wrought chairs, stand the servants, men and maidens—fifteen in number—discriminately selected, not only with a view to their industry and faithfulness, but with special regard to their personal appearance, their graceful agility and captivating address. Some of these are armed with fans, and are fanning reviving breezes toward the over-heated brows of the alabaster ladies; others watch with eager eye, and with fawn-like step anticipate and supply, wants before they are sufficiently formed to be announced by word or sign.
These servants constituted a sort of black aristocracy on Col. Lloyd's plantation. They resembled the field hands in nothing, except in color, and in this they held the advantage of a velvet-like glossiness, rich and beautiful
The hair, too, showed the same advantage. The delicate colored maid rustled in the scarcely worn silk of her young mistress, while the servant men were equally well attired from the overflowing wardrobe of their young masters; so that, in dress, as well as in form and feature, in manner and speech, in tastes and habits, the distance between these favored few, and the sorrow and hunger-smitten multitudes of the quarter and the field, was immense; and this is seldom passed over.
Let us now glance at the stables and the carriage house, and we shall find the same evidences of pride and luxurious extravagance. Here are three splendid coaches, soft within and lustrous without. Here, too, are gigs, phaetons, barouches, sulkeys†A gig is a light two-wheeled one-horse carriage. A phaeton is a species of four-wheeled open carriage, of light construction , usually with two seats facing forward. A barouche is a four-wheeled carriage with a half-head behind that can be raised or let down at pleasure, having a seat in the front for the driver, and seats inside facing each other. A sulky is a light two-wheeled carriage or chaise, seated for one person. and sleighs. Here are saddles and harnesses—beautifully wrought and silver mounted—kept with every care. In the stable you will find, kept only for pleasure, full thirty-five horses, of the most approved blood for speed and beauty. There are two men here constantly employed in taking care of these horses. One of these men must be always in the stable, to answer every call from the great house. Over the way from the stable, is a house built expressly for the hounds—a pack of twenty-five or thirty—whose fare would have made glad the heart of a dozen slaves. Horses and hounds are not the only consumers of the slave's toil. There was practiced, at the Lloyd's, a hospitality which would have astonished and charmed any health-seeking northern divine or merchant, who might have chanced to share it. Viewed from his own table, and not from the field, the colonel was a model of generous hospitality. His house was, literally, a hotel, for weeks during the summer months. At these times, especially, the air was freighted with the rich fumes of baking, boiling, roasting and broiling. The odors I shared with the winds, but the meats were under a more stringent monopoly—except that, occasionally, I got a cake from Mas ' Daniel. In Mas ' Daniel I had a friend at court, from whom I learned many things which my eager curiosity was excited to know. I always knew when company was expected, and who they were, although I was an outsider, being the property, not of Col. Lloyd, but of a servant of the wealthy colonel. On these occasions, all that pride. taste and money could do, to dazzle and charm, was done.
Who could say that the servants of Col. Lloyd were not well clad and cared for, after witnessing one of his magnificent entertainments? Who could say that they did not seem to glory in being the slaves of such a master? Who, but a fanatic, could get up any sympathy for persons whose every movement was agile, easy and graceful, and who evinced a consciousness of high superiority? And who would ever venture to suspect that Col. Lloyd
was subject to the troubles of ordinary mortals? Master and slave seem alike in their glory here? Can it all be seeming'? Alas! it may only be a sham at last! This immense wealth; this gilded splendor; this profusion of luxury; this exemption from toil; this life of ease; this sea of plenty; aye, what of it all? Are the pearly gates of happiness and sweet content flung open to such suitors? The poor slave, on his hard, pine plank, but scantily covered with his thin blanket, sleeps more soundly than the feverish voluptuary who reclines upon his feather bed and downy pillow. Food, to the indolent lounger, is poison, not sustenance. Lurking beneath all their dishes, are invisible spirits of evil, ready to feed the self-deluded gormandizers with aches, pains, fierce temper, uncontrolled passions, dyspepsia,†A generic term in the nineteenth century for disorders of the digestive organs, especially the stomach, usually involving weakness, loss of appetite, and depression of spirits. rheumatism, lumbago†A rheumatic affection in the lumbar region. and gout;†A usually hereditary disease, occurring mainly in male subjects; characterized by painful inflammation of the smaller joints that often spreads to the larger joints and the internal organs. and of these the Lloyds got their full share. To the pampered love of ease, there is no resting place. What is pleasant to-day, is repulsive to-morrow; what is soft now, is hard at another time; what is sweet in the morning, is bitter in the evening. Neither to the wicked, nor to the idler, is there any solid peace: "."† This phrase and the preceding prose are perhaps inspired by Isaiah 57, verses 20–21 in particular.
I had excellent opportunities of witnessing the restless discontent and the capricious irritation of the Lloyds. My fondness for horses—not peculiar to me more than to other boys—attracted me, much of the time, to the stables. This establishment was especially under the care of "old" and "young" Barney†Old Barney was Barnett Sampson (c. 1768–?). He was owned by Edward Lloyd V and was the father of Young Barney, Barnett Bentley (c. 1810–?). He was listed as fifty-five years old in January 1824. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.—father and son. Old Barney was a fine looking old man, of a brownish complexion, who was quite portly, and wore a dignified aspect for a slave. He was, evidently, much devoted to his profession, and held his office an honorable one. He was a farrier†One who both shoes horses and treats their ailments. as well as an ostler;†Variant of hostler, one who attends horses at an inn; a stableman, a groom. he could bleed, remove lampers†Lamers, or lampas, is an equine disease that manifests as a congestion of the mucous membrane in the hard palate of the mouth. from the mouths of the horses, and was well instructed in horse medicines. No one on the farm knew, so well as Old Barney, what to do with a sick horse. But his gifts and acquirements were of little advantage to him. His office was by no means an enviable one. He often got presents, but he got stripes as well; for in nothing was Col. Lloyd more unreasonable and exacting, than in respect to the management of his pleasure horses. Any supposed inattention to these animals was sure to be visited with degrading punishment. His horses and dogs fared better than his men. Their beds must he softer and cleaner than those of his human cattle. No excuse could shield Old Barney, if the colonel only suspected something wrong ahout his horses; and, consequently, he was often punished when faultless. It was absolutely painful to listen to the many unreasonable and fretful scoldings, poured out at the stable, by Col. Lloyd, his sons and sons-in-law. Of the latter, he had three—Messrs. Nicholson, Winder and Lownes.†Joseph Nicholson. Edward S. Winder, and Charles Lowndes. These all livcd at the great house a portion of the year, and enjoyed
the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased, which was by no means unfrequently. A horse was seldom brought out of the stable to which no objection could be raised. "There was dust in his hai;:" "there was a twist in his reins;" "his mane did not lie straight;" "he had not been properly grained;" " his head did not look well;" "his fore-top was not combed out;" "his fetlocks had not been properly trimmed;" something was always wrong. Listening to complaints, however groundless, Barney must stand, hat in hand, lips sealed, never answering a word. He must make no reply, no explanation; the judgment of the master must be deemed infallible, for his power is absolute and irresponsible. In a free state, a master, thus complaining without cause, of his ostler. might be told—"Sir, I am sorry I cannot please you, but, since I have done the best I can, your remedy is to dismiss me." Here, however, the ostler must stand, listen and tremble. One of the most heart-saddening and humiliating scenes I ever witnessed, was the whipping of Old Barney, by Col. Lloyd himself. Here were two men, both advanced in years; there were the silvery locks of Col. L., and there was the bald and toil-worn brow of Old Barney; master and slave; superior and inferior here, but equals at the bar of God; and, in the common course of events, they must both soon meet in another world, in a world where all distinction, except those based on obedience and disobedience, are blotted out forever. "Uncover your head!" said the imperious master; he was obeyed. "Take off your jacket, you old rascal," and off came Barney's jacket. "Down on your knees!" down knelt the old man, his shoulders bare, his bald head glistening in the sun, and his aged knees on the cold, damp ground. In this humble and debasing attitude, the master—that master to whom he had given the best years and the best strength of his life—came forward, and laid on thirty lashes, with his horse whip. The old man bore it patiently, to the last, answering each blow with a slight shrug of the shoulders, and a groan. I cannot think that Col. Lloyd succeeded in marring the flesh of Old Barney very seriously, for the whip was a light, riding whip: but the spectacle of an aged man—a husband and a father—humbly kneeling before a worm of the dust, surprised and shocked me at the time; and since I have grown old enough to think on the wickedness of slavery, few facts have been of more value to me than this, to which I was a witness. It reveals slavery in its true color, and in its maturity of repulsive hatefulness. I owe it to truth, however, to say, that this was the first and the last time I ever saw Old Barney, or any other slave, compelled to kneel to receive a whipping.
I saw, at the stable, another incident, which I will relate, as it is illustrative
of a phase of slavery to which I have already referred in another connection. Besides two other coachmen, Col. Lloyd owned one named William, who, strangely enough, was often called by his surname, Wilks,†William Wilks (c. 1791–?) was a slave of Edward Lloyd V. Sometime in the first half of the 1830s he purchased his freedom and moved to Baltimore, where he worked as a general laborer and resided on Lexington Street, east of Park Street. Return Book, 1 January 1824, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; Matchett's Balti more Director[y] . . . 1835–6 (Baltimore, 1835), 275; Matchett's Baltimore Direc ror[y] . . . 1837–8 (Baltimore, 1837), 472. by white and colored people on the home plantation. Wilks was a very fine looking man. He was about as white as anybody on the plantation; and in manliness of form, and comeliness of features, he bore a very striking resemblance to Mr. Murray Lloyd. It was whispered, and pretty generally admitted as a fact, that William Wilks was a son of Col. Lloyd, by a highly favored slave-woman, who was still on the plantation. There were many reasons for believing this whisper, not only in William's appearance, but in the undeniable freedom which he enjoyed over all others, and his apparent consciousness of being something more than a slave to his master. It was notorious, too, that William had a deadly enemy in Murray Lloyd, whom he so much resembled, and that the latter greatly worried his father with importunities to sell William. Indeed. he gave his father no rest until he did sell him, to Austin Woldfolk,†Austin Woolfolk of Augusta, Georgia, became a slave trader serving the Southwest, which rapidly expanded following the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. He settled in Baltimore in 1819 to avail himself of both the large surplus slave population in the state and the excellent shipping facilities that the port afforded. During the 1820s he lived on Pratt Street to the west of the city's commercial center. Woolfolk's business prospered as he sent agents throughout Maryland ready to pay high prices in cash for young black males. He annually transported from 230 and 460 slaves to markets in New Orleans, many of them having been purchased from planters on the Eastern Shore. In the 1830s, however, Woolfolk's business declined as a result of increased competition from larger firms, a decrease in the number of slaves for sale owing to manumissions and owner emigrations, and the heightened opposition of Marylanders to the interstate slave trade. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 50, 58, 76–80, 96, 102; William Calderhead, "The Role of the Professional Slave Trader in a Slave Economy: Austin Woolfolk , A Case Study," Civil War History, 23:195–211 (September 1977). the great slave-trader at that time. Before selling him, however, Mr. L. tried what giving William a whipping would do, toward making things smooth; but this was a failure. It was a compromise, and defeated itself; for, immediately after the infliction, the heart-sickened colonel atoned to William for the abuse, by giving him a gold watch and chain. Another fact, somewhat curious, is, that though sold to the remorseless , taken in irons to Baltimore and cast into prison, with a view to being driven to the south, William, by means—always a mystery to me—outbid all his purchasers, paid for himself, , a FREEMAN. ls there not room to suspect, that, as the gold watch was presented to atone for the whipping, a purse of gold was given him by the same hand, with which to effect his purchase, as an atonement for the indignity involved in selling his own flesh and blood. All the circumstances of William, on the great house farm, show him to have occupied a different position from the other slaves and, certainly, there is nothing in the supposed hostility of slaveholders to amalgamation, to forbid the supposition that William Wilks was the son of Edward Lloyd. amalgamation is common in every neighborhood where I have been in slavery.
Col. Lloyd was not in the way of knowing much of the real opinions and feelings of his slaves respecting him. The distance between him and them was far too great to admit of such knowledge. His slaves were so numerous, that he did not know them when he saw them. Nor, indeed, did all his slaves know him. In this respect, he was inconveniently rich. It is reported of him, that, while riding along the road one day, he met a colored
man, and addressed†Emendation note: addressed] addresssed. him in the usual way of speaking to colored people on the public highways of the south: "Well, boy, who do you belong to?" 'To Col. Lloyd," replied the slave. "Well, does the colonel treat you well?" "No, sir," was the ready reply. "What! does he work you too hard?" "Yes, sir." "Well, don't he give enough to eat?" "Yes, sir, he gives me enough, such as it is." The colonel, after ascertaining where the slave belonged, rode on; the slave also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master. He thought, said and heard nothing more of the matter, until two or three weeks afterwards. The poor man was then informed by his overseer. that, for having found fault with his master, he was now to be sold to a Georgia trader. He was immediately chained and handcuffed; and thus, without a moment's warning he was snatched away, and forever sundered from his family and friends, by a hand more unrelenting than that of death. is the penalty of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions. It is partly in consequence of such facts, that slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters, almost invariably say they are contented, and that their masters are kind. Slaveholders have been known to send spies among their slaves, to ascertain, if possible, their views and feelings in regard to their condition. The frequency of this has had the effect to establish among the slaves the maxim, that a still tongue makes a wise head. They suppress the truth rather than take the consequence of telling it, and, in so doing, they prove themselves a part of the human family. If they have anything to say of their master, it is, generally, something in his favor, especially when speaking to strangers. I was frequently asked, while a slave, if I had a kind master, and I do not remember ever to have given a negative reply. Nor did I, when pursuing this course, consider myself as uttering what was utterly false; for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up by slaveholders around us. However, slaves are like other people, and imbibe similar prejudices. They are apt to think better than that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true. Indeed, it is not uncommon for slaves even to fall out and quarrel among themselves about the relative kindness of their masters, each contending for the superior goodness of his own over that of others. At the very same time, they mutually execrate their masters. when viewed separately. It was so on our plantation. When Col. Lloyd's slaves met those of Jacob Jepson,†Jacob Gibson. they seldom parted without a quarrel about their masters; Col. Lloyd's slaves contending that he was the richest,
and Mr. Jepson's slaves that he was the smartest, man of the two. Col. Lloyd's slaves would boast his ability to buy and sell Jacob Jepson; Mr. Jepson's slaves would boast his ability to whip Col. Lloyd. These quarrels would almost always end in a fight between the parties; those that beat were supposed to have gained the point at issue. They seemed to think that the greatness of their masters was transferable to themselves. To be a SLAVE, was thought to be bad enough; but to be a s slave, was deemed a disgrace, indeed.
CHAPTER VIII.
A CHAPTER OF HORRORS.
AUSTIN GORE—A SKETCH OF HIS CHARACTER—OVERSEERS AS A CLASS—THEIR PECULIAR CHARACTERISTICS—THE MARKED INDIVIDUALITY OF AUSTIN GORE—HIS SENSE OF DUTY—HOW HE WHIPPED—MURDER OF POOR DENBY—HOW IT OCCURRED—SENSATION—HOW GORE MADE PEACE WITH COL. LLOYD—THE MURDER UNPUNISHED-—NOTHER DREADFUL MURDER NARRATED—NO LAWS FOR THE PROTECTION OF SLAVES CAN BE ENFORCED IN THE SOUTHERN STATES.
As I have already intimated elsewhere, the slaves on Col. Lloyd's plantation, whose hard lot, under Mr. Sevier, the reader has already noticed and deplored, were not permitted to enjoy the comparatively moderate rule of Mr. Hopkins. The latter was succeeded by a very different man. The name of the new overseer was Austin Gore. Upon this individual, I would fix particular attention; for under his rule there was more suffering from violence and bloodshed than had—according to the older slaves—ever been experienced before this plantation. I confess. I hardly know how to bring this man fitly before the reader. He was, it is true, an overseer, and possessed, to a large extent, the peculiar characteristics of his class; yet, to call him merely an overseer, would not give the reader a fair notion of the man. I speak of overseers as a class. They are such. They are as distinct from the slaveholding gentry of the south, as are the fish-women of Paris, and the coal-heavers of London, distinct from other members of society. They constitute a separate fraternity at the south, not less marked than is the fraternity of Park lane bullies in New York.†Douglass could be referring to Park Street, named for Columbus Park, which is bounded by Baxter, Bayard, Mulberry, and Park streets. This area of the Bowery was a nineteenth-century tenement neighborhood. Gangs in the area, such as the Bowery Boys, the Atlantic Guards, and the True Blue Americans, were organized by neighborhood youth and would fiercely defend their "territory." Certain gangs were attached to fire companies, and others were active in city politics. Gang membership offered a sense of identity, a promise of physical protection, fellowship, and a measure of self-worth in working-class society, where industrialization was undermining traditional artisanal measures of status. Henry Moscow, The Street Book: An Encyclopedia of Manhattan's Street Names and Their Origins (New York, 1978), 82; Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (New York, 1999), 633–35. They have been arranged and classified by that great law of attraction, which determines the spheres and affinities of men; which ordains, that men, whose malign and brutal propensities predominate over their moral and intellectual endowments, shall, naturally, fall into those employments which promise the largest
gratification to those predominating instincts or propensities. The office of overseer takes this raw material of vulgarity and brutality, and stamps it as a distinct class of southern society. But, in this class, as in all other classes, there are characters of marked individuality, even while they bear a general resemblance to the mass. Mr. Gore was one of those, to whom a general characterization would do no manner of justice. He was an overseer; but he was something more. With the malign and tyrannical qualities of an overseer, he combined something of the lawful master. He had the artfulness and the mean ambition of his class; but he was wholly free from the disgusting swagger and noisy bravado of his fraternity. There was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession, and a sternness of glance, which might well daunt hearts less timid than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood and through life to cower before a driver's lash. The home plantation of Col. Lloyd afforded an ample field for the exercise of the qualifications for overseership, which he possessed in such an eminent degree.
Mr. Gore was one of those overseers, who could torture the slightest word or look into impudence; he had the nerve, not only to resent, but to punish, promptly and severely. He never allowed himself to be answered back, by a slave. In this, he was as lordly and as imperious as Col. Edward Lloyd, himself; acting always up to the maxim, practically maintained by slaveholders, that it is better that a dozen slaves suffer under the lash, without fault, than that the master or the overseer should seem to have been wrong in the presence of the slave. . Guilty or not guilty, it is enough to be accused, to be sure of a flogging. The very presence of this man Gore was painful, and I shunned him as I would have shunned a rattlesnake. His piercing, black eyes, and sharp, shrill voice, ever awakened sensations of terror among the slaves. For so young a man, (I describe him as he was twenty-five or thirty years ago) Mr. Gore was singularly reserved and grave in the presence of slaves. He indulged in no jokes, said no funny things, and kept his own counsels. Other overseers, how brutal soever they might be, were, at times, inclined to gain favor with the slaves, by indulging a little pleasantry; but Gore was never known to be guilty of any such weakness. He was always the cold, distant, unapproachable of Col. Edward Lloyd's plantation, and needed no higher pleasure than was involved in a faithful discharge of the duties of his office. When he whipped, he seemed to do so from a sense of duty, and feared no consequences. What Hopkins did reluctantly, Gore did with alacrity. There was a stern will, an iron-like reality, about this Gore. which would have
easily made him the chief of a band of pirates, had his environments been favorable to such a course of life. All the coolness, savage barbarity and freedom from moral restraint, which are necessary in the character of a pirate-chief, centered, I think, in this man Gore. Among many other deeds of shocking cruelty which he perpetrated, while I was at Mr. Lloyd's, was the murder of a young colored man, named Denby. He was sometimes called Bill Denby, or Demby;†Bill Demby (c. 1802–22) lived with twenty-two other slaves, including his family, on Davis's Farm, one of several Talbot County plantations owned by Edward Lloyd V. Plantation records indicate that Demby, a prime field hand, died sometime during the year 1822. Return Book, 1 January 1822, 1 January 1823, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 72–73, 213n10. ( I write from sound, and the sounds on Lloyd's plantation are not very certain.) I knew him well. He was a powerful young man, full of animal spirits, and, so far as I know, he was among the most valuable of Col. Lloyd's slaves. In something—I know not what—he offended this Mr. Austin Gore, and, in accordance with the custom of the latter, he undertook to flog him. He gave Denby but few stripes; the latter broke away from him and plunged into the creek, and, standing there to the depth of his neck in water, he refused to come out at the order of the overseer; whereupon, for this refusal, It is said that Gore gave Denby three calls, telling him that if he did not obey the last call, he would shoot him. When the third call was given. Denby stood his ground firmly; and this raised the question, in the minds of the by-standing slaves—"will he dare to shoot?'" Mr. Gore, without further parley, and without making any further effort to induce Denby to come out of the water, raised his gun deliherately to his face, took deadly aim at his standing victim, and, in an instant, poor Denby was numbered with the dead. His mangled body sank out of sight, and only his warm, red blood marked the place where he had stood.
This devilish outrage, this fiendish murder, produced, as it was well calculated to do, a tremendous sensation. A thrill of horror flashed through every soul on the plantation, if I may except the guilty wretch who had committed the hell-black deed. While the slaves generally were panic-struck. and howling with alarm, the murderer himself was calm and collected, and appeared as though nothing unusual had happened. The atrocity roused my old master, and he spoke out, in reprobation of it; but the whole thing proved to be less than a nine days' wonder.†n event that attracts much attention for a few days and then is forgotten. Brewer, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 779. Both Col. Lloyd and my old master arraigned Gore for his cruelty in the matter, but this amounted to nothing. His reply, or explanation—as I remember to have heard it at the time—was, that the extraordinary expedient was demanded by necessity; that Denby had become unmanageable; that he had set a dangerous example to the other slaves; and that. without some such prompt measure as that to which he had resorted, were adopted, there would be an end to all rule and order on the plantation. That very convenient covert for all manner of
cruelty and outrage—that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would "," was pleaded, in extenuation of this revolting crime, just as it had been cited in defense of a thousand similar ones. He argued, that if one slave refused to be corrected, and was allowed to escape with his life, when he had been told that he should lose it if he persisted in his course, the other slaves would soon copy his example; the result of which would be, the freedom of the slaves, and the enslavement of the whites. I have every reason to believe that Mr. Gore's defense, or explanation, was deemed satisfactory—at least to Col. Lloyd. He was continued in his office on the plantation. His fame as an overseer went abroad, and his horrid crime was not even submitted to judicial investigation. The murder was committed in the presence of slaves, and they, of course, could neither institute a suit, nor testify against the murderer. His bare word would go further in a court of law, than the united testimony of ten thousand black witnesses.
All that Mr. Gore had to do, was to make his peace with Col. Lloyd. This done, and the guilty perpetrator of one of the most foul murders goes unwhipped of justice, and uncensured by the community in which he lives. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michael's, Talbot county, when I left Maryland; if he is still alive he probably yet resides there; and I have no reason to doubt that he is now as highly esteemed, and as greatly respected, as though his guilty soul had never been stained with innocent blood. I am well aware that what I have now written will by some be branded as false and malicious. It will be denied, not only that such a thing ever did transpire, as I have now narrated, but that such a thing could happen in Maryland I can only say—believe it or not—that I have said nothing but the literal truth, gainsay it who may.
I speak advisedly when I say this,—that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr Thomas Lanman,†Thomas H. W. Lambdin (c. 1807–?) had labored at a number of trades by 1850, including ship's carpenter, schoolteacher, town bailiff for St. Michaels (1848) and miller (1850). In 1850 he was married, had five young children, and owned real estate valued at one thousand dollars. In a rebuttal to Douglass's negative characterization, a Maryland friend described Lambdin as "too good-natured and harmless to injure any person but himself." A. C. C. Thompson, "To the Public—Falsehood Refuted," reprinted in NASS, 25 November 1845, and in Lib., 12 December 1845; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:395. ship carpenter, of St. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of whom he butchered with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so, laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when "others would do as much as he had done, we should be relieved of the d---d niggers."
As an evidence of the reckless disregard of human life—where the life is that of a slave—I may state the notorious fact, that the wife of Mr. Giles Hicks,†A Giles Hicks resided in Caroline County, Maryland, in 1820. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 92. who lived but a short distance from Col. Lloyd's, with her own hands murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between fifteen and sixteen
years of age—mutilating her person in a most shocking manner. The atrocious woman, in the paroxysm of her wrath, not content with murdering her victim, literally mangled her face, and broke her breast-bone.†Textual note: Hyphenating this instance of "breast-bone" is consistent with Douglass's usual treatment of two-word nouns and with the treatment of the term below. Emendation note: breast-bone]. Wild, however, and infuriated as she was, she took the precaution to cause the slavegirl to be buried; but the facts of the case coming abroad, very speedily led to the disinterment of the remains of the murdered slave-girl. A coroner's jury was assembled, who decided that the girl had come to her death by severe beating. It was ascertained that the offense for which this girl was thus hurried out of the world, was this; she had been set that night, and several preceding nights, to mind Mrs. Hicks's baby, and having fallen into a sound sleep, the baby cried, waking Mrs. Hicks, but not the slave-girl. Mrs. Hicks, becomiing infuriated at the girl's tardiness, after calling her several times, jumped from her bed and seized a piece of fire-wood from the fire-place; and then, as she lay fast asleep, she deliberately pounded in her skull and hreast-bone, and thus ended her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder produced no sensation in the community. It produce a sensation; but, incredible to tell, the moral sense of the community was blunted too entirely by the ordinary nature of slavery horrors, to bring the murderess to punishment. A warrant was issued for her arrest, but, for some reason or other, that warrant was never served. Thus did Mrs. Hicks not only escape condign punishment, but even the pain and mortification of being arraigned before a court of justice.
Whilst I am detailing the bloody deeds that took place during my stay on Col. Lloyd's plantation, I will briefly narrate another dark transaction. which occurred ahout the same time as the murder of Denby by Mr. Gore.
On the side of the river Wye. opposite from Col. Lloyd's, there lived a Mr. Beal Bondley,†John Beale Bordley (1800–82) was the son of Matthias Bordley (1757–1828) and the grandson of John Beale Bordley (1727–1804), a noted agriculturalist and Revolutionary patriot from Maryland. Often called simply Beale Bordley. John Beale Bordley was born on his father's Wye lsland estate, across the river from the Lloyd plantation, and remained there until his mid-twenties, when he moved to Philadelphia to study law with Pennsylvania Chief Justice John Bannister Gibson. Quickly tiring of the law, Bordley developed a very successful career as a portrait painter of prominent figures in Baltimore, Philadelphia, and elsewhere. A number of his paintings are held by the Maryland Historical Society. Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser, 14 March 1882; Francis Sims McGrath, Pillars of Maryland (Richmond, 1950), 393: idem, "A Letter to Eileen," MdHM, 24:306 (December 1929); Eugenia Calvert Holland and Louisa MacGill Gary, comps., "Miniatures in the Collection of the Maryland Historical Society," MdHM, 51: 342, 346, 353 (December 1956); Anna Wells Rutledge, "Portraits Painted before 1900 in the Collection of the Maryland Historical Society," MdHM, 41:35–36, 43 (March 1946). a wealthy slaveholder. In the direction of his land, and near the shore, there was an excellent oyster fishing ground, and to this, some of the slaves of Col.†Emendation note: Col.] Lloyd occasionally resorted in their little canoes, at night, with a view to make up the deficiency of their scanty allowance of food, by the oysters that they could easily get there. This, Mr. Bondley took it into his head to regard as a trespass, and while an old man belonging to Col. Lloyd was engaged in catching a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of that creek, to satisfy his hunger, the villainous Mr. Bondley, lying in ambush, without the slightest ceremony. discharged the contents of his musket into the back and shoulders of the poor old man. As good fortune would have it, the shot did not prove mortal, and Mr. Bondley came over, the next day, to see Col. Lloyd—whether to pay him for his property, or to justify himself for what he had done, I know not but this I
say, the cruel and dastardly transaction was speedily hushed up; there was very little said about it at all, and nothing was publicly done which looked like the application of the principle of justice to the man whom chance, only, saved from being an actual murderer. One of the commonest sayings to which my ears early became accustomed, on Col. Lloyd's plantation and elsewhere in Maryland, was, that it was "" and the facts of my experience go far to justify the practical truth of this strange proverb. Laws for the protection of the lives of the slaves,†Maryland passed several laws designed to regulate the treatment of slaves. A 1715 law empowered courts to give freedom to a slave whose master repeatedly denied adequate food, shelter, and rest or who physically punished a slave by dismemberment or cauterization. A 1751 law guaranteed, at least for a few years, slaves accused of crimes a trial by jury. Another law, passed in 1752, allowed the manumission of only those slaves who were in good health and under fifty years of age. As Douglass suggests, however, the actual enforcement of laws against physical abuse was rare. Because slaves could not testify against whites in a court of law, a case of abuse could be proved only if a white person was willing to stand up for them in court. Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, 1:251–54; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 446. are, as they must needs be, utterly incapable of being enforced, where the very parties who are nominally protected, are not permitted to give evidence, in courts of law, against the only class of persons from whom abuse, outrage and murder might be reasonably apprehended. While I heard of numerous murders committed by slaveholders on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, I never knew a solitary instance in which a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for having murdered a slave. The usual pretext for killing a slave is, that the slave has offered resistance. Should a slave, when assaulted, but raise his hand in self-defense, the white assaulting party is fully justified by southern, or Maryland, public opinion, in shooting the slave down. Sometimes this is done, simply because it is alleged that the slave has been saucy. But here I leave this phase of the society of my early childhood, and will rclieve the kind reader of these heart-sickening details.
CHAPTER IX.
PERSONAL TREATMENT OF THE AUTHOR.
MISS LUCRETIA—HER KINDNESS—HOW IT WAS MANIFESTED—"IKE"—A BATTLE WITH HIM—THE CONSEQUENCES THEREOF—MISS LUCRETIA'S BALSAM—BREAD—HOW I OBTAINED IT—BEAMS OF SUNLIGHT AMIDST THE GENERAL DARKNESS—SUFFERING FROM COLD—HOW WE TOOK OUR MEALS—ORDERS TO PREPARE FOR BALTIMORE—OVERJOYED AT THE THOUGHT OF QUITTING THE PLANTATION—EXTRAORDINARY CLEANSING—COUSIN TOM'S VERSION OF BALTIMORE—ARRIVAL THERE—KIND RECEPTION GIVEN ME BY MRS. SOPHIA AULD—LITTLE TOMMY—MY NEW POSITION—MY NEW DUTIES—A TURNING POINT IN MY HISTORY
I HAVE nothing cruel or shocking to relate of my own personal experience, while I remained on Col. Lloyd's plantation, at the home of my old master. An occasional cuff from Aunt Katy, and a regular whipping from old master, such as any heedless and mischievous boy might get from his father, is
all that I can mention of this sort. I was not old enough to work in the field, and, there being little else than field work to perform, I had much leisure. The most I had to do, was, to drive up the cows in the evening, to keep the front yard clean, and to perform small errands for my young mistress, Lucretia Auld.†Lucretia Planner Anthony Auld. I have reasons for thinking this lady was very kindly disposed toward me, and, although I was not often the object of her attention, I constantly regarded her as my friend, and was always glad when it was my privilege to do her a service. In a family where there was so much that was harsh, cold and indifferent, the slightest word or look of kindness passed, with me, for its full value. Miss Lucretia—as we all continued to call her long after her marriage—had bestowed upon me such words and looks as taught me that she pitied me, if she did not love me. In addition to words and looks, she sometimes gave me a piece of bread and butter; a thing not set down in the bill of fare, and which must have been an extra ration, planned aside from either Aunt Katy or old master, solely out of the tender regard and friendship she had for me. Then, too, I one day got into the wars with Uncle Abel's son, "Ike," and had got sadly worsted; in fact, the little rascal had struck me directly in the forehead with a sharp piece of cinder, fused with iron, from the old blacksmith's forge, which made a cross in my forehead very plainly to be seen now. The gash bled very freely, and I roared very loudly and betook myself home. The cold-hearted Aunt Katy paid no attention either to my wound or my roaring, except to tell me it served me right; I had no business with Ike; it was good for me; I would now keep away "." Miss Lucretia, in this state of the case, came forward; and, in quite a different spirit from that manifested by Aunt Katy, she called me into the parlor, (an extra privilege of itself,) and, without using toward me any of the hard-hearted and reproachful epithets of my kitchen tormentor, she quietly acted the good Samaritan. With her own soft hand she washed the blood from my head and face, fetched her own balsam†An aromatic oily or resinous medicinal application, usually for external use, for healing wounds or soothing pain. bottle, and with the balsam wetted a nice piece of white linen, and bound up my head. The balsam was not more healing to the wound in my head, than her kindness was healing to the wounds in my spirit, made by the unfeeling words of Aunt Katy. After this, Miss Lucretia was my friend. I felt her to be such, and I have no doubt that the simple act of binding up my head, did much to awaken in her mind an interest in my welfare. It is quite true, that this interest was never very marked, and it seldom showed itself in anything more than in giving me a piece of bread when I was very hungry; but this was a great favor on a slave plantation, and I was the only one of the children to whom such attention was paid. When very hungry, I would go into
the back yard and play under Miss Lucretia's window. When pretty severely pinched by hunger, I had a habit of singing, which the good lady very soon came to understand as a petition for a piece of bread. When I sung under Miss Lucretia's window, I was very apt to get well paid for my music. The reader will see that I now had two friends, both at important points—Mas' Daniel at the great house, and Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas' Daniel I got protection from the bigger boys; and from Miss Lucretia I got bread, by singing when I was hungry, and sympathy when I was abused by that termagant,†An overbearing or nagging woman. who had the reins of government in the kitchen. For such friendship I felt deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections of slavery, I love to recall any instances of kindness, any sunbeams of humane treatment, which found way to my soul through the iron grating of my house of bondage. Such beams seem all the brighter from the general darkness into which they penetrate, and the impression they make is vividly distinct and beautiful.
As I have before intimated, I was seldom whipped—and never severely—by my old master. I suffered little from the treatment I received, except from hunger and cold. These were my two great physical troubles. I could neither get a sufficiency of food nor of clothing; but I suffered less from hunger than from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost in a state of nudity; no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trowsers; nothing but coarse sack-cloth or tow-linen, made into a sort of shirt, reaching down to my knees. This I wore night and day, changing it once a week. In the day time I could protect myself pretty well, by keeping on the sunny side of the house and in bad weather, in the corner of the kitchen chimney. The great difficulty was, to keep warm during the night. I had no bed. The pigs in the pen had leaves, and the horses in the stable had straw, but the children had no beds. They lodged anywhere in the ample kitchen. I slept, generally, in a little closet, without even a blanket to cover me. In very cold weather, I sometimes got down the bag in which corn-meal was usually carried to the mill, and crawled into that. Sleeping there, with my head in and feet out, I was partly protected, though not comfortable. My feet have been so cracked with the frost, that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes. The manner of taking our meals at old master's, indicated but little refinement. Our corn-meal mush, when sufficiently cooled, was placed in a large wooden tray, or trough, like those used in making maple sugar here in the north. This tray was set down, either on the floor of the kitchen, or out of doors on the ground; and the children were called, like so many pigs; and like so many pigs they would come, and
literally devour the mush-some with oyster shells, some with pieces of shingles, and none with spoons. He that eat fastest got most, and he that was strongest got the best place; and few left the trough really satisfied. I was the most unlucky of any, for Aunt Katy had no good feeling for me; and if I pushed any of the other children, or if they told her anything unfavorable of me, she always believed the worst, and was sure to whip me.
As I grew older and more thoughtful, I was more and more filled with a sense of my wretchedness. The cruelty of Aunt Katy, the hunger and cold I suffered, and the terrible reports of wrong and outrage which came to my ear, together with what I almost daily witnessed, led me, when yet but eight or nine years old, to wish I had never been born. I used to contrast my condition with the black-birds, in whose wild and sweet songs I fancied them so happy! Their apparent joy only deepened the shades of my sorrow. There arc thoughtful days in the lives of children—at least there were in mine—when they grapple with all the great, primary subjects of knowledge, and reach, in a moment, conclusions which no subsequent experience can shake. I was just as well aware of the unjust, unnatural and murderous character of slavery, when nine years old, as I am now. Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, it was enough to accept God as a father, to regard slavery as a crime.
I was not ten years old when I left Col. Lloyd's plantation for Baltimore.†Douglass would have been approximately eight years old when he departed St. Michaels for Baltimore on a Saturday in March 1826, probably the 18th. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 82. I left that plantation with inexpressible joy. I never shall forget the ecstacy with which I received the intelligence from my friend, Miss Lucretia, that my old master had determined to let me go to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Auld,†Born in Talbot County, Maryland, Hugh Auld (1799–1861) moved as a young man to Baltimore. There he worked as a ship's carpenter, master shipbuilder, shipyard foreman, and occasionally served as a magistrate. Before moving to Baltimore, Hugh married Sophia Keithley. From 1826 to 1833 and again from 1836 to 1838, the young Frederick Douglass lived and worked in their household, lent to them by his owner, Hugh's brother Thomas. In 1845 Hugh, incensed by Douglass's depiction of his family in the Narrative, bought Douglass, then on a lecture tour of Britain, from his brother Thomas. According to the Pennsylvania Freeman, Auld was determined to reenslave Douglass and "place him in the cotton fields of the South" if the fugitive ever returned to the United States. In 1846 two British abolitionists, Anna and Ellen Richardson, offered to buy Douglass from Auld; in exchange for $711.66 (£150 sterling) raised among British reformers, Auld signed the manumission papers that made Douglass a free man. PaF, 26 February 1846; Lib., 6 March 1846; Walter Lourie to Ellis Gray Loring, 15 December 1846, reel 1, frame 644; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11, 27 September 1891, reel 6, frames 240–41, 257–58; Douglass to Benjamin F. Auld, 16 September 1891, reel 6, frames 246–47; J. C. Schaffer to Helen Pitts Douglass, 21 October 1896, reel 8, frames 92–93, all in General Correspondence File, FD Papers, DLC; Talbot County Records, V.60, 15–36, MdTCH (a copy is found on reel 1, frames 637–39, FD Papers, DLC ); Hugh Auld Family Genealogical Chart, prepared by Carl G. Auld, Ellicott City, Md., 5 June 1976; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 81, 84–85, 92, 143, 173–75. a brother to Mr. Thomas Auld,†Born in St. Michaels, Maryland, Thomas Auld (1795-1880) was the eldest son of Hugh and Zipporah Auld. Trained as a shipbuilder, Auld supervised the construction of the Lloyd sloop, the Sally Lloyd, and subsequently became its captain. In 1823, he met and married Lucretia Anthony while a boarder in the Anthony home. Shortly thereafter, Auld became a storekeeper in Hillsborough, Maryland, and inherited Douglass along with ten other slaves from the estate of Aaron Anthony. He later kept store in St. Michaels, where he also served as postmaster, before retiring to a nearby farm. The 1850 census listed him as a “farmer” with $8,500 worth of real estate. References to Thomas Auld in Douglass’s Narrative and public speeches are generally uncomplimentary, although Douglass disclaimed any personal hostility toward his former owner. A reconciliation occurred in the post-Reconstruction period when Douglass visited the dying Auld in St. Michaels. , 25 November 1845; , 8 September 1848, 7 September 1849; Baltimore , 19 June 1877; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 1169 (free schedule); Quarles, , 342-43; Tilghman, , 1:395; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 235–45. my old master's son-in-law. I received this information about three days before my departure. They were three of the happiest days of my childhood. I spent the largest part of these three days in the creek, washing off the plantation scurf, and preparing for my new home. Mrs. Lucretia took a lively interest in getting me ready. She told me I must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees, before I could go to Baltimore, for the people there were very cleanly, and would laugh at me if I looked dirty; and, besides, she was intending to give me a pair of trowsers, which I should not put on unless I got all the dirt off. This was a warning to which I was bound to take heed; for the thought of owning a pair of trowsers, was great, indeed. It was almost a sufficient motive, not only to induce me to scrub off the , (as pig drovers would call it,) but the skin as well. So I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time in the hope of reward. I was greatly excited, and could hardly consent to sleep, lest I should be left. The ties that, ordinarily, bind children to their homes, were
all severed, or they never had any existence in my case, at least so far as the home plantation of Col. L. was concerned. I therefore found no severe trial at the moment of my departure, such as I had experienced when separated from my home in Tuckahoe. My home at my old master's was charmless to me; it was not home, but a prison to me; on parting from it, I could not feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by staying. My mother was now long dead; my grandmother was far away, so that I seldom saw her; Aunt Katy was my unrelenting tormentor; and my two sisters and brothers, owing to our early separation in life, and the family-destroying power of slavery, were, comparatively, strangers to me. The fact of our relationship was almost blotted out. I looked for elsewhere, and was confident of finding none which I should relish less than the one I was leaving. If, however, I found in my new home—to which I was going with such blissful anticipations—hardship, whipping and nakedness, I had the questionable consolation that I should not have escaped any one of these evils by remaining under the management of Aunt Katy. Then, too, I thought, since I had endured much in this line on Lloyd's plantation, I could endure as much elsewhere, and especially at Baltimore; for I had something of the feeling about that city which is expressed in the saying, that being "hanged in England, is better than dying a natural death in lreland." I had the strongest desire to see Baltimore. My cousin Tom†Tom Bailey.—a boy two or three years older than I—had been there, and though not fluent (he stuttered immoderately,) in speech, he had inspired me with that desire, by his eloquent description of the place. Tom was, sometimes, Capt. AuId's cabin boy; and when he came from Baltimore, he was always a sort of hero amongst us, at least till his Baltimore trip was forgotten. I could never tell him of anything, or point out anything that struck me as beautiful or powerful, but that he had seen something in Baltimore far surpassing it. Even the great house itself, with all its pictures within, and pillars without, he had the hardihood to say "was nothing to Baltimore." He bought a trumpet, (worth six pence,) and brought it home; told what he had seen in the windows of stores; that he had heard shooting crackers,†Probably firecrackers. and seen soldiers; that he had seen a steamhoat; that there were ships in Baltimore that could carry four such sloops as the "Sally Lloyd." He said a great deal about the market-house; he spoke of the bells ringing; and of many other things which roused my curiosity very much; and, indeed, which heightened my hopes of happiness in my new home.
We sailed out of Miles river for Baltimore early on a Saturday morning. I remember only the day of the week; for, at that time, I had no knowledge
of the days of the month, nor, indeed, of the months of the year. On setting sail, I walked aft, and gave to Col. Lloyd's plantation what I hoped would be the last look I should ever give to it, or to any place like it. My strong aversion to the great house farm, was not owing to my own personal suffering, but the daily suffering of others, and to the certainty, that I must, sooner or later, be placed under the barbarous rule of an overseer, such as the accomplished Gore, or the brutal and drunken Plummer. After taking this last view, I quitted the quarter deck, made my way to the bow of the sloop, and spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead; interesting myself in what was in the distance, rather than what was near by or behind. The vessels, sweeping along the bay, were very interesting objects. The broad bay opened like a shoreless ocean on my boyish vision, filling me with wonder and admiration.
Late in the afternoon, we reached Annapolis, the capital of the state, stopping there not long enough to admit of my going ashore. It was the first large town I had ever seen; and though it was inferior to many a factory village in New England, my feelings, on seeing it, were excited to a pitch very little below that reached by travelers at the first view of Rome. The dome of the state house† The statehouse at Annapolis, Maryland, completed in 1799, is a brick building topped by a tall white octagonal wooden dome. Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State (New York, 1940), 181–82. was especially imposing, and surpassed in grandeur the appearance of the great house. The great world was opening upon me very rapidly, and I was eagerly acquainting myself with its multifarious lessons.
We arrived in Baltimore on Sunday morning, and landed at Smith's wharf, not far from Bowly's wharf.†Smith's Wharf and Bowley's Wharf were two sturdily built wharves below Pratt Street in Baltimore's inner harbor, the Basin, west of Fells Point. The city directory at times spelled the latter as "Bowly's Wharf." Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827 (Baltimore, 1827), 18–19 (street register); Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American City (Baltimore, 1980), 60. We had on board the sloop a large flock of sheep, for the Baltimore market; and, after assisting in driving them to the slaughter house of Mr. Curtis, on Loudon Slater's Hill,†Although no Curtis is listed as a victualer or butcher, common designations for those operating a slaughterhouse, Baltimore city directories from 1824 through 1829 list variously a James Curtain, Thomas Curtain, and a W. Curtain as victualers. They may well have been located on the western corner of what was called Loudenslager, not Louden Slater's, Hill in the northeastern portion of the city. This area did in fact have a number of abattoirs in it. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1824 (Baltimore, 1824), 74; Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 70; Matchett's Baltimore Di-rector[y] . . . for 1829 (Baltimore, 1829), 78. I was speedily conducted by Rich†Rich (1817–?) was one of the slaves who served as the crew of the Sally Lloyd, appearing in the business records of Edward Lloyd V. Various account books and cash books, Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.—one of the hands belonging to the sloop—to my new home in Alliciana street,†Neither the 1824 nor the 1827 Baltimore directory, the only extant directories in this period, lists Hugh Auld's residence. The Baltimore City Commission on Historical and Architectural Presenation established that Hugh Auld's house was on the southeast corner of Aliceanna and Durham (formerly Happy Alley) streets in Fells Point. Contemporary sources spelled the street "Alisanna" (1824) or "Alice Anna" (1827). Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1824, 343; Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 1 (street register); Fielding Lucas, Jr., Plan of the City of Baltimore (Baltimore, 1836); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 223n1. near Gardiner's ship-yard,†William Gardner, a ship's carpenter or shipbuilder, resided on Fleet Street, Fells Point, between 1827 and 1836. The shipyard of George and William Gardner was at the "lower end of Fountain Street," on the eastern edge of the Fells Point wharf area. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . .1831 (Baltimore, 1831), 141, 5 (street register). on Fell's Point.†Fells Point, first settled by William Fell in 1726, was a separate enclave east of Baltimore center not annexed to Baltimore until 1773. This hooked piece of land jutting into the outer harbor had been a shipbuilding site since the mid-eighteenth century. After the War of 1812 it was the construction site for the famous Baltimore clipper ships. By the time of Douglass's arrival, Fells Point was a heavily populated neighborhood whose residents worked in shipbuilding and other maritime pursuits. Shipyards and wharves for unloading cargo lined its waterfront. J. Thomas Scharf, Histony of Baltimore City and County from the Earliest Period to the Present Day (Philadelphia, 1881), 54, 59–60, 292–94; Olson, Baltimore, 52–53, 85. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld, my new mistress and master, were both at home, and met me at the door with their rosy cheeked little son, Thomas,†Thomas Auld (1824–48), the son of Hugh and Sophia Auld and the nephew of Thomas Auld, Aaron Anthony's son-in-law, was the charge of the young slave Douglass. He died in an unsuccessful attempt by the brig Tweed to rescue a sinking British vessel. Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891. General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 148, 228n10. to take care of whom was to constitute my future occupation. In fact, it was to "little Tommy," rather than to his parents, that old master made a present of me; and though there was no form or arrangement entered into, I have no douht that Mr. and Mrs. Auld felt that, in due time, I should be the legal property of their bright-eyed and beloved boy, Tommy. I was struck with the appearance, especially, of my new mistress. Her face was lighted with the kindliest emotions; and the reflex influence of her countenance, as well as the tenderness with which she seemed to regard me, while asking me sundry little questions, greatly delighted me, and lit up, to my fancy, the pathway of my future. Miss Lucretia was kind; but my new mistress. "Miss
Sophy,"†Sophia Keithley Auld (1797-1880) was born in Talbot County, Maryland, to Richard and Hester Keithley. Her parents were poor, devout Methodists who held to the antislavery teachings of their church. Before marrying Hugh Auld, she worked as a weaver. Soon after their marriage the couple moved to Baltimore, where Hugh worked as a ship's carpenter, master shipbuilder, and shipyard fireman. From 1826 to 1833, and again from 1836 to 1838, the young slave Frederick Douglass lived and worked in their household. Both Douglass and Sophia Auld retained enormous affection for each other long after Douglass had established himself in the North. Douglass tried to visit Auld in Baltimore during the Civil War. Years after her death, Auld's son Benjamin told Douglass that "mother would always speak in the kindest terms of you, whenever your name was mentioned." Baltimore Sun, 5 July 1880; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 87, 165–66, 168. surpassed her in kindness of manner. Little Thomas was affectionately told by his mother, that "" and that "Freddy would take care of him;" and I was told to "be kind to little Tommy"—an injunction I scarcely needed, for I had already fallen in love with the dear boy; and with these little ceremonies I was initiated into my new home, and entered upon my peculiar duties, with not a cloud above the horizon.
I may say here, that I regard my removal from Col. Lloyd's plantation as one of the most interesting and fortunate events of my life. Viewing it in the light of human likelihoods, it is quite probable that, but for the mere circumstance of being thus removed before the rigors of slavery had fastened upon me; before my young spirit had been crushed under the iron control of the slave-driver, instead of being, to-day, a FREEMAN, I might have been wearing the galling chains of slavery. I have sometimes felt, however, that there was something more intelligent than and something more certain than , to be seen in the circumstance. If I have made any progress in knowledge; if I have cherished any honorable aspirations, or have, in any manner, worthily discharged the duties of a member of an oppressed people; this little circumstance must be allowed its due weight in giving my life that direction. I have ever regarded it as the first plain manifestation of that
"Divinity that shapes our ends.
Rough hew them as we will."†Douglass adapts Hamlet, act 5, sc. 2, lines 10–11: "There's a divinity that shapes our ends, / Rough-hew them how we will."
I was not the only boy on the plantation that might have been sent to live in Baltimore. There was a wide margin from which to select. There were boys younger, boys older, and boys of the same age, belonging to my old master—some at his own house, and some at his farm—but the high privilege fell to my lot.
I may be deemed superstitious and egotistical, in regarding this event as a special interposition of Divine Providence in my favor; but the thought is a part of my history, and I should be false to the earliest and most cherished sentiments of my soul, if I suppressed, or hesitated to avow that opinion, although it may be characterized as irrational by the wise, and ridiculous by the scoffer. From my earliest recollections of serious matters, I date the entertainment of something like an ineffaceable conviction, that slavery would not always be able to hold me within its foul embrace, and this conviction, like a word of living faith, strengthened me through the darkest trials of my lot. This good spirit was from God; and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.
CHAPTER X .
LIFE IN BALTIMORE.
CITY ANNOYANCES—PLANTATION REGRETS—MY MISTRESS, MISS SOPHIA—HER HISTORY—HER KINDNESS TO ME—MY MASTER , HUGH AULD—HIS SOURNESS—MY INCREASED SENSITIVENESS—MY COMFORTS—MY OCCUPATION—THE BANEFUL EFFECTS OF SLAVEHOLDING ON MY DEAR AND GOOD MISTRESS—HOW SHE COMMENCED TEACHING ME TO READ—WHY SHE CEASED TEACHING ME—CLOUDS GATHERING OVER MY BRIGHT PROSPECTS—MASTER AULD'S EXPOSITION OF THE TRUE PHILOSOPHY OF SLAVERY—CITY SLAVES—PLANTATION SLAVES—THE CONTRAST—EXCEPTIONS—MR. HAMILTON'S TWO SLAVES, HENRIETTA AND MARY—MRS. HAMILTON'S CRUEL TREATMENT OF THEM—THE PITEOUS ASPECT THEY PRESENTED—NO POWER MUST COME BETWEEN THE SLAVE AND THE SLAVEHOLDER.
ONCE in Baltimore, with hard brick pavements under my feet, which almost raised blisters, by their very heat, for it was in the height of summer; walled in on all sides by towering brick buildings; with troops of hostile boys ready to pounce upon me at every street corner; with new and strange objects glaring upon me at every step, and with startling sounds reaching my ears from all directions. I for a time thought that, after all, the home plantation was a more desirable place of residence than my home on Alliciana street, in Baltimore. My country eyes and ears were confused and bewildered here; but the boys were my chief trouble. They chased me, and called me "" till really I almost wished myself back on the Eastern Shore. I had to undergo a sort of moral acclimation, and when that was over, I did much better. My new mistress happily proved to be all she to be, when, with her husband, she met me at the door, with a most beaming, benignant countenance. She was, naturally, of an excellent disposition, kind, gentle and cheerful. The supercilious contempt for the rights and feelings of the slave, and the petulance and bad humor which generally characterize slaveholding ladies, were all quite absent from kind "Miss" Sophia's manner and hearing toward me. She had, in truth, never been a slaveholder, but had--a thing quite unusual in the south—depended almost entirely upon her own industry for a living. To this fact the dear lady, no doubt, owed the excellent preservation of her natural goodness of heart, for slavery can change a saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon. I hardly knew how to behave toward "Miss Sopha," as I used to call Mrs. Hugh Auld. I had been treated as a on the plantation;I was treated as a now. I could not even approach her as I had formerly approached Mrs.
Thomas Auld. How could I hang down my head, and speak with bated breath, when there was no pride to scorn me, no coldness to repel me, and no hatred to inspire me with fear? I therefore soon learned to regard her as something more akin to a mother, than a slaveholding mistress. The crouching servility of a slave, usually so acceptable a quality to the haughty slaveholder, was not understood nor desired by this gentle woman. So far from deeming it impudent in a slave to look her straight in the face, as some slaveholding ladies do, she seemed ever to say. "look up, child; don't be afraid; see, I am full of kindness and good will toward you." The hands belonging to Col. Lloyd's sloop, esteemed it a great privilege to be the bearers of parcels or messages to my new mistress; for whenever they came, they were sure of a most kind and pleasant reception. If little Thomas was her son, and her most dearly beloved child, she, for a time, at least, made me something like his half-brother in her affections. If dear Tommy was exalted to a place on his mother's knee, "Feddy'' was honored by a place at his mother's side. Nor did he lack the caressing strokes of her gentle hand, to convince him that, though he was not . Mrs. Auld was not only a kind-hearted woman, but she was remarkably pious; frequent in her attendance of public worship, much given to reading the bible, and to chanting hymns of praise, when alone. Mr. Hugh Auld was altogether a different character. He cared very little about religion, knew more of the world, and was more of the world, than his wife. He set out, doubtless, to be—as the world goes—a respectable man, and to get on by becoming a successful ship builder, in that city of ship building. This was his ambition, and it fully occupied him. I was, of course, of very little consequence to him, compared with what I was to good Mrs. Auld; and, when he smiled upon me, as he sometimes did, the smile was borrowed from his lovely wife, and, like all borrowed light, was transient, and vanished with the source whence it was derived. While I must characterize Master Hugh as being a very sour man, and of forbidding appearance, it is due to him to acknowledge, that he was never very cruel to me, according to the notion of cruelty in Maryland. The first year or two which I spent in his house, he left me almost exclusively to the management of his wife. She was my lawgiver, in hands so tender as hers, and in the absence of the cruelties of the plantation, I became, both physically and mentally, much more sensitive to good and ill treatment; and, perhaps, suffered more from a frown from my mistress, than I formerly did from a cuff at the hands of Aunt Katy. Instead of the cold, damp floor of my old master's kitchen, I found myself on carpets; for the corn bag in winter, I now had a good straw bed, well furnished
with covers, for the coarse corn-meal in the morning, I now had good bread, and mush occasionally; for my poor tow-linen shirt, reaching to my knees, I had good, clean clothes. I was really well off. My employment was to run of errands, and to take care of Tommy; to prevent his getting in the way of carriages, and to keep him out of harm's way generally. Tommy, and I, and his mother, got on swimmingly together, for a time. I say , because the fatal poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence of slavery customs. were not long in making a suitable impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my excellent mistress. At first, Mrs. Auld evidently regarded me simply as a child, like any other child; she had not come to regard me as . This latter thought was a thing of conventional growth. The first was natural and spontaneous. A noble nature, like hers, could not, instantly, he wholly perverted; and it took several years to change the natural sweetness of her temper into fretful bitterness. In her worst estate, however, there were, during the first seven years I lived with her, occasional returns of her former kindly disposition.
The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the bible—for she often read aloud when her husband was absent—soon awakened my curiosity in respect to this of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Having no fear of my kind mistress before my eyes, (she had then given me no reason to fear,) I frankly asked her to teach me to read; and, without hesitation, the dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was master of the alphabet, and could spell words of three or four letters. My mistress seemed almost as proud of my progress, as if I had been her own child; and, supposing that her husband would be as well pleased, she made no secret of what she was doing for me. Indeed, she exultingly told him of the aptness of her pupil, of her intention to persevere in teaching me, and of the duty which she felt it to teach me, at least to read the . Here arose the first cloud over my Baltimore prospects, the precursor of drenching rains and chilling blasts.
Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and, probably for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to he observed by masters and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld promptly forbade the continuance of her instruction; telling her, in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful;†In fact, unlike in many other slave states, there was no legal proscription against slave literacy in Maryland. In Baltimore small black-operated schools accepted slaves as well as free blacks. There is even evidence that slaves taught in some of these schools. The city offered other opportunities for slaves to learn to read through the wide availability of reading materials and contact with sympathetic free blacks and whites willing to help them learn. Christopher Phillips, Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790–1860 (Urbana, Ill., 1997), 163–67; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 446. that it was also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use his own words, further, he said. "if you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;"†A paraphrase of the old English proverb "For whan I gaue you an ynche, ye tooke an ell." An ell is an antiquated English unit of length equal to forty-five inches. John Heywood, Proverbs and Epigrams of John Heywood (1562; New York, 1967), 78. "he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it." "Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world;" "if
you teach that nigger—speaking of myself—how to read the bible, there will be no keeping him;" "it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave;" and "as to himself, learning would do him no good, but probably, a great deal of harm—making him disconsolate and unhappy." "If you learn him now to read, he'll want to know how to write; and, this accomplished, he'll be running away with himself." Such was the tenor of Master Hugh's oracular exposition of the true philosophy of training a human chattel; and it must be confessed that he very clearly comprehended the nature and the requirements of the relation of master and slave. His discourse was the first decidedly anti-slavery lecture to which it had been my lot to listen. Mrs. Auld evidently felt the force of his remarks; and, like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction indicated by her husband. The effect of his words, , was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences—cold and harsh—sunk deep into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought. It was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery, against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit: the man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the man. "Very well," thought I; "knowledge unfits a child to be a slave." I instinctively assented to the proposition; and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom. This was just what I needed; and I got it at a time, and from a source, whence I least expected it. I was saddened at the thought of losing the assistance of my kind mistress; but the information, so instantly derived, to some extent compensated me for the loss I had sustained in this direction. Wise as Mr. Auld was, he evidently underrated my comprehension, and had little idea of the use to which I was capable of putting the impressive lesson he was giving to his wife. wanted me to be ; I had already voted against that on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd. That which he most loved I most hated; and the very determination which he expressed to keep me in ignorance, only rendered me the more resolute in seeking intelligence. In learning to read, therefore, I am not sure that I do not owe quite as much to the opposition of my master, as to the kindly assistance of my amiable mistress. I acknowledge the benefit rendered me by the one, and by the other; believing, that but for my mistress, I might have grown up in ignorance.
I had resided but a short time in Baltimore, before I observed a marked difference in the manner of treating slaves, generally, from that which I had witnessed in that isolated and out-of-the-way part of the country where I
began life. A city slave is almost a free citizen, in Baltimore, compared with a slave on Col. Lloyd's plantation. He is much better fed and clothed, is less dejected in his appearance, and enjoys privileges altogether unknown to the whip-driven slave on the plantation. Slavery dislikes a dense population, in which there is a majority of non-slave holders. The general sense of decency that must pervade such a population, does much to check and prevent those outbreaks of atrocious cruelty, and those dark crimes without a name, almost openly perpetrated on the plantation. He is a desperate slaveholder who will shock the humanity of his non-slaveholding neighbors, by the cries of the lacerated slaves; and very few in the city are willing to incur the odium of being cruel masters. I found, in Baltimore, that no man was more odious to the white, as well as to the colored people, than he, who had the reputation of starving his slaves. Work them, flog them, if need be, but don't starve them. There are, however. some painful exceptions to this rule. While it is quite true that most of the slaveholders in Baltimore feed and clothe their slaves well, there are others who keep up their country cruelties in the city.
An instance of this sort is furnished in the case of a family who lived directly opposite to our house, and were named Hamilton.†Thomas Hamilton, a ship's carpenter, lived at 22 Philpot Street in Baltimore from at least 1831 through 1838. In 1833 his address was probably incorrectly listed as 18 Philpot Street. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831, 163; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1833 (Baltimore, 1833), 83; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835–6, 110; Matchett's Balti more Director[y] . . . 1837–8, 154. Mrs. Hamilton owned two slaves. Their names were Henrietta and Mary. They had always been house slaves. One was aged about twenty-two, and the other about fourteen. They were a fragile couple by nature, and the treatment they received was enough to break down the constitution of a horse. Of all the dejected, emaciated, mangled and excoriated creatures I ever saw, those two girls--in the refined, church going and Christian city of Baltimore—were the most deplorable. Of stone must that heart be made, that could look upon Henrietta and Mary, without being sickened to the core with sadness. Especially was Mary a heart-sickening object. Her head, neck and shoulders, were literally cut to pieces. I have frequently felt her head, and found it nearly covered over with festering sores, caused by the lash of her cruel mistress. I do not know that her master ever whipped her, but I have often been an eye witness of the revolting and brutal inflictions by Mrs. Hamilton; and what lends a deeper shade to this woman's conduct, is the fact, that, almost in the very moments of her shocking outrages of humanity and decency, she would charm you by the sweetness of her voice and her seeming piety. She used to sit in a large rocking chair, near the middle of the room, with a heavy cowskin, such as I have elsewhere described; and I speak within the truth when I say, that those girls seldom passed that chair, during the day, without a blow from that cowskin, either upon their bare arms, or
upon their shoulders. As they passed her, she would draw her cowskin and give them a blow, saying, "" and, again, "" continuing, "." Then the lady would go on, singing her sweet hymns, as though her righteous soul were sighing for the holy realms of paradise.
Added to the cruel lashings to which these poor slave-girls were subjected—enough in themselves to crush the spirit of men—they were, really, kept nearly half starved; they seldom knew what it was to eat a full meal, except when they got it in the kitchens of neighbors, less mean and stingy than the psalm-singing Mrs. Hamilton. I have seen poor Mary contending for the offal, with the pigs in the street. So much was the poor girl pinched, kicked, cut and pecked to pieces, that the boys in the street knew her only by the name of "," a name derived from the scars and blotches on her neck, head and shoulders.
It is some relief to this picture of slavery in Baltimore, to say—what is but the simple truth—that Mrs. Hamilton's treatment of her slaves was generally condemned, as disgraceful and shocking; but while I say this, it must also be remembered, that the very parties who censured the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton, would have condemned and promptly punished any attempt to interfere with Mrs. Hamilton's right to cut and slash her slaves to pieces. There must be no force between the slave and the slaveholder, to restrain the power of the one, and protect the weakness of the other; and the cruelty of Mrs. Hamilton is as justly chargeable to the upholders of the slave system, as drunkenness is chargeable on those who, by precept and example, or by indifference, uphold the drinking system.
CHAPTER XI.
"A CHANGE CAME O'ER THE SPIRIT OF MY DREAM."†Douglass quotes Byron's "The Dream," stanza 3, line 75. The Works of Lord Byron (Roslyn, N.Y., 1951), 328.*
HOW THE AUTHOR LEARNED TO READ—MY MISTRESS—HER SLAVEHOLDING DUTIES—THEIR DEPLORABLE EFFECTS UPON HER ORIGINALLY NOBLE NATURE—THE CONFLICT IN HER MIND—HER FINAL OPPOSITION TO MY LEARNING TO READ—TOO LATE—SHE HAD GIVEN ME THE "INCH," I WAS RESOLVED TO TAKE THE "ELL"—HOW I PURSUED MY EDUCATION—MY TUTORS—HOW I COMPENSATED THEM—WHAT PROGRESS I MADE—SLAVERY—WHAT I HEARD SAID ABOUT IT—THIRTEEN YEARS OLD—THE "COLUMBIAN ORATOR"—A RICH SCENE— A DIALOGUE--SPEECHES OF CHATHAM, SHERIDAN, PITT AND FOX—KNOWLEDGE EVER INCREASING—MY EYES OPENED—LIBERTY—HOW I PINED FOR IT—MY SADNESS—THE DISSATISFACTION OF MY POOR MISTRESS—MY HATRED OF SLAVERY—ONE UPAS TREE OVERSHADOWED US BOTH.
I LIVED in the family of Master Hugh, at Baltimore, seven years,†From 1826 to 1833 and again from 1836 to 1838, the young Frederick Douglass lived and worked in the Auld household, lent to them by his owner, Hugh's brother Thomas. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 199–200. during which time—as the almanac makers say of the weather—my condition was variable. The most interesting feature of my history here, was my learning to read and write, under somewhat marked disadvantages. In attaining this knowledge, I was compelled to resort to indirections by no means congenial to my nature, and which were really humiliating to me. My mistress—who, as the reader has already seen, had begun to teach me—was suddenly checked in her benevolent design, by the strong advice of her husband. In faithful compliance with this advice, the good lady had not only ceased to instruct me, herself, but had set her face as a flint against my learning to read by any means. It is due, however, to my mistress to say, that she did not adopt this course in all its stringency at the first. She either thought it unnecessary, or she lacked the depravity indispensable to shutting me up in mental darkness. It was, at least, necessary for her to have some training, and some hardening, in the exercise of the slaveholder's prerogative, to make her equal to forgetting my human nature and character, and to treating me as a thing destitute of a moral or an intellectual nature. Mrs. Auld—my mistress—was, as I have said, a most kind and tender-hearted woman; and, in the humanity of her heart, and the simplicity of her mind, she set out, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another.
It is easy to see, that, in entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, some little experience is needed. Nature has done almost nothing to prepare men and women to be either slaves or slaveholders. Nothing but rigid training, long persisted in, can perfect the character of the one or the other. One cannot easily forget to love freedom; and it is as hard to cease to respect that natural love in our fellow creatures. On entering upon the career of a slaveholding mistress, Mrs. Auld was singularly deficient; nature, which fits nohody for such an office, had done less for her than any lady I had known. It was no easy matter to induce her to think and to feel that the curly-headed boy, who stood by her side, and even leaned on her lap; who was loved by little Tommy, and who loved little Tommy in turn; sustained to her only the relation of a chattel. I was than that, and she felt me to be more than that. I could talk and sing; I could laugh and weep; I could reason and remember; I could love and hate. I was human, and she, dear lady, knew and felt me to be so. How could she, then, treat me as a brute, without a mighty struggle with all the noble powers of her own soul. That struggle came, and the will and power of the husband was victorious. Her noble soul was overthrown: but, he that overthrew it did not, himself, escape the consequences. He, not less than the other parties, was injured in his domestic peace by the fall.
When I went into their family, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The mistress of the house was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling—"." There was no sorrow nor suffering for which she had not a tear, and there was no innocent joy for which she had not a smile. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these excellent qualities, and her home of its early happiness. Conscience cannot stand much violence. Once thoroughly broken down, is he that can repair the damage? It may be broken toward the slave, on Sunday, and toward the master on Monday. It cannot endure such shocks. It must stand entire, or it does not stand at all. If my condition waxed bad, that of the family waxed not better. The first step, in the wrong direction, was the violence done to nature and to conscience, in arresting the benevolence that would have enlightened my young mind. In ceasing to instruct me, she must begin to justify herself herself; and, once consenting to take sides in such a debate, she was riveted to her position. One needs very little knowledge of moral philosophy, to see where my mistress now landed. She finally became even more violent in her opposition to my learning to read, than was her husband himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as as her husband had commanded her, but seemed resolved to better his instruction. Nothing appeared to make my poor mistress—after her turning toward the downward path—more angry, than seeing me, seated in some nook or corner, quietly reading a book or a newspaper. I have had her rush at me, with the utmost fury, and snatch from my hand such newspaper or book, with something of the wrath and consternation which a traitor might he supposed to feel on being discovered in a plot by some dangerous spy.
Mrs. Auld was an apt woman, and the advice of her hushand, and her own experience, soon demonstrated, to her entire satisfaction, that education and slavery are incompatible with each other. When this conviction was thoroughly established, I was most narrowly watched in all my movements. If I remained in a separate room from the family for any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called upon to give an account of myself. All this, however, was entirely . The first, and never to be retraced, step had been taken. In teaching me the alphabet, in the days of her simplicity and kindness, my mistress had given me the "," and now, no ordinary precaution could prevent me from taking the "."
Seized with a determination to learn to read, at any cost, I hit upon many expedients to accomplish the desired end. The plea which I mainly adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of using my young white playmates, with whom I met in the streets, as teachers. I used to carry, almost constantly, a copy of Webster's spelling book†The first version of the spelling bookA Grammatical Institute of the English Language (1783), by Noah Webster (1758–1843), a Connecticut teacher, editor, and Federalist politician, rapidly became the standard spelling and pronunciation guide in the new nation. In 1788 the title became The American Spelling Book and in 1829 The Elementary Spelling Book. Harry R. Warfel, Noah Webster: Schoolmaster to America (New York, 1936); Richard J. Moss, Noah Webster (Boston, 1984); DAB, 19:594–97. in my pocket; and, when sent of errands, or when play time was allowed me, I would step, with my young friends, aside, and take a lesson in spelling. I generally paid my to the boys, with bread, which I also carried in my pocket. For a single biscuit, any of my hungry little comrades would give me a lesson more valuable to me than bread. Not every one, however, demanded this consideration, for there were those who took pleasure in teaching me, whenever I had a chance to be taught by them. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys, as a slight testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them, but prudence forbids; not that it would injure me, but it might, possibly, embarrass them; for it is almost an unpardonable offense to do any thing, directly or indirectly, to promote a slave's freedom, in a slave state. It is enough to say, of my warm-hearted little play fellows, that they lived on Philpot street,†Philpot Street ran east to west, parallel to the waterfront on Fells Point. The Aulds moved to Philpot Street in 1827 or 1828 soon after Hugh Auld began working at Durgin and Bailey's shipyard. Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 27 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 257–58, FD Papers, DLC; Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore. very near Durgin & Bailey's shipyard.†John Durgin and Thomas Bailey operated a shipwright business on Philpot Street in Fells Point in the late 1820s and the 1830s. Douglass later recalled that as a boy he carried Auld's dinner to him while Auld was employed as a carpenter at this shipyard near the Auld home. Bailey continued as a ship's carpenter in the same area into the 1830s. Douglass to Benjamin F. Auld, 24 March 1894, SC-163, Mrs. Howard V. Hall Collection of Auld Family Papers, MdAA; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1829, 94; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831, 21; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835–6, 12. Textual note: Although this term is hyphenated in only six instances of its approximately twenty-four occurrences in Bondage and Freedom, hyphenation is consistent both with Douglass's usual treatment of two-word nouns and with his usual treatment of "ship-yard" in his first autobiography, Narrative. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1. Emendation note: ship-yard] shipyard
Although slavery was a delicate subject, and very cautiously talked about among grown up people in Maryland, I frequently talked about it—and that very freely—with the white boys. I would, sometimes, say to them, while scaled on a curb stone or a cellar door. "I wish I could be free, as you will be when you get to be men." "You will be free, you know, as soon as you arc twenty-one, and can go where you like, but I am a slave for life. Have I not as good a right to be free as you have?" Words like these, I observed, always troubled them; and I had no small satisfaction in wringing from the boys, occasionally, that fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery, that springs from nature, unseared and unperverted. Of all consciences, let me have those to deal with which have not been bewildered by the cares of life. I do not remember ever to have met with a , while I was in slavery, who defended the slave system; but I have often had boys to console me, with the hope that something would yet occur, by which I might be made free. Over and over again, they have told me, that "they believed I had as good a right to he free as had;" and that "they did not believe God ever made any one to he a slave." The reader will easily see, that such little conversations with my play fellows, had no tendency to weaken my love of liberty,nor to render me contented with my condition as a slave.
When I was about thirteen years old. and had succeeded in learning to
read, every increase of knowledge. especially respecting the FREE STATES, added something to the almost intolerable burden of the thought—"I AM A SLAVE FOR LIFE." To my bondage I saw no end. It was a terrible reality, and I shall never be able to tell how sadly that thought chafed my young spirit. Fortunately, or unfortunately, about this time in my life, I had made enough money to buy what was then a very popular school book, viz: the "Columbian Orator."†Boston schoolteacher and bookseller Caleb Bingham (1757–1817) authored the The Columbian Orator (1797 ), one of the first textbooks on English grammar and rhetoric published in the United States. It contained short extracts from speeches by such famous orators as William Pitt, George Washington, Charles James Fox, and Cicero, as well as plays and poems on the themes of patriotism, education, and freedom. The Columbian Orator remained one of the most popular textbooks of its kind in America through the 1820s. Bingham himself contributed an essay on oratorical skills, "General Directions for Speaking," whose rules Douglass followed in his early years as a public speaker. NCAB, 8:19; DAB, 2:273–74. I bought this addition to my library, of Mr. Knight,†Nathaniel Knight (1778–1854) trained as a printer in Salem, Massachusetts, and in 1800 moved to Baltimore, where he opened a bookstore on Market Street. Knight was a prominent member of the community, serving as a justice of the peace, a member of Washington Lodge No. 3 of the Freemasons, an officer with the Charitable Marine Society of Baltimore, and a warden in Mount Calvary Episcopal Church. Knight lived at Fells Point at 23 Thames Street in 1827. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 155; John L. Sanford, Studies in Freemasonry (Baltimore, 1924), 49–53. on Thames street,†In about 1834 the Aulds moved to a row house on Fell Street, which is now a continuation of Thames Street in the Fells Point area of Baltimore. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 143, 228n. Fell's Point. Baltimore, and paid him fifty cents for it. I was first led to buy this book, by hearing some little boys say that they were going to learn some little pieces out of it for the Exhibition.†The Baltimore black community made education and intellectual and cultural growth priorities through the formation of literary and debating societies. The "Exhibition" may have been an annual event sponsored by one or a group of these local organizations. These societies promoted literacy among black residents by engaging in recitals of famous works of literature, prose, and oration. On occasion white speakers were invited, but more often the speakers and performers were members of the society. Phillips, Freedom's Port, 172–73. This volume was, indeed, a rich treasure, and every opportunity afforded me, for a time, was spent in diligently perusing it. Among much other interesting matter, that which I had perused and reperused with unflagging satisfaction, was a short dialogue between a master and his slave.†The anonymous "Dialogue between a Master and Slave" is a conversation between a master and slave in which the slave is caught trying to run away for the second time. Caleb Bingham, The Columbian Orator (1797; Boston, 1827), 240–42. The slave is represented as having been recaptured, in a second attempt to run away; and the master opens the dialogue with an upbraiding speech, charging the slave with ingratitude, and demanding to know what he has to say in his own defense. Thus upbraided, and thus called upon to reply, the slave rejoins, that he knows how little anything that he can say will avail, seeing that he is completely in the hands of his owner; and with noble resolution, calmly says. "I suhmit to my fate." Touched by the slave's answer, the master insists upon his further speaking, and recapitulates the many acts of kindness which he has performed toward the slave, and tells him he is permitted to speak for himself. Thus invited to the debate, the quondam slave made a spirited defense of himself, and thereafter the whole argument, for and against slavery, was brought out. The master was vanquished at every turn in the argument; and seeing himself to be thus vanquished, he generously and meekly emancipates the slave, with his best wishes for his prosperity. It is scarcely necccssary to say, that a dialogue, with such an origin, and such an ending—read when the fact of my being a slave was a constant burden of grief—powerfully affected me; and I could not help feeling that the day might come, when the well-directed answers made by the slave to the master, in this instance, would find their counterpart in myself.
This, however, was not all the fanaticism which I found in this Columbian Orator. I met there one of Sheridan's mighty speeches, on the subject of Catholic Emancipation,†Although Richard Sheridan (1751–1816), the Irish orator, playwright, and politician who entered Parliament in 1780, championed Irish and other reform causes, the only speech extracted in The Columbian Orator is "Mr. Sheridan's Speech against Mr. Taylor," which is not on Catholic "emancipation." Douglass is probably referring to another selection in the anthology, titled "Part of Mr. O'Connor's Speech in the Irish House of Common, in Favor of the Bill for Emancipating the Roman Catholics, 1795." Arthur O'Connor (1763–1852), a liberal Protestant member of the Irish parliament, was a strong supporter of Catholic rights, including "Catholic emancipation," or the right of Catholics to hold office and sit in Parliament. O'Connor resigned his seat after delivering this speech. Bingham, The Columbian Orator, 1827 ed., 130–31, 243–48: DNB, 18:78–85, 41:394–95. Lord Chatham 's speech on the American war,†The Columbian Orator contained several speeches given by William Pitt (1708-78), first Earl of Chatham, also known as "the elder Pitt." A prominent British statesman, Chatham first entered Parliament in 1735, and became secretary of state from 1756 to 1757. Though in ill health by the time of the American Revolution, Chatham spoke out against Britain's harsh policies toward the American colonies and urged an amicable settlement. The Columbian Orator printed parts of four such speeches Chatham made before Parliament in January 1775, May 1877, and two in November 1777. The most strongly worded of the speeches warned against the dangers of the British army engaging the services of North American Indians against the colonists. Pitt changed his mind regarding the war, however, when it was proposed to make peace on any terms, and on 2 April 1778 he addressed the House of Lords and secured a majority against the resolution. While answering questions concerning his position, Chatham collapsed and died in the house chamber. Jeremy Black, Pitt the Elder (Cambridge, 1992), 288–99; Magnusson, Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, 297; DNB, 15:1240–53. and speeches by the great William Pitt and by Fox.†Douglass refers to a speech concerning American affairs delivered to the British Parliament in 1778. Charles James Fox (1749–1806) was an English Whig statesman who became a member of Parliament at the age of nineteen, and during his career held the offices of lord of the Admiralty and commissioner of the Treasury. He initially supported Lord North. but during the American Revolution, Fox became an outspoken opponent of the coercive measures of government North advocated. For his opposition to North's administration, King George III removed Fox from his position in the Admiralty in 1774. In the speech to which Douglass refers, Fox warned the Parliament that Britain could not sustain a war with both the American colonies and France. He urged Britain to withdraw from the conflict with America and to concentrate on France. Later Fox was a strong opponent of William Pitt (the younger), arguing vigorously against a renewed war with France. After Pitt's death in January 1806, Fox set out to negotiate a peace with France, but died before his bill to abolish the slave trade came up for approval. Bingham, The Columbian Orator, 1827 ed., 172–75; Magnusson, Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, 535–36; DNB, 7:535–52. These were all choice documents to me, and I read them, over and over again, with an interest that was ever increasing, because it was ever gaining in intelligence;
for the more I read them, the better I understood them. The reading of these speeches added much to my limited stock of language, and enabled me to give tongue to many interesting thoughts, which had frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of utterance. The mighty power and heart-searching directness of truth, penetrating even the heart of a slaveholder, compelling him to yield up his earthly interests to the claims of eternal justice, were finely illustrated in the dialogue, just referred to; and from the speeches of Sheridan, I got a bold and powerful denunciation of oppression, and a most brilliant vindication of the rights of man. Here was, indeed, a noble acquisition. If I ever wavered under the consideration, that the Almighty, in some way, ordained slavery, and willed my enslavement for his own glory, I wavered no longer. I had now penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man. The dialogue and the speeches were all redolent of the principles of liberty, and poured floods of light on the nature and character of slavery. With a book of this kind in my hand, my own human nature, and the facts of my experience, to help me, I was equal to a contest with the religious advocates of slavery, whether among the whites or among the colored people, for blindness, in this matter, is not confined to the former. I have met many religious colored people, at the south, who are under the delusion that God requires them to submit to slavery, and to wear their chains with meekness and humility. I could entertain no such nonsense as this; and I almost lost my patience when I found any colored man weak enough to believe such stuff. Nevertheless, the increase of knowledge was attended with bitter, as well as sweet results. The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest slavery, and my enslavers. "Slaveholders," thought I, "are only a hand of successful robbers. who left their homes and went into Africa for the purpose of stealing and reducing my people to slavery." I loathed them as the meanest and the most wicked of men. As I read, behold! the very discontent so graphically predicted by Master Hugh, had already come upon me. I was no longer the light-hearted, gleesome boy, full of mirth and play, as when I landed first at Baltimore. Knowledge had come; light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I dwelt; and, behold! there lay the bloody whip, for my back, and here was the iron chain; and my good, , he was the author of my situation. The revelation haunted me, stung me, and made me gloomy and miserable. As I writhed under the sting and torment of this knowledge, I almost envied my fellow slaves their stupid contentment. This knowledge opened my eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful dragon that
was ready to pounce upon me, but it opened no way for my escape. I have often wished myself a beast, or a bird—anything, rather than a slave. I was wretched and gloomy, beyond my ability to describe. I was too thoughtful to be happy. It was this everlasting thinking which distressed and tormented me; and yet there was no getting rid of the subject of my thoughts. All nature was redolent of it. Once awakened by the silver trump of knowledge, my spirit was roused to eternal wakefulness. Liberty! the inestimable birthright of every man, had, for me, converted every object into an asserter of this great right. It was heard in every sound, and beheld in every object. It was ever present, to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. The more beautiful and charming were the smiles of nature, the more horrible and desolate was my condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, and I heard nothing without hearing it. I do not exaggerate, when I say, that it looked from every star, smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind. and moved in every storm.
I have no doubt that my state of mind had something to do with the change in the treatment adopted, by my once kind mistress toward me. I can easily believe, that my leaden, downcast, and discontented look, was very offensive to her. Poor lady! She did not know my trouble, and I dared not tell her. Could I have freely made her acquainted with the real state of my mind, and given her the reasons therefor, it might have been well for both of us. Her abuse of me fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his ass; she did not know that an stood in the way;†Douglass alludes to the biblical story of Balaam's ass. Num. 22:21–30. and—such is the relation of master and slave—I could not tell her. Nature had made us ; slavery made us . My interests were in a direction opposite to hers, and we both had our private thoughts and plans. She aimed to keep me ignorant; and I resolved to know, although knowledge only increased my discontent. My feelings were not the result of any marked cruelty in the treatment I received; they sprung from the consideration of my being a slave at all. It was —not its mere —that I hated. I had been cheated. I saw through the attempt to keep me in ignorance; I saw that slaveholders would have gladly made me believe that they were merely acting under the authority of God, in making a slave of me, and in making slaves of others; and I treated them as robbers and deceivers. The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking my liberty from me. The smiles of my mistress could not remove the deep sorrow that dwelt in my young bosom. Indeed, these, in time, came only to deepen my sorrow. She had changed; and the reader will see that I had changed. too . We were both victims to the same overshadowing evil—, as mistress, as slave. I will
not censure her harshly; she cannot censure me, for she knows I speak but the truth, and have acted in my opposition to slavery, just as she herself would have acted, in a reverse of circumstances.
CHAPTER XII.
RELIGIOUS NATURE AWAKENED.
ABOLITIONISTS SPOKEN OF—MY EAGERNESS TO KNOW WHAT THIS WORD MEANT—MY CONSULTATION OF THE DICTIONARY—INCENDIARY INFORMATION—HOW AND WHERE DERIVED—THE ENIGMA SOLVED—NATHANIEL TURNER'S INSURRECTION—THE CHOLERA—RELIGION—FIRST AWAKENED BY A METHODIST MINISTER, NAMED HANSON—MY DEAR AND GOOD OLD COLORED FRIEND, LAWSON—HIS CHARACTER AND OCCUPATION—HIS INFLUENCE OVER ME—OUR MUTUAL ATTACHMENT—THE COMFORT I DERIVED FROM HIS TEACHING—NEW HOPES AND ASPIRATIONS—HEAVENLY LIGHT AMIDST EARTHLY DARKNESS—THE TWO IRISHMEN ON THE WHARF—THEIR CONVERSATION—HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE—WHAT WERE MY AIMS.
WHILST in the painful state of mind described in the foregoing chapter, almost regretting my very existence, because doomed to a life of bondage, so goaded and so wretched, at times, that I was even tempted lo destroy my own life. I was yet keenly sensitive and eager to know any, and every thing that transpired, having any relation to the subject of slavery. I was all ears, all eyes, whenever the words , , dropped from the lips of any white person, and the occasions were not unfrequent when these words became leading ones, in high, social debate, at our house. Every little while, I could overhear Master Hugh, or some of his company, speaking with much warmth and excitement about "." Of or these were, I was totally ignorant. I found, however, that whatever they might be, they were most cordially hated and soundly abused by slaveholders, of every grade. I very soon discovered, too, that slavery was, in some sort, under consideration, whenever the abolitionists were alluded to. This made the term a very interesting one to me. If a slave, for instance, had made good his escape from slavery, it was generally alleged, that he had been persuaded and assisted by the abolitionists. If also, a slave killed his master—as was sometimes the case—or struck down his overseer, or set fire to his master's dwelling, or committed any violence or crime, out of the common way, it was certain to be said, that such a crime was the legitimate fruits of the abolition movement. Hearing such charges often repeated, I, naturally enough, received the impression that abolition—whatever else it might be—could
not be unfriendly to the slave, nor very friendly to the slaveholder. I therefore set about finding out, if possible, who and what the abolitionists were, and why they were so obnoxious to the slaveholders. The dictionary afforded me very little help. It taught me that abolition was the "act of abolishing;" but it left me in ignorance at the very point where I most wanted information—and that was, as to the to be abolished. A city newspaper, the "Baltimore American,"†The Baltimore American and Commercial Advertiser was the oldest newspaper in Maryland. It was first published by Alexander Martin, a native of Boston, on 14 May 1799. The American was a firm ally of the Whig party and became prominently identified with the Union cause and the Republican party. Scharf, History of Baltimore, 609. gave me the incendiary information denied me by the dictionary. In its columns I found, that, on a certain day, a vast number of petitions†The sending of petitions to Congress, calling for an end to the slave trade and to slavery in the District of Columbia, dated back to the early years of the federal government. In 1828 a national petition drive had helped force the House of Representatives to vote on abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. The newly organized movement for immediate emancipation adopted the petition strategy in the 1830s and deluged Congress with antislavery memorials bearing thousands of signatures. Louis Filler, The Crusade against Slavery,1830–1860 (New York, 1960), 3, 99; Russell B. Nye, Fettered Freedom: Civil Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830–1860 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1963), 41–51. and memorials had been presented to congress, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and for the abolition of the slave trade between the states of the Union. This was enough. The vindictive bitterness, the marked caution, the studied reserve, and the cumbrous ambiguity, practiced by our white folks, when alluding†Emendation note: alluding] allluding to this subject, was now fully explained. Ever, after that, when I heard the words "abolition," or "abolition movement," mentioned, I felt the matter one of a personal concern; and I drew near to listen, when I could do so, without seeming too solicitous and prying. There was HOPE in those words, ever and anon, too, I could see some terrible denunciation of slavery, in our papers—copied from abolition papers at the north—and the injustice of such denunciation commented on. These I read with avidity. I had a deep satisfaction in the thought, that the rascality of slaveholders was not concealed from the eyes of the world, and that I was not alone in abhorring the cruelty and brutality of slavery. A still deeper train of thought was stirred. I saw that there was , as well as, in the manner of speaking of the abolitionists. The latter, therefore, I was compelled to regard as having some power in the country; and I felt that they might, possibly, succeed in their designs. When I met with a slave to whom I deemed it safe to talk on the subject, I would impart to him so much of the mystery as I had been able to penetrate. Thus, the light of this grand movement broke in upon my mind, by degrees; and I must say, that, ignorant as I then was of the philosophy of that movement, I believed in it from the first—and I believed in it, partly, because I saw that it alarmed the consciences of slaveholders. The insurrection of Nathaniel Turner†Nat Turner (1800-31) led the famous slave revolt that occurred in Southampton County, Virginia, from 21 to 23 August 1831. Turner's band, which consisted of no more than seventy followers, mostly slaves, killed at least fifty-seven whites before being dispersed and captured by the local militia. Approximately seventeen of Turner's followers were executed; most of the remainder were transported. Turner himself remained at large for over two months, and after his capture supposedly dictated his "Confessions" to a local lawyer. Tried and sentenced to death on 5 November 1831, Turner was executed by hanging on 11 November 1831. The revolt triggered retaliatory murders of innocent blacks in the general area, undercut what sentiment there was in the slave states for emancipation, and heightened the southern dread of servile insurrections. Herbert Aptheker, Nat Turner's Slave Rebellion (New York, 1966); Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion (New York, 1975); Henry Irving Tragle, comp., The Southhampton Slave Revolt of 1831: A Compilation of Source Material (Amherst, Mass., 1971); ACAB, 6: 187; DAB, 19: 69–70. had been quelled, but the alarm and terror had not subsided. The cholera was on its way, and the thought was present, that God was angry with the white people because of their slaveholding wickedness, and, therefore, his judgments were abroad in the land. It was impossible for me not to hope much from the abolition movement, when I saw it supported by the Almighty, and armed with DEATH!
Previous to my contemplation of the anti-slavery movement, and its
probable results, my mind had been seriously awakened to the subject of religion. I was not more than thirteen years old, when I felt the need of God, as a father and protector. My religious nature was awakened by the preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson.†The Reverend James M. Hanson (1782–1860) was a popular local Methodist Episcopal Church minister throughout the early decades of the nineteenth century, who was highly regarded for his commitmcnt to strengthening the organization of the Baltimore Annual Conference. Hanson was repeatedly elected to represent Baltimore in the church's quadrennial conferences. James Edward Armstrong, History of the Old Baltimore Conference from the Planting of Methodism in 1773 to the Division of the Conference in 1857 (Baltimore, 1907), 154, 158, 216, 223, 228, 242, 391. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God; that they were, by nature, rebels against His government; and that they must repent of their sins. and be reconciled to God, through Christ. I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me; but one thing I knew very well—I was wretched. and had no means of making myself otherwise. Moreover. I knew that I could pray for light. I consulted a good colored man, named Charles Johnson;†Several free black Charles Johnsons lived in the Fells Point region of Baltimore in the 1820s and 1830s. Several were employed as laborers and one each as a dray man (hauler), a caulker, and a sawyer. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 13; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1829, 173–74; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835–6, 138. and, in tones of holy affection, he told me to pray, and what to pray for. I was, for weeks, a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through the darkness and misery of doubts and fears. I finally found that change of heart which comes by "casting all one's care" upon God, and by having faith in Jesus Christ, as the Redeemer, Friend, and Savior of those who diligently seek Him.
After this. I saw the world in a new light. I seemed to live in a new world, surrounded by new objects, and to be animated by new hopes and desires. I loved all mankind—slaveholders not excepted; though I abhorred slavery more than ever. My great concern was, now, to have the world converted. The desire for knowledge increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the bible. I have gathered scattered pages from this holy book, from the filthy street gutters of Baltimore, and washed and dried them, that in the moments of my leisure, I might get a word or two of wisdom from them. While thus religiously seeking knowledge, I hecame acquainted with a good old colored man, named Lawson.†In 1830 Charles Lawson, a free black, lived in Fells Point and was over fifty-five years old. He had five people in his household. Lawson was a drayman for ropemaker James Ramsey. He was a member of Baltimore's Bethel African Methodist Church, and although he was much older, became close friends with Douglass. Carter G. Woodson, Free Negro Heads of Families in the United States in 1830 (Washington, D.C., 1925), 43; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 97–98. A more devout man than he, I never saw. He drove a dray*A low two-wheeled cart with sides, used for carrying heavy loads. for Mr. James Ramsey,†James Ramsey was a rope manufacturer in Fells Point. His long, low, and narrow shop was located at the intersection of Thames and Bond streets. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 214; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835–6, 211. the owner of a rope-walk on Fell's Point, Baltimore. This man not only prayed three times a day, but he prayed as he walked through the streets, at his work—on his dray—everywhere. His life was a life of prayer, and his words, (when he spoke to his friends,) were about a better world. Uncle Lawson lived near Master Hugh's house; and, becoming deeply attached to the old man, I went often with him to prayer-meeting, and spent much of my leisure time with him on Sunday. The old man could read a little, and I was a great help to him, in making out the hard words, for I was a better reader than he. I could teach him "," but he could teach me ";" and high, refreshing times we had together, in singing, praying and glorifying God. These meetings with Uncle Lawson went on for a long time, without the knowledge of Master Hugh or my
mistress. Both knew, however, that I had become religious, and they seemed to respect my conscientious piety. My mistress was still a professor of religion, and belonged to class. Her leader was no less a person than the Rev. Beverly Waugh,†Beverly Waugh (1789–1858) was the son of a substantial farmer from Fairfax County, Virginia. He became a traveling preacher for the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1809, a deacon in 1811, and an elder in 1813. Douglass probably first met Waugh in 1827, when the minister was the presiding elder of the East Baltimore Station, which included the Wilks Street Church attended by the Hugh Auld family. In 1836 Waugh was elected a bishop by the General Conference, and in 1852 he became senior bishop of the church. H. B. Ridgaway, "Beverly Waugh," in Lives of Methodist Bishops, ed. Theodore L. Flood and John W. Hamilton (New York, 1882), 225–62: DAB, 19:558. the presiding elder, and now one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Waugh was then stationed over Wilk street church. I am careful to state these facts, that the reader may be able to form an idea of the precise influences which had to do with shaping and directing my mind.
In view of the cares and anxieties incident to the life she was then leading, and, especially, in view of the separation from religious associations to which she was subjected, my mistress had, as I have before stated, become lukewarm, and needed to be looked up by her leader. This brought Mr. Waugh to our house, and gave me an opportunity to hear him exhort and pray. But my chief instructor, in matters of religion, was Uncle Lawson. He was my spiritual father; and I loved him intensely, and was at his house every chance I got.
This pleasure was not long allowed me. Master Hugh became averse to my going to Father Lawson's, and threatened to whip me if I ever went there again. I now felt myself persecuted by a wicked man; and I go to Father Lawson's, notwithstanding the threat. The good old man had told me, that the "Lord had a great work for me to do," and I must prepare to do it; and that he had been shown that I must preach the gospel. His words made a deep impression on my mind, and I verily felt that some such work was before me, though I could not see I should ever engage in its performance. 'The good Lord," he said, "would bring it to pass in his own good time," and that I must go on reading and studying the scriptures. The advice and the suggestions of Uncle Lawson, were not without their influence upon my character and destiny. He threw my thoughts into a channel from which they have never entirely diverged. He fanned my already intense love of knowledge into a flame, by assuring me that I was to he a useful man in the world. When I would say to him. "How can these things he and what can do?" his simple reply was. "." When I told him that " I was a slave, and a slave FOR LIFE." he said. "the Lord can make you free, my dear. All things are possible with him, only ." "Ask, and it shall be given." " If you want liberty," said the good old man, "ask the Lord for it, , AND HE WILL GIVE IT TO YOU."
Thus assured, and cheered on, under the inspiration of hope, I worked and prayed with a light heart, believing that my life was under the guidance of a wisdom higher than my own. With all other blessings sought at the
mercy seat, I always prayed that God would, of His great mercy, and in His own good time, deliver me from my bondage.
I went, one day, on the wharf of Mr. Waters;†George P. Waters was a ship chandler and grocer who operated both of his businesses near the wharf he owned at the south end of Fell Street in Fells Point. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1833, 189, 15 (street register); Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835–6, 267; Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore. and seeing two Irishmen unloading a large scow of stone,†A large flat-bottomed boat propelled by a pole. or ballast, I went on board, unasked, and helped them. When we had finished the work, one of the men came to me, aside, and asked me a number of questions, and among them, if I were a slave. I told him "I was a slave, and a slave for life." The good Irishman gave his shoulders a shrug, and seemed deeply affected by the statement. He said, "it was a pity so fine a little fellow as myself should be a slave for life." They both had much to say about the matter, and expressed the deepest sympathy with me, and the most decided hatred of slavery. They went so far as to tell me that I ought to run away, and go to the north; that I should find friends there, and that I would be as free as anybody. I, however, pretended not to be interested in what they said, for I feared they might be treacherous. White men have been known to encourage slaves to escape, and then—to get the reward—they have kidnapped them, and returned them to their masters. And while I mainly inclined to the notion that these men were honest and meant me no ill, I feared it might be otherwise. I nevertheless remembered their words and their advice, and looked forward to an escape to the north, as a possible means of gaining the liberty for which my heart panted. It was not my enslavement, at the then present time, that most affected me; the being a slave, was the saddest thought. I was too young to think of running away immediately; besides. I wished to learn how to write, before going, as I might have occasion to write my own pass. I now not only had the hope of freedom, but a foreshadowing of the means by which I might, some day, gain that inestimable boon. Meanwhile. I resolved to add to my educational attainments the art of writing.
After this manner I began to learn to write; I was much in the shipyard†Textual note: Although this term is hyphenated in only six instances of its approximately twenty-four occurrences in Bondage and Freedom, hyphenation is consistent both with Douglass's usual treatment of two-word nouns and with his usual treatment of "ship-yard" in his first autobiography, Narrative. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1. Emendation note: ship-yard]—Master Hugh's, and that of Durgan & Bailey—and I observed that the carpenters, after hewing and getting a piece of timber ready for use, wrote on it the initials of the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended. When, for instance. a piece of timber was ready for the starboard side, it was marked with a capital "S." A piece for the larboard side was marked "L," larboard forward, "L. F.," larboard aft, was marked "L.A.;" starboard aft, "S. A.;" and starboard forward "S . F." I soon learned these letters, and for what they were placed on the timbers.
My work was now, to keep fire under the steam box, and to watch the ship-yard†Textual note: Although this term is hyphenated in only six instances of its approximately twenty-four occurrences in Bondage and Freedom, hyphenation is consistent both with Douglass's usual treatment of two-word nouns and with his usual treatment of "ship-yard" in his first autobiography, Narrative. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1. Emendation note: ship-yard] while the carpenters had gone to dinner. This interval gave me a fine opportunity for copying the letters named. I soon astonished myself
with the ease with which I made the letters; and the thought was soon present, "if I can make four, I can make more." But having made these easily, when I met boys about Bethel church, or any of our play-grounds, I entered the lists with them in the art of writing, and would make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask them to "beat that if they could." With playmates for my teachers, fences and pavements for my copy books, and chalk for my pen and ink, I learned the art of writing. I, however, afterward adopted various methods of improving my hand. The most successful, was copying the in Webster's spelling book, until I could make them all without looking on the book. By this time. my little "Master Tommy" had grown to be a big boy, and had written over a number of copy books, and brought them home. They had been shown to the neighbors, had elicited due praise, and were now laid carefully away. Spending my time between the ship-yard†Textual note: Although this term is hyphenated in only six instances of its approximately twenty-four occurrences in Bondage and Freedom, hyphenation is consistent both with Douglass's usual treatment of two-word nouns and with his usual treatment of "ship-yard" in his first autobiography, Narrative. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1. Emendation note: ship-yard] and house, I was as often the lone keeper of the latter as of the former. When my mistress left me in charge of the house, I had a grand time; I got Master Tommy's copy books and a pen and ink, and, in the ample spaces between the lines. I wrote other lines, as nearly like his as possible. The process was a tedious one, and I ran the risk of getting a flogging for marring the highly prized copy books of the oldest son. In addition to those opportunities, sleeping, as I did, in the kitchen loft—a room seldom visited by any of the family—I got a flour barrel up there, and a chair; and upon the head of that barrel I have written, (or endeavored to write,) copying from the bible and the Methodist hymn book,†Douglass probably had a copy of the standard hymnal of the Methodist Episcopal church, which was published in various locations in the 1800s. Methodist Episcopal Church, A Collection of Hynms for the Use of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Principally from the collection of the Rev. John Wesley (New York, 1844). and other books which had accumulated on my hands, till late at night, and when all the family were in bed and asleep. I was supported in my endeavors by renewed advice, and by holy promises from the good Father Lawson, with whom I continued to meet, and pray, and read the scriptures. Although Master Hugh was aware of my going there, I must say, for his credit, that he never executed his threat to whip me, for having thus, innocently, employed my leisure time.
CHAPTER XIII.
THE VICISSITUDES OF SLAVE LIFE.
DEATH OF OLD MASTER'S SON RICHARD, SPEEDILY FOLi.OWED BY THAT OF OLD MASTER—VALUATION AND DIVISION OF ALL THE PROPERTY, INCLUDING THE SLAVES—MY PRESENCE REQUIRED AT HILLSBOROUGH TO BE APPRAISED AND ALLOTTED TO A NEW OWNER—MY SAD PROSPECTS AND GRIEF—PARTING—UTTER POWERLESSNESS OF THE SLAVES TO DECIDE THEIR OWN DESTINY—
A GENERAL DREAD OF MASTER ANDREW—HIS WICKEDNESS AND CRUELTY—MISS LUCRETIA MY NEW OWNER—MY RETURN TO BALTIMORE—JOY UNDER THE ROOF OF MASTER HUGH—DEATH OF MRS. LUCRETIA—MY POOR OLD GRANDMOTHER—HER SAD FATE—THE LONE COT IN THE WOODS—MASTER THOMAS AULD'S SECOND MARRIAGE—AGAIN REMOVED FROM MASTER HUGH'S—REASONS FOR REGRETTING THE CHANCE—A PLAN FOR ESCAPE ENTERTAINED.
I MUST now ask the reader to go with me a little back in point of time, in my humble story, and to notice another circumstance that entered into my slavery experience, and which, doubtless, has had a share in deepening my horror of slavery, and increasing my hostility toward those men and measures that practically uphold the slave system.
It has already been observed, that though I was, after my removal from Col. Lloyd 's plantation, in the slave of Master Hugh, I was, in , and in , the slave of my old master, Capt. Anthony. Very well.
In a very short time after I went to Baltimore, my old master's youngest son, Richard, died; and, in three years and six months after his death, my old master himself died,†Aaron Anthony died on 14 November 1826. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 30. leaving only his son, Andrew, and his daughter, Lucretia, to share his estate. The old man died while on a visit to his daughter, in Hillsborough, where Capt. Auld and Mrs. Lucretia now lived. The former, having given up the command of Col. Lloyd's sloop, was now keeping a store in that town.
Cut off, thus unexpectedly, Capt. Anthony died intestate; and his property must now he equally*Emendation note: equally] equaily divided between his two children, Andrew and Lucretia.
The valuation and the division of slaves,†Aaron Anthony's heirs, Richard Anthony, Andrew Anthony, and Thomas Auld, agreed to the division of his slaves on 27 September 1827. Twenty-eight slaves, including Frederick Douglass, constituted the division and were valued at $2,805. Frederick was among the slaves awarded to Thomas Auld, widower of Lucretia Anthony Auld. Aaron Anthony, Distribution of Negroes, folder 77, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58–59, MdTCH. among contending heirs, is an important incident in slave life. The character and tendencies of the heirs, are generally well understood among the slaves who are to be divided, and all have their aversions and preferences. But, neither their aversions nor their preferences avail them anything.
On the death of old master, I was immediately sent for, to be valued and divided with the other property. Personally, my concern was, mainly, about my possible removal from the home of Master Hugh, which, after that of my grandmother, was the most endeared to me. But, the whole thing, as a feature of slavery, shocked me. It furnished me a new insight into the unnatural power to which I was subjected. My detestation of slavery, already great, rose with this new conception of its enormity.
That was a sad day for me, a sad day for little Tommy, and a sad day for
my dear Baltimore mistress and teacher, when I left for the Eastern Shore, to be valued and divided. We, all three, wept bitterly that day; for we might be parting, and we feared we were parting, forever. No one could tell among which pile of chattels I should be flung. Thus early, I got a foretaste of that painful uncertainty which slavery brings to the ordinary lot of mortals. Sickness, adversity and death may interfere with the plans and purposes of all; but the slave has the added danger of changing homes, changing hands, and of having separations unknown to other men. Then, too, there was the intensified degradation of the spectacle. What an assemblage! Men and women, young and old, married and single; moral and intellectual beings, in open contempt of their humanity, leveled at a blow with horses, sheep, horned cattle and swine! Horses and men—cattle and women—pigs and children—all holding the same rank in the scale of social existence; and all subjected to the same narrow inspection, to ascertain their value in gold and silver—the only standard of worth applied by slaveholders to slaves! How vividly, at that moment, did the brutalizing power of slavery flash before me! Personality swallowed up in the sordid idea of property! Manhood lost in chattelhood!
After the valuation, then came the division. This was an hour of high excitement and distressing anxiety. Our destiny was now to be , and we had no more voice in the decision of the question, than the oxen and cows that stood chewing at the hay-mow.†A stack of hay, or a hay-shed or barn, or the compartment of a barn in which hay is stored. One word from the appraisers, against all preferences or prayers, was enough to sunder all the ties of friendship and affection, and even to separate husbands and wives, parents and children. We were all appalled before that power, which, to human seeming, could bless or blast us in a moment. Added to the dread of separation, most painful to the majority of the slaves, we all had a decided horror of the thought of falling into the hands of Master Andrew. He was distinguished for cruelty and intemperance.
Slaves generally dread to fall into the hands of drunken owners. Master Andrew was almost a confirmed sot, and had already, by his reckless mismanagement and profligate dissipation, wasted a large portion of old master's property. To fall into his hands, was, therefore, considered merely as the first step toward being sold away to the far south. He could spend his fortune in a few years, and his farms and slaves would be sold, we thought, at public outcry; and we should be hurried away to the cotton fields, and rice swamps, of the sunny south. This was the cause of deep consternation.
The people of the north, and free people generally, I think, have less
attachment to the places where they are born and brought up, than have the slaves. Their freedom to go and come, to be here and there, as they list, prevents any extravagant attachment to any one particular place, in their case. On the other hand, the slave is a fixture; he has no choice, no goal, no destination; but is pegged down to a single spot, and must take root here, or nowhere. The idea of removal elsewhere, comes, generally, in the shape of a threat, and in punishment of crime. It is, therefore, attended with fear and dread. A slave seldom thinks of bettering his condition by being sold, and hence he looks upon separation from his native place, with none of the enthusiasm which animates the bosoms of young freemen, when they contemplate a life in the far west, or in some distant country where they intend to rise to wealth and distinction. Nor can those from whom they separate, give them up with that cheerfulness with which friends and relations yield each other up, when they feel that it is for the good of the departing one that he is removed from his native place. Then, too, there is correspondence, and there is, at least, the hope of reunion, because reunion is . But, with the slave, all these mitigating circumstances are wanting. There is no improvement in his condition —no correspondence —no reunion attainable. His going out into the world, is like a living man going into the tomb, who, with open eyes, sees himself buried out of sight and hearing of wife, children and friends of kindred tie.
In contemplating the likelihoods and possibilities of our circumstances, I probably suffered more than most of my fellow servants. I had known what it was to experience kind, and even tender treatment; they had known nothing of the sort. Life, to them, had heen rough and thorny, as well as dark. They had—most of them—lived on my old master's farm in Tuckahoe, and had felt the reign of Mr. Plummer's rule. The overseer had written his character on the living parchment of most of their backs, and left them callous; my back (thanks to my early removal from the plantation to Baltimore,) was yet tender. I had left a kind mistress at Baltimore, who was almost a mother to me. She was in tears when we parted, and the probabilities of ever seeing her again, trembling in the balance as they did, could not be viewed without alarm and agony. The thought of leaving that kind mistress forever, and, worse still, of being the slave of Andrew Anthony—a man who, but a few days before the division of the property, had, in my presence, seized my brother Perry by the throat, dashed him on the ground, and with the heel of his boot stamped him on the head, until the blood gushed from his nose and ears—was terrible! This fiendish proceeding had
no better apology than the fact, that Perry had gone to play, when Master Andrew wanted him for some trifling service. This cruelty, too, was of a piece with his general character. After inflicting his heavy blows on my brother, on observing me looking at him with intense astonishment, he said, " is the way I will serve you, one of these days;" meaning, no doubt, when I should come into his possession. This threat, the reader may well suppose, was not very tranquilizing to my feelings. I could see that he really thirsted to get hold of me. But I was there only for a few days. I had not received any orders, and had violated none, and there was, therefore, no excuse for flogging me.
At last, the anxiety and suspense were ended; and they ended, thanks to a kind Providence, in accordance with my wishes. I fell to the portion of Mrs. Lucretia—the dear lady who bound up my head, when the savage Aunt Katy was adding to my sufferings her bitterest maledictions. Capt. Thomas Auld and Mrs. Lucretia at once decided on my return to Baltimore. They knew how sincerely and warmly Mrs. Hugh Auld was attached to me, and how delighted Mr. Hugh's son would be to have me back; and, withal, having no immediate use for one so young, they willingly let me off to Baltimore.
I need not stop here to narrate my joy on returning to Baltimore, nor that of little Tommy; nor the tearful joy of his mother; nor the evident satisfaction of Master Hugh. I was just one month absent from Baltimore, before the matter was decided; and the time really seemed full six months.
One trouble over, and on comes another. The slave's life is full of uncertainty. I had returned to Baltimore but a short time, when the tidings reached me, that my kind friend, Mrs. Lucretia. who was only second in my regard to Mrs. Hugh Auld, was dead, leaving her husband and only one child—a daughter. named Amanda.†Born in Hillsborough, Maryland, Arianna Amanda Auld Sears (1826–78) was the only child of Thomas and Lucretia Anthony Auld. With her mother's death in 1826 and her father's subsequent remarriage, she fell under the charge of her stepmother, Rowena Hambleton Auld. In 1843 she married John L. Sears, a Philadelphia coal merchant, with whom she bore four children. The Searses moved to Philadelphia but returned to Maryland in the early 1860s, settling in Baltimore. Auld's childhood acquaintance with Frederick Douglass was reestablished in 1859 when he called upon her while on a speaking engagement in Philadelphia. Douglass and Auld maintained a warm friendship over the years that followed; after her death in 1878, Auld's husband John wrote to Douglass, "God bless, you for your kindness to her." Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Carl G. Auld); New York Herald, 6 September 1866; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September 1866; John L. Sears to Douglass, 10 January 1878, Thomas E. Sears to Douglass, 1 Februrary 1878, General Correspondence File, reel 3, frames 215–16, 225, FD Paper, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 30, 106–07, 168–70; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 297, 306; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 245.
Shortly after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, strange to say, Master Andrew died, leaving his wife and one child. Thus, the whole family of Anthonys was swept away; only two children remained. All this happened within five years of my leaving Col. Lloyd's.
No alteration took place in the condition of the slaves, in consequence of these deaths, yet I could not help feeling less secure. after the death of my friend, Mrs. Lucretia, than I had done during her life. While she lived, I felt that I had a strong friend to plead for me in any emergency. Ten years ago, while speaking of the state of things in our family, after the events just named, I used this language:
"Now all the property of my old master, slaves included, was in the hands of strangers—strangers who had nothing to do in accumulating it. Not a slave was left free. All remained slaves, from the youngest to the oldest. If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother. She had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a greatgrandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood. served him through life. and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat. and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. And, to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing ovr her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer in utter loneliness; she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of children, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-grandchildren. They are, in the language of the slave's poet, Whittier—
Gone, gone, sold and gone,
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings,
Where the noisome insect stings,
Where the fever-demon strews
Poison with the falling dews,
Where the sickly sunbeams glare
Through the hot and misty air:—
Gone, gone, sold and gone
To the rice swamp dank and lone,
From Virginia hills and waters—
Woe is me, my stolen daughters!'†First stanza of the 1838 poem "The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to Her Daughter Sold into Southern Bondage," by John Greenleaf Whittier, is part of his collection of anti-slavery poetry. John G. Whittier, The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, 4 vols, (Boston, 1892), 3:56.
"The hearth is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who once sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together—at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise toward a declining parent—my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers."†Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:39–41.
Two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Thomas married his second wife. Her name was Rowena Hamilton.†Rowena Hambleton Auld (1812–42) was the eldest daughter of William Hambleton, a wealthy slave owner in Martingham, Maryland. She became the second wife of Thomas Auld on 21 May 1829. Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Carl G. Auld); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 106–07; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 245. the eldest daughter of Mr. William Hamilton,†William Hambleton (c.1783–1855), not Hamilton, was descended from an old Eastern Shore family and lived at Martingham, a Talbot County plantation. He was the father of Rowena Hambleton Auld and the brother of "Purser" Samuel Hambleton, who had won national fame as a hero at the Battle of Lake Erie. In 1850 Hambleton possessed real estate valued at ten thousand dollars and owned ten slaves. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 1016 (free schedule), 32 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 108–09, 130. a rich slaveholder on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, who lived about five miles from St. Michael's. the then place of my master' s residence.
Not long after his marriage, Master Thomas had a misunderstanding with Master Hugh, and, as a means of punishing his brother, he ordered him to send me home.
As the ground of misunderstanding will serve to illustrate the character of southern chivalry, and humanity, I will relate it.
Among the children of my Aunt Milly, was a daughter, named Henny. When quite a child, Henny had fallen into the fire, and had burnt her hands so bad that they were of very little use to her. Her fingers were drawn almost into the palms of her hands. She could make out to do something, but she was considered hardly worth the having—of little more value than a horse with a broken leg. This unprofitable piece of human property, ill shapen, and disfigured, Capt. Auld sent off to Baltimore, making his brother Hugh welcome to her services.
After giving poor Henny a fair trial, Master Hugh and his wife came to the conclusion, that they had no use for the crippled servant, and they sent her back to Master Thomas. This, the latter took as an act of ingratitude, on the part of his brother; and, as a mark of his displeasure, he required him to
send me immediately to St. Michael's, saying, if he cannot keep "," he shall not have "."
Here was another shock to my nerves, another breaking up of my plans, and another severance of my religious and social alliances. I was now a big boy. I had become quite useful to several young colored men, who had made me their teacher. I had taught some of them to read, and was accustomed to spend many of my leisure hours with them. Our attachment was strong, and I greatly dreaded the separation. But regrets, especially in a slave, are unavailing. I was only a slave; my wishes were nothing, and my happiness was the sport of my masters.
My regrets at now leaving Baltimore, were not for the same reasons as when I before left that city, to be valued and handed over to my proper owner. My home was not now the pleasant place it had formerly been. A change had taken place, both in Master Hugh, and in his once pious and affectionate wife. The influence of brandy and bad company on him, and the influence of slavery and social isolation upon her, had wrought disastrously upon the characters of both. Thomas was no longer "little Tommy," but was a big boy, and had learned to assume the airs of his class toward me. My condition, therefore, in the house of Master Hugh, was not, by any means, so comfortahle as in former years. My attachments were now outside of our family. They were felt to those to whom I instruction, and to those little white hoys from whom I instruction. There, too. was my dear old father, the pious Lawson, who was, in christian graces, the very counterpart of "Uncle" Tom.†An allusion to the humble, pious, long-suffering title character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's antislavery novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Mitford M. Mathews, ed., A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1951), 2:1794. The resemblance is so perfect, that he might have been the original of Mrs. Stowe's christian hero. The thought of leaving these dear friends, greatly troubled me, for I was going without the hope of ever returning to Baltimore again; the feud between Master Hugh and his hrother being bitter and irreconcilable, or, at least, supposed to be so.
In addition to thoughts of friends from whom I was parting, as I supposed, , I had the grief of neglected chances of escape to brood over. I had put off running away, until now I was to be placed where the opportunities for escaping were much fewer than in a large city like Baltimore.
On my way from Baltimore to St. Michael's, down the Chesapeake bay, our sloop--the Amanda†This sloop was owned by the Auld family and used to carry goods between St. Michaels and Baltimore. Named for Thomas Auld's daughter Amanda Auld Sears, the sloop was piloted by Captain Ed Dodson. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 105.--was passed by the steamers plying between that city and Philadelphia, and I watched the course of those steamers, and, while going to St. Michael's, I formed a plan to escape from slavery; of which plan, and matters connected therewith the kind reader shall learn more hereafter.
CHAPTER XIV.
EXPERIENCE IN ST. MICHAEL'S.
THE VILLAGE—ITS INHABITANTS—THEIR OCCUPATION AND LOW PROPENSITIES—CAPTAIN THOMAS AULD—HIS CHARACTER—HIS SECOND WIFE, ROWENA—WELL MATCHED—SUFFERINGS FROM HUNGER—OBLIGED TO TAKE FOOD—MODE OF ARGUMENT IN VINDICATION THEREOF—NO MORAL CODE OF FREE SOCIETY CAN APPLY TO SLAVE SOCIETY—SOUTHERN CAMP MEETING—WHAT MASTER THOMAS DID THERE—HOPES—SUSPICIONS ABOUT HIS CONVERSATION—THE RESULT—FAITH AND WORKS ENTIRELY AT VARIANCE—HIS RISE AND PROGRESS IN THE CHURCH—POOR COUSIN "HENNY"—HIS TREATMENT OF HER—THE METHODIST PREACHER—THEIR UTTER DISREGARD OF US—ONE EXCELLENT EXCEPTION—REV. GEORGE COOKMAN—SABBATH SCHOOL—HOW BROKEN UP AND BY WHOM—A FUNERAL PALL CAST OVER ALL MY PROSPECTS—COVEY THE NEGRO-BREAKER.
ST. MICHAEL'S, the village in which was now my new home, compared favorably with villages in slave states, generally. There were a few comfortable dwellings in it, but the place, as a whole, wore a dull, slovenly, enterprise-forsaken aspect. The mass of the buildings were of wood; they had never enjoyed the artificial adornment of paint, and time and storms had worn off the bright color of the wood, leaving them almost as black as buildings charred by a conflagration.
St. Michael's had, in former years, (previous to 1833, for that was the year I went to reside there,) enjoyed some reputation as a ship building community, but that business had almost entirely given place to oyster fishing, for the Baltimore and Philadelphia markets—a course of life highly unfavorable to morals, industry, and manners. Miles river was broad, and its oyster fishing grounds were extensive; and the fishermen were out, often, all day, and a part of the night, during autumn, winter and spring. This exposure was an excuse for carrying with them, in considerable quantities, spirituous liquors, the then supposed best antidote for cold. Each canoe was supplied with its jug of rum; and tippling, among this class of the citizens of St. Michael's, became general. This drinking habit, in an ignorant population, fostered coarseness, vulgarity and an indolent disregard for the social improvement of the place, so that it was admitted, by the few sober, thinking people who remained there, that St. Michael's had become a very , as well as an unsightly place, before I went there to reside.
I left Baltimore, for St. Michael's in the month of March,1833. I know the year, because it was the one succeeding the first cholera in Baltimore.†The first known widespread incidence of cholera in Baltimore occurred in the summer of 1832. J. Thomas Scharf, The Chronicles of Baltimore: Being a Complete History of "Baltimore Town" and Baltimore City from the Earliest Period to the Present Time (Baltimore, 1874), 460; Olson, Baltimore, 92.
and was the year, also, of that strange phenomenon, when the heavens seemed about to part with its starry train.† The "year the stars fell'' was an encounter with the Leonid asteroid belt that happens every year, periodically in spectacular fashion. In 1833 the sky over the Deep South states was the site of the greatest activity. In an era without artificial light, the phenomenon woke people up at night, so frequent were the showers of falling stars. Many people thought it was the Last Judgment and reportedly walked into rivers to be taken across. Joe Rao, "The Return of the Leonid Meteors," Sky & Telescope, 96: 4–5 (November 1998); Nicholas Hamner Cobbs, "The Night the Stars Fell on Alabama," Alabama Review, 22:147–57 (April 1969); Mary L. Kwas, "The Spectacular 1833 Leonid Meteor Storm: The View from Arkansas," Arkansas Histori
cal Quarterly, 58:314–24 (autumn 1999). I witnessed this gorgeous spectacle, and was awe-struck. The air seemed filled with bright, descending messengers from the sky. It was about daybreak when I saw this sublime scene. I was not without the suggestion, at the moment, that it might be the harbinger of the coming of the Son of Man; and, in my then state of mind, I was prepared to hail Him as my friend and deliverer. I had read, that the "stars shall fall from heaven;"†From Matt. 24:29: "Immediately after the tribulation of those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens shall be shaken." and they were now falling. I was suffering much in my mind. It did seem that every time the young tendrils of my affection became attached, they were rudely broken by some unnatural outside power; and I was beginning to look away to heaven for the rest denied me on earth.
But, to my story. It was now more than seven years since I had lived with Master Thomas Auld, in the family of my old master, on Col. Lloyd's plantation. We were almost entire strangers to each other; for, when I knew him at the house of my old master, it was not as a , but simply as "Captain Auld," who had married old master's daughter. All my lessons concerning his temper and disposition, and the best methods of pleasing him, were yet to be learnt. Slaveholders, however, are not very ceremonious in approaching a slave; and my ignorance of the new material in the shape of a master was but transient. Nor was my new mistress long in making known her animus. She was not a "Miss Lucretia," traces of whom I yet remembered, and the more especially, as I saw them shining in the face of little Amanda, her daughter, now living under a step-mother's government. I had not forgollen the soft hand, guided hy a tender heart, that bound up with healing balsam the gash made in my head by Ike, the son of Abel. Thomas and Rowena, I found to he a well-matched pair. was stingy, and was cruel; and—what was quite natural in such cases—she possessed the ability to make him as cruel as herself, while she could easily descend to the level of his meanness. In the house of Master Thomas, I was made—for the first time in seven years—to feel the pinchings of hunger, and this was not very easy to bear.
For, in all the changes of Master Hugh's family. there was no change in the bountifulness with which they supplied me with food. Not to give a slave enough to eat, is meanness intensified, and it is so recognized among slaveholders generally, in Maryland. The rule is, no matter how coarse the food, only let there he enough of it. This is the theory, and—in the part of Maryland I came from—the general practice accords with this theory. Lloyd's plantation was an exception, as was, also, the house of Master Thomas Auld.
All know the lightness of Indian corn-meal, as an article of food, and can easily judge from the following facts whether the statements I have made of the stinginess of Master Thomas, are borne out. There were four slaves of us in the kitchen, and four whites in the great house—Thomas Auld, Mrs. Auld, Hadaway Auld,†Haddaway Auld (1813– ?) was the eighth son of Hugh and Zipporah Auld and the brother of Thomas. Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Dickson J. Preston). (brother of Thomas Auld,) and little Amanda. The names of the slaves in the kitchen, were Eliza, my sister; Priscilla, my aunt; Henny, my cousin; and myself. There were eight persons in the family. There was, each week, one half bushel of corn-meal brought from the mill; and in the kitchen, corn-meal was almost our exclusive food. for very little else was allowed us. Out of this half bushel of corn-meal, the family in the great house had a small loaf every morning; thus leaving us, in the kitchen, with not quite a half a peck of meal per week, apiece.†A peck is equal to one-fourth of a bushel, or two gallons. The ration allowed Douglass and the others enslaved by the Auld family was only one gallon, or one-eighth bushel, of cornmeal per week. This allowance was less than half the allowance of food on Lloyd's plantation. It was not enough to subsist upon; and we were, therefore, reduced to the wretched necessity of living at the expense of our neighbors. We were compelled either to beg, or to steal, and we did both. I frankly confess, that while I hated everything like stealing, , I nevertheless did not hesitate to take food, when I was hungry, wherever I could find it. Nor was this practice the mere result of an unreasoning instinct; it was, in my case, the result of a clear apprehension of the claims of morality. I weighed and considered the matter closely, before I ventured to satisfy my hunger by such means. Considering that my labor and person were the property of Master Thomas, and that I was by him deprived of the necessaries of life—necessaries obtained by my own labor—it was easy to deduce the right to supply myself with what was my own. It was simply appropriating what was my own to the use of my master, since the health and strength derived from such food were exerted in service. To be sure, this was stealing, according to the law and gospel I heard from St. Michael's pulpit; but I had already begun to attach less importance to what dropped from that quarter, on that point, while, as yet. I retained my reverence for religion. It was not always convenient to steal from master, and the same reason why I might, innocently, steal from him, did not seem to justify me in stealing from others. In the case of my master, it was only a question of —the taking his meat out of one tub, and putting it into another; the ownership of the meat was not affected by the transaction. At first, he owned it in the , and last, he owned it in me. His meat house was not always open. There was a strict watch kept on that point, and the key was on a large bunch in Rowena's pocket. A great many times have we, poor creatures, been severely pinched with hunger, when meat and bread have been moulding under the lock.
while the key was in the pocket of our mistress. This had been so when she we were nearly half starved; and yet, that mistress, with saintly air, would kneel with her husband, and pray each morning that a merciful God would bless them in basket and in store, and save them, at last, in his kingdom. But I proceed with the argument.
It was necessary that the right to steal from should be established; and this could only rest upon a wider range of generalization than that which supposed the right to steal from my master.
It was sometime before I arrived at this clear right. The reader will get some idea of my train of reasoning, by a brief statement of the case. "I am," thought I, "not only the slave of Master Thomas, but I am the slave of society at large. Society at large has bound itself, in form and in fact, to assist Master Thomas in robbing me of my rightful liberty, and of the just reward of my labor; therefore, whatever rights I have against Master Thomas, I have, equally, against those confederated with him in robbing me of liberty. As society has marked me out as privileged plunder, on the principle of self-preservation I am justified in plundering in turn. Since each slave belongs to all; all must, therefore, belong to each."
I shall here make a profession of faith which may shock some, offend others, and be dissented from by all. It is this: Within the bounds of his just earning, I hold that the slave is fully justified in helping himself to the.
The morality of society can have no application to society. Slaveholders have made it almost impossible for the slave to commit any crime, known either to the laws of God or to the law's of man. If he steals, he takes his own; if he kills his master, he imitates only the heroes of the revolution. Slaveholders I hold to be individually and collectively responsible for all the evils which grow out of the horrid relation, and I believe they will be so held at the judgment, in the sight of a just God. Make a man a slave, and you rob him of moral responsibility. Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability. But my kind readers are, probably, less concerned about my opinions. than about that which more nearly touches my personal experience; albeit, my opinions have in some sort, been formed by that experience.
Bad as slaveholders are, I have seldom met with one so entirely destitute of every clement of character capable of inspiring respect, as was my present master, Capt. Thomas Auld.
When I lived with him. I thought him incapable†Emendation note: incapable] incapahle of a noble action. The
leading trait in his character was intense selfishness. I think he was fully aware of this fact himself, and often tried to conceal it. Capt. Auld was not a slaveholder—not a birthright member of the slaveholding oligarchy. He was only a slaveholder by ;†The division of Aaron Anthony's estate in September 1827 transferred ten slaves, including an infant valued at $935, directly to Thomas Auld. There is no indication that these were held in trust for Lucretia Anthony Auld, but under nineteenth-century law a wife's property legally belonged to her husband. Aaron Anthony, Distribution of Negroes, folder 77, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Auguste Carlier, Marriage in the United States (1867; New York, 1972), 191; Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience (New York, 1984), 56–58; Elizabeth Frost-Knappman, The ABC-CLIO Companion to Women's Progress in America (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1994), 189–91. and, of all slaveholders, these latter are, by far, the most exacting. There was in him all the love of domination, the pride of mastery, and the swagger of authority, but his rule lacked the vital element of consistency. He could be cruel; but his methods of showing it were cowardly, and evinced his meanness rather than his spirit. His commands were strong, his enforcement weak.
Slaves are not insensible to the whole-souled characteristics of a generous, dashing slaveholder, who is fearless of consequences; and they prefer a master of this bold and daring kind—even with the risk of being shot down for impudence—to the fretful, little soul, who never uses the lash but at the suggestion of a love of gain.
Slaves, too, readily distinguish between the birthright hearing of the original slaveholder and the assumed attitudes of the accidental slaveholder; and while they cannot respect either, they certainly despise the latter more than the former.
The luxury of having slaves wait upon him was something new to Master Thomas; and for it he was wholly unprepared. He was a slaveholdcr, without the ability to hold or manage his slaves. We seldom called him "master," but generally addressed him by his '"bay craft" title—"." It is easy to see that such conduct might do much to make him appear awkward, and, consequently, fretful. His wife was especially solicitous to have us call her husband "master." Is your r at the store?"—"Where is your "—''Go and tell your "—"I will make your acquainted with your conduct"—she would say; but we were inapt scholars. Especially were I and my sister Eliza inapt in this particular. Aunt Priscilla was less stubborn and defiant in her spirit than Eliza and myself; and, I think, her road was less rough than ours.
In the month of August, 1833, when I had almost become desperate under the treatment of Master Thomas, and when I entertained more strongly than ever the oft-repeated determination to run away, a circumstance occurred which seemed to promise brighter and better days for us all. At a Methodist camp-meeting, held in the Bay Side,†The Bay-side in Talbot County, Maryland, is believed to have been a center of Methodism for the area, beginning about 1777. In that year, itinerant minister Joseph Cromwell preached at Wye, St. Michaels, and Bayside. The Methodist circuit riders were not permitted to use the worship facilities of existing denominations and often held "camp meetings" out of doors. In Talbot County these meetings were first held in Bayside on a farm near St. Michaels. The Bayside meeting attended by Thomas Auld occurred on 16 August 1833. Following that date, Auld's name appears somewhat regularly as a member of various committees in the minutes of the quarterly meetings held for St. Michaels Methodist Circuit. Thomas H. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism" (manuscript, Annapolis, 1894), 551, 561, 562, MdAA; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:302–05, 307. (a famous place for camp meetings,) about eight miles from St. Michael's, Master Thomas came out with a profession of religion. He had long been an object of interest to the church, and to the ministers, as I had seen by the repeated visits and lengthy exhortations of the latter. He was a fish quite worth catching, for he had
money and standing. In the community of St. Michael's he was equal to the best citizen. He was strictly temperate; perhaps, from principle, but most likely, from interest. There was very little to do for him, to give him the appearance of piety, and to make him a pillar in the church. Well, the campmeeting continued a week; people gathered from all parts of the county, and two steamboat loads came from Baltimore. The ground was happily chosen; seats were arranged; a stand erected; a rude altar fenced in, fronting the preachers' stand, with straw in it for the accommodation of mourners. This latter would hold at least one hundred persons. In front, and on the sides of the preachers' stand, and outside the long rows of seats, rose the first class of stately tents, each vieing with the other in strength, neatness, and capacity for accommodating its inmates. Behind this first circle of tents was another, less imposing, which reached round the camp-ground to the speakers' stand. Outside this second class of tents were covered wagons, ox carts, and vehicles of every shape and size. These served as tents to their owners. Outside of these, huge fires were burning, in all directions, where roasting, boiling, and frying, were going on, for the benefit of those who were attending to their own spiritual welfare within the circle. the preachers' stand, a narrow space was marked out for the use of the colored people. There were no seats provided for this class of persons; the preachers addressed them, "," if they addressed them at all. After the preaching was over, at every service, an invitation was given to mourners to come into the pen; and, in some cases, ministers went out to persuade men and women to come in. By one of these ministers, Master Thomas Auld was persuaded to go inside the pen. I was deeply interested in that matter, and followed; and, though colored people were not allowed either in the pen or in front of the preachers' stand, I ventured to take my stand at a sort of halfway place hetween the blacks and whites, where I could distinctly see the movements of mourners, and especially the progress of Master Thomas.
"lf he has got religion," thought I, "he will emancipate his slaves; and if he should not do so much as this, he will, at any rate, behave toward us more kindly, and feed us more generously than he has heretofore done." Appealing to my own religious experience, and judging my master by what was true in my own case, I could not regard him as soundly converted, unless some such good results followed his profession of religion.
But in my expectations I was doubly disappointed; Master Thomas was still. The fruits of his righteousness were to show themselves in no such way as I had anticipated. His conversion was not to change his relation toward men—at any rate not toward BLACK men—
but toward God. My faith, I confess, was not great. There was something in his appearance that, in my mind, cast a doubt over his conversion.†Emendation note: coversion Standing where I did, I could see his every movement. I watched very narrowly while he remained in the little pen; and although I saw that his face was extremely red, and his hair disheveled, and though I heard him groan, and saw a stray tear halting on his cheek, as if inquiring "which way shall I go?"—I could not wholly confide in the genuineness of his conversion. The hesitating behavior of that tear-drop and its loneliness, distressed me, and cast a doubt upon the whole transaction, of which it was a part. But people said. "," and it was for me to hope for the best. I was bound to do this, in charity, for I, too, was religious, and had been in the church full three years, although now I was not more than sixteen years old. Slaveholders may, sometimes, have confidence in the piety of some of their slaves; but the slaves seldom have confidence in the piety of their masters. "."†Douglass adapts Jer. 2:34: "Also in thy skirts is found the souls of the poor innocents." is a settled point in the creed of every slave; rising superior to all teaching to the contrary, and standing forever as a fixed fact. The highest evidence the slaveholder can give the slave of his acceptance with God, is the emancipation of his slaves. This is proof that he is willing to give up all to God, and for the sake of God. Not to do this, was, in my estimation, and in the opinion of all the slaves, an evidence of half-heartedness, and wholly inconsistent with the idea of genuine conversion. I had read, also, somewhere in the Methodist Discipline, the following question and answer:
". What shall he done for the extirpation of slavery?
": We declare that we are as much as ever convinced of the great evil of slavery; therefore, no slaveholder shall be eligible to any official station in our church."†Douglass quotes the written statement on the ineligibility of slaveholders for church membership guiding the clergy of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The document, often referred to as the "Methodist Discipline," was titled The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1832), 191–92.
These words sounded in my ears for a long time, and encouraged me to hope. But, as I have before said, I was doomed to disappointment. Master Thomas seemed to be aware of my hopes and expectations concerning him. I have thought, before now, that he looked at me in answer to my glances, as much as to say, "I will teach you, young man, that. though 1 have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go to heaven too."
Possibly, to convince us that we must not presume upon his recent conversion, he became rather more rigid and stringent in his exactions. There always was a scarcity of good nature about the man; but now his whole countenance was s over with the seemings of piety. His
religion, therefore, neither made him emancipate his slaves, nor caused him to treat them with greater humanity. If religion had any effect on his character at all, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways. The natural wickedness of his heart had not been removed, but only reenforced, by the profession of religion. Do I judge him harshly? God forbid. Facts are facts. Capt. Auld made the greatest profession of piety. His house was, literally, a house of prayer. In the morning, and in the evening, loud prayers and hymns were heard there, in which both himself and his wife joined; yet, no more meal was brought from the mill, was paid to the moral welfare of the kitchen; and nothing was done to make us feel that the heart of Master Thomas was one whit better than it was before he went into the little pen, opposite to the preachers' stand, on the camp ground.
Our hopes (founded on the discipline) soon vanished; for the authorities let him into the church , and before he was out of his term of , l heard of his leading class! He distinguished himself greatly among the brethren, and was soon an exhorter.† Thomas Auld first appears in the records of the St. Michaels Methodist Circuit following the August 1833 camp meeting held at Bayside. Auld served on several committees for the circuit, including a planning committee for an 1836 camp meeting, but the circuit records do not show him as an exhorter or class leader. He may have served in those capacities, however, because in August 1836 he was listed as a steward, which was above both class leader and exhorter in the circuit hierarchy. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 564. His progress was almost as rapid as the growth of the fabled vine of Jack's bean.†An allusion to the nursery tale featuring Jack and the beanstalk, popular among many peoples in varying forms. In the English version, Jack exchanges his poor mother's cow for a handful of beans that miraculously produce stalks reaching the sky. Jack climbs up them and steals treasures from the ogre's castle—a bag of gold, a wonderful lamp, and a hen that lays golden eggs, thus redeeming his family from poverty. Brewer, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, 566. No man was more active than he, in revivals. He would go many miles to assist in carrying them on, and in getting outsiders interested in religion. His house being one of the holiest, if not the happiest in St. Michael 's, became the '"preachers' home." These preachers evidcntly liked to share Master Thomas's hospitality; for while he us, he them. Three or four of these ambassadors of the gospel--according to slavery--have been there at a time; all living on the fat of the land; while we, in the kitchen, were nearly starving. Not often did we get a smile of recognition from these holy men. They seemed almost as unconcerned about our getting to heaven, as they were about our getting out of slavery. To this general charge there was one exception—the Rev. GEORGE COOKMAN.†Born into a wealthy family in Hull, England. George Cookman (1800–41) received a careful education and began working in his father's merchant firm by the age of twenty. From 1821 to 1823 he visited the United States on business and during this sojourn became convinced of his duty to preach the gospel. Despite his father's protestations, he resolved to settle permanently in America and become a Methodist minister. Soon after migrating in 1825, Cookman became a popular figure in the Methodists' Philadelphia Conference, preaching throughout parts of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Maryland, and the District of Columhia. His powerful sermons won him the position of chaplain to the U.S. Congress. As revivals were sweeping the Eastern Shore, Cookman became the minister of the St. Michaels Methodist Episcopal church in the summer of 1829 and labored to hold it in the denomination. He remained in that position at least through the early 1830s. By 1830 Cookman was married and had two young sons. He had some antislavery leanings and apparently persuaded Samuel Harrison, one of Talbot County's largest slaveholders, to emancipate all his adult male slaves after his death. In March 1841 President William Henry Harrison entrusted Cookman with special dispatches to be delivered to England. Unfortunately, the President was lost at sea and Cookman was among the one hundred passengers who perished. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6: Matthew Simpson, ed., Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 5th rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 1882), 255–56; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 114–15, 226n17; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism,'' 665–67, 675–78, 680, 707; ACAB, 1:722. Unlike Rev. Messrs. Storks,†The Reverend Levi Storks was the circuit preacher of the Talbot Circuit of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832 and 1833. When the British invaded the Eastern Shore in 1814, Storks served as a private in a local regiment. In 1820 he was probably an overseer in Talbot County, and in 1834 he married Anne G. Nicholson. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6; William M. Marine, The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812–1815, ed. Louis Henry Dielamn (Baltimore, 1913), 451; Edith G. Bevan, "Maryland Bookplates," MdHM, 39: 93–94 (March 1944); Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 717, 723. Ewry,*In 1832 William Uriey (c. 1810–80) was a circuit preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church's Talbot Circuit, which includcd St. Michaels Parish. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 717. Hickey,*William—or possibly Thomas—Hickey was a Methodist preacher who in the 1830s rode a circuit that included St. Michaels Parish. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 723; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 114, 226n16. Humphrey†Joshua Humphries (c. 1801–79) entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry in 1829 and soon became a prominent member of that faith in Talbot County. In 1834 he was the presiding elder and circuit preacher for the Talbot Circuit. Humphries continued in charge in the Talbot Circuit in 1835, when he issued an important report on the state of Sunday schools. James M. McCarter and Benjamin F. Jackson, eds., Historical and Biographical Encyclopedia of Delaware (Wilmington, Del., 1882), 410; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 675, 730. and Cooper,†Ignatius Taylor Cooper (1806–?) was born in Dover, Delaware, and attended school there and later Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland. Admitted to the bar in 1828, he began a promising career in Dover in law and politics. But Cooper converted to Methodism during revivals sweeping the area in 1831 and by 1834 abandoned his profession in order to devote himself fully to preaching the gospel. His first circuit appointment was in Talbot County, and his colleague was the Rev. Joshua Humphries. In 1837 he was assigned to Philadelphia, where he ministered to a number of churches until his retirement in 1860, when he removed to Camden, Delaware. McCarter and Jackson, Historical and Biographical Encyclopaedia of Deleware, 249–51. (all whom were on the St. Michael's circuit,)†The Talbot County Methodist Circuit took in the whole county, including the town of St. Michaels. The circuit was founded in 1781. Because there was not a Methodist church in the vicinity, members met at various private residences and at outdoor camp meetings. A circuit designated at the county level was small, but the Talbot County conference reported 660 members when founded. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 241–43. he kindly, took an interest in our temporal and spiritual welfare. Our souls and our bodies were all alike sacred in his sight; and he really had a good deal of genuine anti-slavery feeling mingled with his colonization ideas. There was not a slave in our neighborhood that did not love, and almost venerate, Mr. Cookman. It was pretty generally believed that he had been chiefly instrumental in bringing one of the largest slaveholders—Mr. Samuel Harrison†Samuel Harrison (?–1837) was one of the wealthiest slaveholders in Talbot County. In 1802 he inherited a lucrative import and export business from his father, Thomas Harrison. He increased his fortune in the 1810s by lending money and supplies to those engaged in the then booming shipbuilding industry of Talbot County, and by 1830 he owned eighty-four slaves. At the request of his friend and confidant, the Reverend George Cookman, Harrison stipulated in his will that all adult male slaves be manumitted upon his death.1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 42; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2: 379, 383, 389–90, 397; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 115, 226n17.—in that neighborhood, to emancipate all his slaves, and, indeed, the general impression was, that Mr. Cookman had labored faithfully with slaveholders, whenever he met them, to induce them to emancipate their bondmen, and that he did this as a religious duty. When this good man was
at our house, we were all sure to be called in to prayers in the morning: and he was not slow in making inquiries as to the state of our minds, nor in giving us a word of exhortation and of encouragement. Great was the sorrow of all the slaves, when this faithful preacher of the gospel was removed from the Talbot county circuit. He was an eloquent preacher, and possessed what few ministers, south of Mason Dixon's line,†Disputes between Pennsylvania and Maryland and Virginia were resolved when English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon determined and marked the precise borders between these colonies in 1763–67. Hubertis M. Cummings, The Mason and Dixon Line: Story for a Bicentenary, 1763–1963 (n.p., 1962). possess, or to show, viz: a warm and philanthropic heart. The Mr. Cookman, of whom I speak. was an Englishman by birth, and perished while on his way to England, on board the ill-fated President.†The British steamship President departed New York on 10 March 1841 bound for Liverpool but never arrived. London Times, 26 March, 3, 5, 12 April 1841; NCAB, 13:167. Could the thousands of slaves in Maryland, know the fate of the good man, to whose words of comfort they were so largely indebted, they would thank me for dropping a tear on this page, in memory of their favorite preacher, friend and benefactor.
But, let me return to Master Thomas, and to my experience, after his conversion. In Baltimore, I could, occasionally, get into a Sabbath school, among the free children, and receive lessons, with the rest; but, having already learned both to read and to write, I was more of a teacher than a pupil, even there. When, however. I went back to the Eastern Shore, and was at the house of Master Thomas, I was neither allowed to teach, nor to be taught. The whole community—with but a single exception, among the whites—frowned upon everything like imparting instruction either to slaves or to free colored persons. That single exception, a pious young man, named Wilson,† Nathan Wilson (c. 1797–c. 1861), an unmarried Quaker about fifty years old, taught at a local school for whites in the early 1840s near Denton in Caroline County, only a few miles from Talbot County. Although Quakerism was no longer the influential religious force on the Eastern Shore that it had been in the eighteenth century, numerous Quakers remained in the region, and some continued to argue against slavery and for teaching the slaves to read the scriptures. This particular teacher could plausibly have been interested in opening a Sabbath school for blacks, as could have any of the other various Quaker Wilsons who populated Talbot and other Eastern Shore counties. Among other local whites interested in black education was Louisa Hambleton from the Eastern Shore's famousfirst family, who unsuccessfully attempted to open a Sabbath school for St. Michaels' slaves in 1843. Robert W. Todd, Methodism of the Peninsula (Philadelphia, 1886), 249–53; Kenneth Carroll, Quakerism on the Eastern Shore (Baltimore, 1970), 219, 245; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 687. asked me, one day, if I would like to assist him in teaching a little Sabbath school, at the house of a free colored man in St. Michael's. named James Mitchell.†James Mitchell (1809/10–?) was a free black sawyer born in Maryland who in 1850 lived in the St. Michaels district of Talbot County with his wife and four children. He was the brother of Peter Mitchell, who married Eliza Bailey, Douglass's sister. James and his brothers rented land from Samuel and John Hambleton. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 100; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 115, 164–65. The idea was to me a delightful one, and I told him I would gladly devote as much of my Sabbaths as I could command, to that most laudable work. Mr. Wilson soon mustered up a dozen old spelling hooks, and a few testaments; and we commenced operations, with some twenty scholars, in our Sunday school. Here, thought I, is something worth living for; here is an excellent chance for usefulness; and I shall soon have a company of young friends, lovers of knowledge, like some of my Baltimore friends, from whom I now felt parted forever.
Our first Sabbath passed delightfully, and I spent the week after very joyously. I could not go to Baltimore, but I could make a little Baltimore here. At our second meeting, I learned that there was some objection to the existence of the Sabbath school; and, sure enough, we had scarcely got at work—, simply teaching a few colored children how to read the gospel of the Son of God—when in rushed a mob, headed by Mr. Wright Fairbanks† Wrightson Fairbank or Fairbanks (c.1806–?) was a resident of Talbot County who in 1850 worked as a merchant and headed a household that included his wife, four children, and two female relatives. He owned neither land nor slaves. Fairbanks was an active member of the Methodist Episcopal Church in St. Michaels and ran unsuccessfully for the hoard of trustees of the parish in September 1835. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 80; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 725. and Mr. Garrison West† Garretson West (1800–53) was famous among Methodists in St. Michaels, Maryland, for his religious enthusiasm and moral zeal. Although he worked first as an oysterman and later as a teamster, West primarily devoted himself to spurring public prayer, exhorting the faithful at the Methodist classes he led, and—despite his illiteracy—conversing at length with others over the meaning of various biblical passages. In 1829 West was elected to the board of trustees of the Methodist church in St. Michaels and held that position until 1836. He also was appointed that church's sexton in 1830 and again in 1836. At the time of his death, West was married, had at least one child, and had accumulated little wealth. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 80; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2: 400-401; Todd, Methodism of the Peninsula, 113–23; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 116; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 672–74, 680–81, 701, 707, 727.—two class-leaders—and Master Thomas: who, armed with sticks and other missiles, drove us off, and commanded us
never to meet for such a purpose again. One of this pious crew told me, that as for my part, I wanted to be another Nat Turner; and if I did not look out, I should get as many balls into me, as Nat did into him. Thus ended the infant Sabbath school, in the town of St. Michael's. The reader will not be surprised when I say, that the breaking up of my Sabbath school, by these class-leaders, and professedly holy men, did not serve to strengthen my religious convictions. The cloud over my St. Michael's home grew heavier and blacker than ever.
It was not merely the agency of Master Thomas, in breaking up and destroying my Sabbath school, that shook my confidence in the power of southern religion to make men wiser or better; but I saw in him all the cruelty and meanness, his conversion, which he had exhibited before he made a profession of religion. His cruelty and meanness were especially displayed in his treatment of my unfortunate cousin, Henny, whose lameness made her a burden to him. I have no extraordinary personal hard usage toward myself to complain of. against him, but I have seen him tie up the lame and maimed woman, and whip her in a manner most brutal, and shocking; and then, with blood-chilling blasphemy, he would quote the passage of scripture. "That servant which knew his lord's will, and prepared not himself, neither did according to his will, shall be beaten with many stripes."†Luke 12:47. Master would keep this lacerated woman tied up by her wrists, to a bolt in the joist, three, four and five hours at a time. He would tie her up early in the morning, whip her with a cowskin before breakfast; leave her tied up; go to his store, and, returning to his dinner, repeat the castigation: laying on the rugged lash, on flesh already made raw by repeated blows. He seemed desirous to get the poor girl out of existence, or, at any rate, off his hands. In proof of this, he afterwards gave her away to his sister Sarah, (Mrs.Cline;)†Sarah Auld Cline (1811–?) was the fifth daughter of Hugh and Zipporah Auld and was the sister of Thomas. Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Dickson Preston). but; as in the case of Master Hugh, Henny was soon returned on his hands. Finally, upon a pretense that he could do nothing with her, (I use his own words,) he "set her adrift, to take care of herself." Here was a recently converted man, holding, with tight grasp, the well-framed, and able bodied slaves left him by old master—the persons, who, in freedom, could have taken care of themselves; yet, turning loose the only cripple among them, virtually to starve and die.
No doubt, had Master Thomas been asked, by some pious northern brother, he continued to sustain the relation of a slaveholder, to those whom he retained, his answer would have been precisely the same as many other religious slaveholders have returned to that inquiry. viz: "I hold my slaves for their own good."
Bad as my condition was when I lived with Master Thomas, I was soon to experience a life far more goading and bitter. The many differences springing up between myself and Master Thomas, owing to the clear perception I had of his character, and the boldness with which I defended myself against his capricious complaints, led him to declare that I was unsuited to his wants; that my city life had affected me perniciously; that, in fact, it had almost ruined me for every good purpose, and had fitted me for everything that was bad. One of my greatest faults, or offenses, was that of letting his horse get away, and go down to the farm belonging to his father-in-law. The animal had a liking for that farm, with which I fully sympathized. Whenever I let it out, it would go dashing down the road to Mr. Hamilton's,†Probably William Hambleton. as if going on a grand frolic. My horse gone, of course I must go after it. The explanation of our mutual attachment to the place is the same; the horse found there good pasturage, and I found there plenty of bread. Mr. Hamilton had his faults, but starving his slaves was not among them. He gave food, in abundance, and that, too, of an excellent quality. In Mr. Hamilton's cook—Aunt Mary—I found a most generous and considerate friend. She never allowed me to go there without giving me bread enough to make good the deficiencies of a day or two. Master Thomas at last resoved to endure my behavior no longer; he could neither keep me, nor his horse, we liked so well to be at his father-in-law's farm. I had now lived with him nearly nine months, and he had given me a numher of severe whippings, without any visible improvement in my character, or my conduct; and now he was resolved to put me out—-as he said—"."
There was, in the Bay Side, very near the camp ground, where my master got his religious impressions, a man named Edward Covey, who enjoyed the execrated reputation, of being a first rate hand at breaking young negroes. This Covey was a poor man, a farm renter; and this reputation, (hateful as it was to the slaves and to all good men,) was, at the same time, of immense advantage to him. It enabled him to get his farm tilled with very little expense, compared with what it would have cost him without this most extraordinary reputation. Some slaveholders thought it an advantage to let Mr. Covey have the government of their slaves a year or two, almost free of charge, for the sake of the excellent training such slaves got under his happy management! Like some horse breakers, noted for their skill, who ride the best horses in the country without expense, Mr. Covey could have under him, the most fiery bloods of the neighborhood, for the simple reward of returning them to their owners, . Added to the natural fitness of Mr. Covey for the duties of his profession, he was said to "enjoy
religion," and was as strict in the cultivation of piety, as he was in the cultivation of his farm. I was made aware of his character by some who had been under his hand; and while I could not look forward to going to him with any pleasure, I was glad to get away from St. Michael's. I was sure of getting enough to eat at Covey's, even if I suffered in other respects. , to a hungry man, is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.
CHAPTER XV
COVEY, THE NEGRO BREAKER.
JOURNEY TO MY NEW MASTER'S—MEDITATIONS BY THE WAY—VIEW OF COVEY'S RESIDENCE—THE FAMILY—THE AUTHOR'S AWKWARDNESS AS A FIELD HAND—A CRUEL BEATING—WHY IT WAS GIVEN—DESCRIPTION OF COVEY—FIRST ADVENTURE AT OX DRIVING—HAIR BREADTH ESCAPES—OX AND MAN ALIKE PROPERLY—COVEY'S MANNER OF PROCEEDING TO WHIP—HARD LABOR BETTER THAN THE WHIP FOR BREAKING DOWN THE SPIRIT—CUNNING AND TRICKERY OF COVEY—FAMILY WORSHIP—SHOCKING CONTEMPT FOR CHASTITY—THE AUTHOR BROKEN DOWN—GREAT MENTAL AGITATION IN CONTRASTING THE FREEEDOM OF THE SHIPS WITH HIS OWN SLAVERY—ANGUISH BEYOND DESCRIPTION.
THE morning of the first of January, 1834, with its chilling wind and pinching frost, quite in harmony with the winter in my own mind, found me, with my little bundle of clothing on the end of a stick, swung across my shoulder, on the main road, bending my way toward Covey's, whither I had been imperiously ordered hy Master Thomas. The latter had been as good as his word, and had committed me, without reservre to the mastery of Mr. Edward Covey. Eight or ten years had now passed since I had been taken from my grandmother's cabin, in Tuckahoe; and these years, for the most part, I had spent in Baltimore, where—as the reader has already seen—I was treated with comparative tenderness. I was now about to sound profounder depths in slave life. The rigors of a field, less tolerable than the field of battle, awaited me. My new master was notorious for his fierce and savage disposition, and my only consolation in going to live with him was, the certainty of finding him precisely as represented by common fame. There was neither joy in my heart, nor elasticity in my step, as I started in search of the tyrant's home. Starvation made me glad to leave Thomas Auld's, and the cruel lash made me dread to go to Covey's. Escape was impossible; so, heavy and sad, I paced the seven miles, which separated Covey's house from St. Michael's—thinking much by the solitary way—averse to my
condition; but was all I could do. Like a fish in a net, allowed to play for a time, I was now drawn rapidly to the shore, secured at all points. "I am," thought I, "but the sport of a power which makes no account, either of my welfare or of my happiness. By a law which I can clearly comprehend, but cannot evade nor resist, I am ruthlessly snatched from the hearth of a fond grandmother, and hurried away to the home of a mysterious 'old master;' again I am removed from there, to a master in Baltimore; thence am I snatched away to the Eastern Shore, to be valued with the beasts of the field, and, with them, divided and set apart for a possessor; then I am sent back to Baltimore; and by the time I have formed new attachments, and have begun to hope that no more rude shocks shall touch me, a difference arises between brothers, and I am again broken up, and sent to St. Michael's; and now, from the latter place, I am footing my way to the home of a new master, where, I am given to understand, that, like a wild young working animal, I am to be broken to the yoke of a bitter and life-long bondage."
With thoughts and reflections like these, I came in sight of a small wood-colored building, about a mile from the main road, which, from the description I had received, at starting, I easily recognized as my new home. The Chesapeake bay—upon the jutting banks of which the little wood-colored house was standing—white with foam, raised by the heavy north-west wind; Poplar Island,†A low, wooded island, about two miles long and one-half mile wide, located in the Chesapeake Bay, off the coast of Talbot County, Maryland. Poplar Island is at the south entrance to the Eastern Bay, seventeen miles west of Easton. Leon E. Seltzer, ed., Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer of the World, rev. ed. (New York, 1962), 1499; Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 3: 2481. covered with a thick, black pine forest, standing out amid this half ocean; and Kent Point,†Actually Kent Island, the largest and most historic of Chesapeake Bay islands. Today the island is the eastern anchor of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 929; Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 2:1534. stretching its sandy, desert-like shores out into the foam-crested bay—were all in sight, and deepened the wild and desolate aspect of my new home.
The good clothes I had brought with me from Baltimore were now worn thin, and had not been replaced; for Master Thomas was as little careful to provide us against cold, as against hunger. Met here by a north wind, sweeping through an open space of forty miles, I was glad to make any port; and, therefore, I speedily pressed on to the little wood-colored house. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Covey;† She is identified later in the text as Susan Covey, but no additional biographical information is available. Bondage and Freedom, 124/218. Miss Kemp,†Elizabeth Doyle Kemp (c.1787–?) probably owned a farm adjacent to the farm that Edward Covey rented from her son, John. Married to the shipbuilder Thomas Kemp in Baltimore in November 1809, Elizabeth moved with him in 1816 to a 236-acre farm, Wades Point, west of the town of St. Michaels in Talbot County. After his death in March 1824, most of his property was divided between his two eldest sons, Thomas and John, but provisions were also made for Elizabeth. In 1830 she was the head of a household that comprised five white males, two white females, six male slaves, and three female slaves. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 38; M. Florence Bourne, "Thomas Kemp, Shipbuilder, and His Home, Wades Point," MdHM, 49:271–89 (December 1954); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 118. (a broken-backed woman,) a sister of Mrs. Covey; William Hughes, cousin to Edward Covey: Caroline, the cook; Bill Smith,†Bill Smith (1804–?) was a slave owned by Samuel Harrison of Rich Neck Manor and hired out as a servant to Edward Covey in 1834. Smith probably received his freedom in 1837, as Samuel Harrison's will stipulated that all adult male slaves should he freed upon his death. Simpson, Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 225; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 119, 122–23, 128, 226n17. a hired man; and myself, Bill Smith, Bill Hughes, and myself, were the working force of the farm, which consisted of three or four hundred acres. I was now, for the first time in my life, to be a field hand; and in my new employment I found myself even more awkward than a green country boy may be supposed to be, upon his first entrance into the bewildering scenes of city life; and my awkwardness gave me much trouble. Strange and unnatural as it may seem, I had been at my
new home but three days, before Mr. Covey, (my brother in the Methodist church,) gave me a bitter foretaste of what was in reserve for me. I presume he thought, that since he had but a single year in which to complete his work, the sooner he began, the better. Perhaps he thought that, by coming to blows at once, we should mutually better understand our relations. But to whatever motive, direct or indirect, the cause may be referred, I had not been in his possession three whole days, before he subjected me to a most brutal chastisement. Under his heavy blows, blood flowed freely, and wales†A streak or ridge raised on the skin by the stroke of a whip. were left on my back as large as my little finger. The sores on my back, from this flogging, continued for weeks, for they were kept open by the rough and coarse cloth which I wore for shirting. The occasion and details of this first chapter of my experience as a field hand, must be told, that the reader may see how unreasonable, as well as how cruel, my new master, Covey, was. The whole thing I found to be characteristic of the man; and I was probably treated no worse by him than scores of lads who had previously been committed to him, for reasons similar to those which induced my master to place me with him. But, here are the facts connected with the affair, precisely as they occurred.
On one of the coldest days of the whole month of January, 1834, I was ordered, at day break, to get a load of wood, from a forest about two miles from the house. In order to perform this work, Mr. Covey gave me a pair of unbroken oxen, for, it seems, his breaking abilities had not been turned in this direction; and I may remark, in passing, that working animals in the south, are seldom so well trained as in the north. In due form, and with all proper ceremony, I was introduced to this huge yoke of unbroken oxen, and was carefully told which was "Buck," and which was "Darby"—which was the "in hand," and which was the "off hand" ox.† In a team of harnessed animals, the in-hand one is directly under control of the driver. The master of this important ceremony was no less a person than Mr. Covey, himself; and the introduction, was the first of the kind I had ever had. My life, hitherto, had led me away from horned cattle,†Oxen or work-cattle. and I had no knowledge of the art of managing them. What was meant by the "in ox," as against the "off ox," when both were equally fastened to one cart, and under one yoke, I could not very easily divine; and the difference, implied by the names, and the peculiar duties of each, were alike to me.†A colloquial expression referring to something unintelligible, popularized by Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, act 1, sc. 2, line 287; Gregory Titelman, Random House Dictionary of Popular Proverbs and Sayings (New York, 1996), 184. Why was not the "off ox'' called the "in ox?" Where and what is the reason for this distinction in names, when there is none in the things themselves? After initiating me into the †Hither" means to call to or toward a place; "woa" to stop. To coax a team of oxen to back up, the command "back" is used; "back" and "gee" used together indicate that the team should turn right and reverse. Harold Merton Chesley, Do It with Oxen (Dora, Mo., 1975), 22–23."—the entire spoken language between oxen and driver—Mr. Covey took a rope, about ten feet long and one inch thick, and placed one end of it around the horns of the "in hand ox," and gave the other end to
me, telling me that if the oxen started to run away, as the scamp knew they would, I must hold on to the rope and stop them. I need not tell any one who is acquainted with either the strength of the disposition of an untamed ox, that this order was about as unreasonable, as a command to shoulder a mad bull! I had never driven oxen before, and I was as awkward, as a driver, as it is possible to conceive. It did not answer for me to plead ignorance, to Mr. Covey; there was something in his manner that quite forbade that. He was a man to whom a slave seldom felt any disposition to speak. Cold, distant, morose, with a face wearing all the marks of captious pride and malicious sternness, he repelled all advances. Covey was not a large man; he was only about five feet ten inches in height, I should think; short necked, round shoulders; of quick and wiry motion, of thin and wolfish visage; with a pair of small, greenish-gray eyes, set well back under a forehead without dignity, and constantly in motion. and floating his passions. rather than his thoughts, in sight, but denying them utterance in words. The creature presented an appearance altogether ferocious and sinister, disagreeable and forbidding, in the extreme. When he spoke, it was from the corner of his mouth, and in a sort of light growl, like a dog, when an attempt is made to take a bone from him. The fellow had already made me believe him even worse than he had been represented. With his directions, and without stopping to question, I started for the woods, quite anxious to perform my first exploit in driving, in a creditable manner. The distance from the house to the woods gate—a full mile, I should think—was passed over with very little difficulty; for although the animals ran, I was fleet enough, in the open field, to keep pace with them, especially as they pulled me along at the end of the rope; but, on reaching the woods, I was speedily thrown into a distressing plight. The animals took fright, and started off ferociously into the woods, carrying the cart, full tilt, against trees, over stumps, and dashing from side to side, in a manner altogether frightful. As I held the rope, I expected every moment to be crushed between the cart and the huge trees, among which they were so furiously dashing. After running thus for several minutes, my oxen were, finally, brought to a stand, by a tree, against which they dashed themselves with great violence, upsetting the cart, and entangling themselves among sundry young saplings. By the shock, the body of the cart was flung in one direction, and the wheels and tongue in another. and all in the greatest confusion. There I was, all alone, in a thick wood, to which I was a stranger; my cart upset and shattered; my oxen entangled, wild, and enraged; and I, poor soul! but a green hand, to set all this disorder right. I knew no more of oxen, than the ox driver is supposed to know of
wisdom. After standing a few moments surveying the damage and disorder, and not without a presentiment that this trouble would draw after it others, even more distressing, I took one end of the cart body, and, by an extra outlay of strength, I lifted it toward the axle-tree, from which it had been violently flung: and after much pulling and straining, I succeeded in getting the body of the cart in its place. This was an important step out of the difficulty, and its performance increased my courage for the work which remained to be done. The cart was provided with an ax, a tool with which I had become pretty well acquainted in the ship-yard†Emendation note: ship-yard] at Baltimore. With this, I cut down the saplings by which my oxen were entangled, and again pursued my journey, with my heart in my mouth, lest the oxen should again take it into their senseless heads to cut up a caper. My fears were groundless. Their spree was over for the present, and the rascals now moved off as soberly as though their behavior had heen natural and exemplary. On reaching the part of the forest where I had been, the day before chopping wood, I filled the cart with a heavy load, as a security against another running away. But, the neck of an ox is equal in strength to iron. It defies all ordinary burdens, when excited. Tame and docile to a proverb, when trained, the ox is the most sullen and†Emendation note: and] and and intractable of animals when but half broken to the yoke.
I now saw, in my situation, several points of similarity with that of the oxen. They were property, so was I; they were to be broken, so was I. Covey was to break me, I was to break them; break and be broken—such is life.
Half the day already gone, and my face not yet homeward! It required only two day's experience and observation to teach me, that such apparent waste of time would not be lightly owrlooked by Covey. I therefore hurried toward home; but, on reaching the lane gate, I met with the crowning disaster for the day. This gate was a fair specimen of southern handicraft. There were two huge posts, eighteen inches in diameter, rough hewed and square. and the heavy gate was so hung on one of these, that it opened only about half the proper distance. On arriving here, it was necessary for me to let go the end of the rope on the horns of the "in hand ox;" and now as soon as the gate was open, and I let go of it to get the rope, again, off went my oxen--making nothing of their load—full tilt; and in doing so they caught the huge gate between the wheel and the cart body, literally crushing it to splinters. and coming only within a few inches of subjecting me to a similar crushing, for I was just in advance of the wheel when it struck the left gate post. With these two hair-breadth escapes, I thought I could successfully explain to Mr. Covey the delay, and avert apprehended punishment. I was not without a faint hope of being commended for the stern resolution which I had
displayed in accomplishing the difficult task—a task which, I afterwards learned, even Covey himself would not have undertaken, without first driving the oxen for some time in the open field, preparatory to their going into the woods. But, in this I was disappointed. On coming to him, his countenance assumed an aspect of rigid displeasure, and, as I gave him a history of the casualties of my trip, his wolfish face, with his greenish eyes. became intensely ferocious. "Go back to the woods again," he said, muttering something else about wasting time. I hastily obeyed; but I had not gone far on my way, when I saw him coming after me. My oxen now behaved themselves with singular propriety, opposing their present conduct to my representation of their former antics. I almost wished, now that Covey was coming, they would do something in keeping with the character I had given them; but no, they had already had their spree, and they could afford now to be extra good, readily obeying my orders, and seeming to understand them quite as well as I did myself. On reaching the woods, my tormentor—who seemed all the way to be remarking upon the good behavior of his oxen—came up to me, and ordered me to stop the cart, accompanying the same with the threat that he would now teach me how to break gates, and idle away my time, when he sent me to the woods. Suiting the action to the word, Covey paced off, in his own wiry fashion, to a large, black-gum tree,†A tree of the eastern, central, and southern United States having close-grained wood, egg-shaped leaves, and small blue-black fruits with nearly ribless stones. the young shoots of which are generally used for , they being exceedingly tough. Three of these , from four to six feet long, he cut off, and trimmed up, with his large jack-knife. This done, he ordered me to take off my clothes. To this unreasonable order I made no reply, but sternly refused to take off my clothing. "If you will beat me," thought I, "you shall do so over my clothes." After many threats, which made no impression on me, he rushed at me with something of the savage fierceness of a wolf, tore off the few and thinly worn clothes I had on, and proceeded to wear out, on my back, the heavy goads which he had cut from the gum tree. This flogging was the first of a series of floggings; and though very severe, it was less so than many which came after it, and these, for offenses far lighter than the gate breaking.
I remained with Mr. Covey one year, (I cannot say I with him,) and during the first six months that I was there, I was whipped, either with sticks or cowskins, every week. Aching bones and a sore back were my constant companions. Frequent as the lash was used, Mr. Covey thought less of it, as a means of breaking down my spirit, than that of hard and Jong continued labor. He worked me steadily, up to the point of my powers of endurance. From the dawn of day in the morning, till the darkness was
complete in the evening, I was kept at hard work, in the field or the woods. At certain seasons of the year, we were all kept in the field till eleven and twelve o'clock at night. At these times, Covey would attend us in the field, and urge us on with words or blows, as it seemed best to him. He had, in his life, been an overseer, and he well understood the business of slave driving. There was no deceiving him. He knew just what a man or boy could do, and he held both to strict account. When he pleased, he would work himself, like a very Turk,†One who is cruel, hardhearted, or tyrannical. making everything fly before him. It was, however, scarcely necessary for Mr. Covey to be really present in the field, to have his work go on industriously. He had the faculty of making us feel that he was always present. By a series of adroitly managed surprises, which he practiced, I was prepared to expect him at any moment. His plan was, never to approach the spot where his hands were at work, in an open, manly and direct manner. No thief was ever more artful in his devices than this man Covey. He would creep and crawl, in ditches and gullies; hide behind stumps and bushes, and practice so much of the cunning of the serpent, that Bill Smith and I—between ourselves—never called him by any other name than "." We fancied that in his eyes and his gait we could see a snakish resemhlance. One half of his proficiency in the art of negro breaking, consisted, I should think, in this species of cunning. We were never secure. He could see or hear us nearly all the time. He was, to us, behind every stump, tree, bush and fence on the plantation. He carried this kind of trickery so far, that he would sometimes mount his horse, and make believe he was going to St. Michael's; and, in thirty minutes afterward, you might find his horse tied in the woods, and the snake-like Covey lying flat in the ditch, with his head lifted above its edge, or in a fence corner, watching every movement of the slaves! I have known him to walk up to us and give us special orders, as to our work, in advance, as if he were leaving home with a view to heing absent several days; and bere he got half way to the house, he would avail himself of our inattention to his movements, to turn short on his heels, conceal himself behind a fence corner or a tree, and watch us until the going down of the sun. Mean and contemptihle as is all this, it is in keeping with the character which the life of a slaveholder is calculated to produce. There is no earthly inducement, in the slave's condition, to incite him to labor faithfully. The fear of punishment is the sole motive for any sort of industry, with him. Knowing this fact, as the slaveholder does, and judging the slave hy himself, he naturally concludes the slave will be idle whenever the cause for this fear is absent. Hence, all sorts of petty deceptions are practiced, to inspire this fear.
But, with Mr. Covey, trickery was natural. Everything in the shape of learning or religion, which he possessed, was made to conform to this semi-lying propensity. He did not seem conscious that the practice had anything unmanly, base or contemptible about it. It was a part of an important system, with him, essential to the relation of master and slave. I thought I saw, in his very religious devotions, this controlling element of his character. A long prayer at night made up for the short prayer in the morning; and few men could seem more devotional than he, when he had nothing else to do. Mr. Covey was not content with the cold style of family worship, adopted in these cold latitudes, which begin and end with a simple prayer. No! the voice of praise, as well as of prayer, must be heard in his house, night and morning. At first, I was called upon to bear some part in these exercises; but the repeated flogging given me by Covey, turned the whole thing into mockery. He was a poor singer, and mainly relied on me for raising the hymn for the family, and when I failed to do so, he was thrown into much confusion. I do not think that he ever abused me on account of these vexations. His religion was a thing altogether apart from his worldly concerns. He knew nothing of it as a holy principle, directing and controlling his daily life, making the latter conform to the requirements of the gospel. One or two facts will illustrate his character better than a volume of generalities. I have already said, or implied, that Mr. Edward Covey was a poor man. He was, in fact, just commencing to lay the foundation of his fortune, as fortune is regarded in a slave state. The first condition of wealth and respectability there, being the ownership of human property. Every nerve is strained, by the poor man, to obtain it, and very little regard is had to the manner of obtaining it. In pursuit of this object, pious as Mr. Covey was, he proved himself to be as unscrupulous and base as the worst of his neighbors. In the beginning, he was only able—as he said— "to buy one slave;" and, scandalous and shocking as is the fact, he boasted that he bought her simply "." But the worst is not told in this naked statement. This young woman (Caroline was her name) was virtually compelled by Mr. Covey to abandon herself to the object for which he had purchased her; and the result was, the birth of twins at the end of the year. At this addition to his human stock, both Edward Covey and his wife, Susan, were extatic with joy. No one dreamed of reproaching the woman, or of finding fault with the hired man—Bill Smith—the father of the children, for Mr. Covey himself had locked the two up together every night, thus inviting the result.
But I will pursue this revolting subject no further. No better illustration
of the unchaste and demoralizing character of slavery can be found, than is furnished in the fact that this professedly christian slaveholder, amidst all his prayers and hymns, was shamelessly and boastfully encouraging, and actually compelling, in his own house, undisguised and unmitigated fornication, as a means of increasing his human stock. I may remark here, that, while this fact will be read with disgust and shame at the north, it will be t, as smart and praiseworthy in Mr. Covey, at the south; for a man is no more condemned there for buying a woman and devoting her to this life of dishonor, than for buying a cow, and raising stock from her. The same rules are observed, with a view to increasing the number and quality of the former, as of the latter.
I will here reproduce what I said of my own experience in this wretched place, more than ten years ago:
"If at any one time of my life, more than another, I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery, that time, was during the first six months of my stay with Mr. Covey. We were worked all weathers. It was never too hot or too cold; it could never rain, blow, snow, or hail too hard for us to work in the field. Work, work, work, was scarcely more the order of the day than of the night. The longest days, were too short for him, and the shortest nights were too long for him. I was somewhat unmanageable when I first went there; but a few months of this discipline tamed me, Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed; my intellect languished; the disposition to read departed; the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute!
"Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleep and wake, under some large tree. At times. I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope, that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation seem now like a dream rather than a stern reality.
"Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in purest white, so delightful
to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition. I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer's Sabbath, stood all alone upon the banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance; and there, with no audience but the Almighty. I would pour out my soul's complaint in my rude way, with an apostrophe to the moving multitude of ships:
"'You are loosed from your moorings, and free; I am fast in my chains, and am a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom's swift-winged angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in bands of iron! O, that I were free! O, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! betwixt me and you the turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. O, that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I'll try it. I had as well die with ague as with fever. 1 have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think on it; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave. I will take to the water. This very bay shall yet bear me into freedom The steamboats steered in a north-cast course†Textual note: The compositor's inadvertent substitution of "coast" for "course," the term Douglass used in the passage from the Narrative (Douglass Papers, ser. 2,1:50.10) that he is here reproducing, is found in all examined texts. Emendation note: course] coast from North Point. I will do the same; and when I get to the head of the bay. I will turn my canoe adrift, and walk straight through Delaware into Pennsylvania. When I get there, I shall not be required to have a pass; I will travel without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and, come what will, I am off. Meanwhile, I will try to bear up under the yoke. I am not the only slave in the world. Why should I fret? I can bear as much as any of them. Besides, I am but a boy, and all boys arc bound to some one. It may be that my misery in slavery will only increase my happiness when I get free. There is a better day coming.'"†Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:49–50.
I shall never be able to narrate the mental experience through which it was my lot to pass during my stay at Covey's. I was completely wrecked, changed and bewildered; goaded almost to madness at one time, and at
another reconciling myself to my wretched condition. Everything in the way of kindness, which I had experienced at Baltimore; all my former hopes and aspirations for usefulness in the world, and the happy moments spent in the exercises of religion, contrasted with my then present lot, but increased my anguish.
I suffered bodily as well as mentally. I had neither sufficient time in which to eat or to sleep, except on Sundays. The over work, and the brutal chastisements of which I was the victim, combined with that ever-gnawing and soul-devouring thought— ""—rendered me a living embodiment of mental and physical wretchedness.
CHAPTER XVI.
ANOTHER PRESSURE OF THE TYRANT'S VICE.
EXPERIENCE AT COVEY'S SUMMED UP—FIRST SIX MONTHS SEVERER THAN THE SECOND—PRELIMINARIES TO THE CHANGE—REASONS FOR NARRATING THE CIRCUMSTANCES—SCENE IN THE TRADING YARD—AUTHOR TAKEN ILL—UNUSUAL BRUTALITY OF COVEY—AUTHOR ESCAPES TO ST. MICHAEL'S—THE PURSUIT—SUFFERING IN THE WOODS—DRIVEN BACK AGAIN TO COVEY'S—BEARING OF "MASTER THOMAS"—THE SLAVE IS NEVER SICK—NATURAL TO EXPECT SLAVES TO FEIGN SICKNESS—LAZINESS OF SLAVEHOLDERS
THE foregoing chapter, with all its horrid incidents and shocking features. may he taken as a fair representation of the first six months of my life at Covey's. The reader has but to repeat, in his own mind, once a week, the scene in the woods, where Covey subjected me to his merciless lash, to have a true idea of my bitter experience there, during the first period of the breaking process through which Mr. Covey carried me. I have no heart to repeat each separate transaction, in which I was a victim of his violence and brutality. Such a narration would fill a volume much larger than the present one. I aim only to give the reader a truthful impression of my slave life. without unnecessarily affecting him with harrowing details.
As I have elsewhere intimated that my hardships were much greater during the first six months of my stay at Covey's, than during the remainder of the year, and as the change in my condition was owing to causes which may help the reader to a better understanding of human nature, when subjected to the terrible extremities of slavery, I will narrate the circumstances of this change, although I may seem thereby to applaud my own courage. You have, dear reader, seen me humbled, degraded, broken down,
enslaved, and brutalized, and you understand how it was done; now let us see the converse of all this, and how it was brought about; and this will take us through the year 1834.
On one of the hottest days of the month of August, of the year just mentioned, had the reader been passing through Covey's farm, he might have seen me at work, in what is there called the "treading yard"—a yard upon which wheat is trodden out from the straw, by the horses' feet. I was there, at work, feeding the "fan,"†To supply any of various devices used in the winnowing process to separate the wheat from the chaff. or rather bringing wheat to the fan, while Bill Smith was feeding. Our force consisted of Bill Hughes, Bill Smith, and a slave by the name of Eli; the latter having been hired for this occasion. The work was simple, and required strength and activity, rather than any skill or intelligence, and yet, to one entirely unused to such work, it came very hard. The heat was intense and overpowering, and there was much hurry to get the wheat, trodden out that day, through the fan; since, if that work was done an hour before sundown, the hands would have, according to a promise of Covey, that hour added to their night"s rest. I was not behind any of them in the wish to complete the day's work before sundown, and, hence, I struggled with all my might to get the work forward. The promise of one hour's repose on a week day, was sufficient to quicken my pace, and to spur me on to extra endeavor. Besides, we had all planned to go fishing, and I certainly wished to have a hand in that. But I was disappointed, and the day turned out to be one of the bitterest I ever experienced. About three o'clock, while the sun was pouring down his burning rays, and not a breeze was stirring, I broke down; my strength failed me; I was seized with a violent aching of the head, attended with extreme dizziness, and trembling in every limb. Finding what was coming, and feeling it would never do to stop work, I nerved myself up, and staggered on until I fell by the side of the wheat fan, feeling that the earth had fallen upon me. This brought the entire work to a dead stand. There was work for four; each one had his part to perform, and each part depended on the other, so that when one stopped, all were compelled to stop. Covey, who had now become my dread, as well as my tormentor, was at the house, about a hundred yards from where I was fanning, and instantly, upon hearing the fan stop, he came down to the treading yard, to inquire into the cause of our stopping. Bill Smith told him I was sick, and that I was unable longer to bring wheat to the fan.
I had, by this time, crawled away, under the side of a post-and-rail fence, in the shade, and was exceedingly ill. The intense heat of the sun, the heavy dust rising from the fan, the stooping, to take up the wheat from the yard, together with the hurrying, to get through, had caused a rush of blood
to my head. In this condition, Covey finding out where I was, came to me; and, after standing over me a while, he asked me what the matter was. I told him as well as I could, for it was with difficulty that I could speak. He then gave me a savage kick in the side, which jarred my whole frame, and commanded me to get up. The man had obtained complete control over me; and if he had commanded me to do any possible thing, I should, in my then state of mind, have endeavored to comply. I made an effort to rise, but fell back in the attempt, before gaining my feet. The brute now gave me another heavy kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried to rise, and succeeded in gaining my feet; but, upon stooping to get the tub with which I was feeding the fan, I again staggered and fell to the ground; and I must have so fallen, had I been sure that a hundred bullets would have pierced me, as the consequence. While down, in this sad condition, and perfectly helpless, the merciless negro breaker took up the hickory slab, with which Hughes had been striking off the wheat to a level with the sides of the half bushel measure, (a very hard weapon,) and with the sharp edge of it. he dealt me a heavy blow on my head which made a large gash, and caused the blood to run freely, saying, at the same time, "." This done, he ordered me again to rise, but I made no effort to do so; for I had made up my mind that it was useless, and that the heartless monster might now do his worst; he could but kill me, and that might put me out of my misery. Finding me unable to rise, or rather despairing of my doing so, Covey left me, with a view to getting on with the work without me. I was bleeding very freely, and my face was soon covered with my warm blood. Cruel and merciless as was the motive that dealt that blow, dear reader, the wound was fortunate for me. Bleeding was never more efficacious. The pain in my head speedily abated, and I was soon able to rise. Covey had, as I have said, now left me to my fate; and the question was, shall I return to my work, or shall I find my way to St. Michael's, and make Capt. Auld acquainted with the atrocious cruelty of his brother Covey, and beseech him to get me another master? Remembering the object he had in view, in placing me under the management of Covey, and further, his cruel treatment of my poor crippled cousin, Henny, and his meanness in the matter of feeding and clothing his slaves, there was little ground to hope for a favorable reception at the hands of Capt. Thomas Auld. Nevertheless, I resolved to go straight to Capt. Auld, thinking that, if not animated by motives of humanity, he might be induced to interfere on my behalf from selfish considerations. "He cannot." thought I, "allow his property to be thus bruised and battered, marred and defaced; and I will go to him. and tell him the simple truth about the
matter." In order to get to St. Michael's, by the most favorable and direct road, I must walk seven miles; and this, in my sad condition, was no easy performance. I had already lost much blood; I was exhausted by over exertion; my sides were sore from the heavy blows planted there by the stout boots of Mr. Covey; and I was, in every way, in an unfavorable plight for the journey. I however watched my chance, while the cruel and cunning Covey was looking in an opposite direction, and started off, across the field, for St. Michael's. This was a daring step; if it failed, it would only exasperate Covey, and increase the rigors of my bondage, during the remainder of my term of service under him; but the step was taken, and I must go forward. I succeeded in getting nearly half way across the broad field, toward the woods, before Mr. Covey observed me. I was still bleeding, and the exertion of running had started the blood afresh. "" vociferated Covey, with threats of what he would do if I did not return instantly. But, disregarding his calls and his threats, I pressed on toward the woods as fast as my feeble state would allow. Seeing no signs of my stopping, Covey caused his horse to be brought out and saddled, as if he intended to pursue me. The race was now to be an unequal one; and, thinking I might be overhauled by him, if I kept the main road, I walked nearly the whole distance in the woods, keeping far enough from the road to avoid detection and pursuit. But, I had not gone far, before my little strength again failed me, and I laid down. The blood was still oozing from the wound in my head; and, for a time, I suffered more than I can describe. There I was, in the deep woods, sick and emaciated, pursued by a wretch whose character for revolting cruelty beggars all opprobrious speech—bleeding, and almost bloodless, I was not without the fear of bleeding to death. The thought of dying in the woods, all alone, and of being torn to pieces by the buzzards, had not yet been rendered tolerable by my many troubles and hardships, and I was glad when the shade of the trees, and the cool evening breeze, combined with my matted hair to stop the flow of blood. After lying there about three quarters of an hour, brooding over the singular and mournful lot to which I was doomed, my mind passing over the whole scale or circle of belief and unbelief, from faith in the overruling providence of God, to the blackest atheism, I again took up my journey toward St. Michael's, more weary and sad than in the morning when I left Thomas Auld 's for the home of Mr. Covey. I was bare-footed and bare-headed, and in my shirt sleeves. The way was through bogs and briers, and I tore my feet often during the journey. I was full five hours in going the seven or eight miles; partly, hecause of the difficulties of the way, and partly, because of the feebleness
induced by my illness, bruises and loss of blood. On gaining my master's store, I presented an appearance of wretchedness and woe, fitted to move any but a heart of stone. From the crown of my head to the sole of my feet, there were marks of blood. My hair was all clotted with dust and blood, and the back of my shirt was literally stiff with the same. Briers and thorns had scarred and torn my feet and legs, leaving blood marks there. Had I escaped from a den of tigers, I could not have looked worse than I did on reaching St. Michael's. In this unhappy plight, I appeared before my professedly master, humbly to invoke the interposition of his power and authority, to protect me from further abuse and violence. I had begun to hope, during the latter part of my tedious journey toward St. Michael's, that Capt. Auld would now show himself in a nobler light than I had ever before seen him. I was disappointed. I had jumped from a sinking ship into the sea; I had fled from the tiger to something worse. I told him all the circumstances, as well as I could: how I was endeavoring to please Covey; how hard I was at work in the present instance; how unwillingly I sunk down under the heat, toil and pain; the brutal manner in which Covey had kicked me in the side; the gash cut in my head; my hesitation about troubling him (Capt. Auld) with complaints, but, that now I felt it would not be best longer to conceal from him the outrages committed on me from time to time by Covey. At first, Master†Textual note: Douglass consistently capitalized "Master" when coupling it with the name of his owner. Emendation note: Master] master Thomas seemed somewhat affected hy the story of my wrongs. but he soon repressed his feelings and became cold as iron. It was impossible—as I stood before him at the first—for him to seem indifferent. I distinctly saw his human nature asserting its convction against the slave system, which made cases like mine ; but, as I have said, humanity fell before the systematic tyranny of slavery. He first walked the floor, apparently much agitated by my story, and the sad spectacle I presented; but, presently, it was turn to talk. He hegan moderately, by finding excuses for Covey, and ending with a full justification of him, and a passionate condemnation of me. "He had no douht I deserved the flogging. He did not believe I was sick; I was only endeavoring to get rid of work. My dizziness was laziness, and Covey did right to flog me, as he had done." After thus fairly annihilating me, and rousing himself by his own eloquence, he fiercely demanded what I wished to do in the case!
With such a complete knock-down to all my hopes, as he had given me, and feeling, as I did, my entire subjection to his power, I had very little heart to reply. I must not affirm my innocence of the allegations which he had piled up against me; for that would he impudence, and would probably call down fresh violence as well as wrath upon me. The guilt of a slave is
always, and everywhere, presumed; and the innocence of the slaveholder or the slave employer, is always asserted. The word of the slave, against this presumption, is generally treated as impudence, worthy of punishment. "Do you contradict me, you rascal?" is a final silencer of counter statements from the lips of a slave.
Calming down a little in view of my silence and hesitation, and, perhaps, from a rapid glance at the picture of misery I presented, he inquired again, "what I would have him do?" Thus invited a second time, I told Master†Textual note: Douglass consistently capitalized "Master" when coupling it with the name of his owner. Thomas I wished him to allow me to get a new home and to find a new master; that, as sure as I went back to live with Mr. Covey again. I should be killed by him; that he would never forgive my coming to him (Capt.†Emendation note: Capt.] Auld) with a complaint against him (Covey;) that, since I had lived with him, he had almost crushed my spirit, and I believed that he would ruin me for future service; that my life was not safe in his hands. This, Master†Textual note: Douglass consistently capitalized "Master" when coupling it with the name of his owner. Thomas () regarded as "nonsense." There was no danger of Mr. Covey's killing me:"†Emendation note: me:"] he was a good man, industrious and religious, and he would not think of removing me from that home; "besides," said he,—and this I found was the most distressing thought of all to him—"if you should leave Covey now, that your year has but half expired, I should lose your wages for the entire year. You belong to Mr. Covey for one year, and you to him, come what will. You must not trouble me with any more stories about Mr. Covey; and if you do not go immediately home, I will get hold of you myself." This was just what I expected, when I found he had the case against me. "But, Sir," I said, "I am sick and tired, and I cannot get home to-night." At this, he again relented, and finally he allowed me to remain all night at St. Michael's; but said I must be off early in the morning, and concluded his directions by making me swallow a huge dose of †Thomas Auld's administration of epsom salts, the popular name for magnesium sulphate, was not unusual. It was common for slaveholders to treat the ailments of slaves with home remedies, contacting a physician only if the patient failed to respond to that treatment. In addition to epsom salts, items common to the medicine chests of planters included castor oil, laudanum, paregoric, sugar of lead, and mercurial ointment. Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 313; Elizabeth Barnaby Keeney, "Unless Powerful Sick: Domestic Medicine in the Old South," in Science and Medicine in the Old South, ed. Ronald L. Numbers and Todd L. Savitt (Baton Rouge, 1989), 286–88.—about the only medicine ever administered to slaves.
It was quite natural for Master Thomas to presume I was feigning sickness to escape work, for he probably thought that were in the place of a slave—with no wages for his work, no praise for well doing, no motive for toil but the lash—he would try every possible scheme by which to escape labor. I say I have no doubt of this; the reason is, that there are not, under the whole heavens, a set of men who cultivate such an intense dread of labor as do the slaveholders. The charge of laziness against the slaves is ever on their lips, and is the standing apology for every species of cruelty and brutality. These men literally "bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne. and lay them on men's shoulders; but they, themselves, will not move them with one of their fingers."†Douglass slightly misquotes Matt. 23:4.
My kind readers shall have, in the next chapter—what they were led, perhaps, to expect to find in this—namely, an account of my partial disenthrallment from the tyranny of Covey, and the marked change which it brought about.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST FLOGGING.
A SLEEPLESS NIGHT—RETURN TO COVEY'S—PURSUED BY COVEY—THE CHASE DEFEATED—VENGEANCE POSTPONED—MUSINGS IN THE WOODS—THE ALTERNATIVE—DEPLORABLE SPECTACLE—NIGHT IN THE WOODS—EXPECTED ATTACK—ACCOSTED BY SANDY, A FRIEND, NOT A HUNTER—SANDY'S HOSPITALITY—THE "ASHCAKE SUPPER—THE INTERVIEW WITH SANDY—HIS ADVICE—SANDY A CONJURER AS WELL AS A CHRISTIAN—THE MAGIC ROOT-—STRANGE MEETING WITH COVEY—HIS MANNER—COVEY'S SUNDAY FACE—AUTHOR'S DEFENSIVE RESOLVE—THE FIGHT—THE VICTORY, AND ITS RESULTS.
SLEEP itself does not always come to the relief of the weary in body, and the broken in spirit; especially when past troubles only foreshadow coming disasters. The last hope had been extinguished. My master, who I did not venture to hope would protect me as , had even now refused to protect me as ; and had cast me back, covered with reproaches and bruises, into the hands of a stranger to that mercy which was the soul of the religion he professed. May the reader never spend such a night as that allotted to me, previous to the morning which was to herald my return to the den of horrors from which I had made a temporary escape.
I remained all night—sleep I did not—at St. Michael's; and in the morning (Saturday) I started off, according to the order of Master Thomas, feeling that I had no friend on earth, and doubting if I had one in heaven. I reached Covey's about nine o'clock; and just as I stepped into the field, before I had reached the house, Covey, true to his snakish habits, darted out at me from a fence corner, in which he had secreted himself, for the purpose of securing me. He was amply provided with a cowskin and a rope; and he evidently intended to , and to wreak his vengeance on me to the fullest extent. I should have been an easy prey, had he succeeded in getting his hands upon me, for I had taken no refreshment since noon on Friday; and this, together with the pelting, excitement, and the loss of blood, had reduced my strength. I, however, darted back into the woods, before the ferocious hound could get hold of me, and buried myself in a thicket, where he
lost sight of me. The cornfield afforded me cover, in getting to the woods. But for the tall corn, Covey would have overtaken me, and made me his captive. He seemed very much chagrined that he did not catch me, and gave up the chase, very reluctantly; for I could see his angry movements, toward the house from which he had sallied, on his foray.
Well, now I am clear of Covey, and of his wrathful lash, for the present. I am in the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence; hid from all human eyes; shut in with nature and nature's God, and absent from all human contrivances. Here was a good place to pray; to pray for help for deliverance—a prayer I had often made before. But how could I pray? Covey could pray—Capt. Auld could pray—I would fain pray; but doubts (arising partly from my own neglect of the means of grace, and partly from the sham religion which everywhere prevailed, cast in my mind a doubt upon all religion, and led me to the conviction that prayers were unavailing and delusive) prevented my embracing the opportunity, as a religious one. Life, in itself, had almost become burdensome to me. All my outward relations were against me; I must stay here and starve, ( I was already hungry,) or go home to Covey's, and have my flesh torn to pieces, and my spirit humbled under the cruel lash of Covey. This was the painful alternative presented to me. The day was long and irksome. My physical condition was deplorable. I was weak, from the toils of the previous day, and from the want of food and rest; and had been so little concerned about my appearance, that I had not yet washed the blood from my garments. I was an object of horror, even to myself. Life, in Baltimore, when most oppressive, was a paradise to this. What had I done, what had my parents done, that such a life as this should be mine? That day, in the woods, I would have exchanged my manhood for the brute hood of an ox.
Night came. I was still in the woods, unresolved what to do. Hunger had not yet pinched me to the point of going home, and I laid myself down in the leaves to rest; for I had been watching for hunters all day, but not being molested during the day, I expected no disturbance during the night. I had come to the conclusion that Covey relied upon hunger to drive me home; and in this I was quite correct—the facts showed that he had made no effort to catch me, since morning.
During the night, I heard the step of a man in the woods. He was coming toward the place where I lay. A person lying still has the advantage over one walking in the woods, in the day time, and this advantage is much greater at night. I was not able to engage in a physical struggle, and I had recourse to the common resort of the weak. I hid myself in the leaves to
prevent discovery. But, as the night rambler in the woods drew nearer, I found him to be a , not an enemy; it was a slave of Mr. William Groomes,†William H. Groomes (1787/88–?) was a longtime resident of Talbot County who had fought with the local militia during the War of 1812 and afterward became a prominent merchant in Easton. By 1850 Groomes was married with three children, owned seven slaves, and held real estate valued at twenty-seven thousand dollars. During the Civil War his wealth and that of many others increased as a result of the economic boom on the Eastern Shore from supplying the federal army. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 67 (free schedule), 25 (slave schedule); Preston, Talbot County, 225; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2: 189. of Easton, a kind hearted fellow, named "Sandy."*Sandy Jenkins was a slave owned by William Groomes of Easton, Maryland, who often hired him out to farmers in Talbot County. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 125–26, 131, 134–36, 138–39, 227n3. Sandy lived with Mr. Kemp†John Kemp, the son of the shipbuilder Thomas Kemp, who inherited Thomas's 236-acre homestead upon his death in 1824. According to the federal census, in 1830 Kemp had three free blacks living in his household who probably were hired hands. It would thus be no surprise if he hired slaves annually, as well, such as Sandy. By 1841 Kemp was a prosperous Eastern Shore farmer with a large variety of domestic animals, several outbuildings, an orchard of 250 trees, "and eight head of blacks." 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 31; Bourne, "Thomas Kemp," 287–88. that year, about four miles from St. Michael's. He, like myself, had been hired out by the year; but, unlike myself, had not been hired out to be broken. Sandy was the husband of a free woman, who lived in the lower part of ","†A local name for a section of the Tilghman Peninsula west of Harris Creek in Talbot County, Maryland. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 227n3. and he was now on his way through the woods, to see her, and to spend the Sabbath with her.
As soon as I had ascertained that the disturber of my solitude was not an enemy, but the good-hearted Sandy—a man as famous among the slaves of the neighborhood for his good nature, as for his good sense—I came out from my hiding place, and made myself known to him. I explained the circumstances of the past two days, which had driven me to the woods, and he deeply compassionated my distress. It was a bold thing for him to shelter me, and I could not ask him to do so; for, had I been found in his hut, he would have suffered the penalty of thirty-nine lashes on his bare back, if not something worse. But, Sandy was too generous to permit the fear of punishment to prevent his relieving a brother bondman from hunger and exposure; and, therefore, on his own motion, I accompanied him to his home, or rather to the home of his wife—for the house and lot were hers. His wife was called up—for it was now about midnight—a fire was made, some Indian meal was soon mixed with salt and water, and an ash cake was baked in a hurry to relieve my hunger. Sandy's wife was not behind him in kindness—both seemed to esteem it a privilege to succor me; for, although I was hated by Covey and by my master, I was loved by the colored people, because thought I was hated for my knowledge, and persecuted because I was feared. I was the slave in that region who could read and write. There had been one other man, belonging to Mr. Hugh Hamilton,†Hugh Hambleton of St. Michaels was a member of an old Eastern Shore family whose local roots reached back to the mid-seventeenth century. In 1840 he was married and had at least four children and eight slaves. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 40. who could read, (his name was "Jim,") but he, poor fellow, had, shortly after my coming into the neighborhood, been sold off to the far south. I saw Jim ironed, in the cart, to he carried to Easton for sale—pinioned like a yearling for the slaughter. My knowledge was now the pride of my brother slaves; and, no doubt, Sandy felt something of the general interest in me on that account. The supper was soon ready, and though I have feasted since, with honorables, lord mayors and aldermen, over the sea, my supper on ash cake and cold water, with Sandy, was the meal, of all my life, most sweet to my taste, and now most vivid in my memory.
Supper over, Sandy and I went into a discussion of what was possible for me, under the perils and hardships which now overshadowed my path.
The question was, must I go back to Covey, or must I now attempt to run away? Upon a careful survey, the latter was found to be impossible; for I was on a narrow neck of land, every avenue from which would bring me in sight of pursuers. There was the Chesapeake bay to the right, and "Pot-pie" river†A local nickname for Cummings Creek. The headwaters of Cummings Creek begin at the town of Wittman, which was called Pot Pie by locals. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 126. to the left, and St. Michael's and its neighborhood occupying the only space through which there was any retreat.
I found Sandy an old adviser. He was not only a religious man, but he professed to believe in a system for which I have no name. He was a genuine African, and had inherited some of the so called magical powers,†Rooted in African religious and folk medicine practices, conjuring, voodoo, and witchcraft persisted in the South long after Emancipation. Often identified as African-born, conjurers were believed to possess special knowledge of magic and herbal medicine. Conjurers might provide a talisman or remedy for an ailment, or protection from an enemy. It was not unusual for black conjurers to have whites as well as blacks among their clientele. The conjurers might find their aid solicited in finding "true love," ensuring success in business, or causing harm to another. Slave conjurers were regarded as powerful and often dangerous members of the slave community. Although the negative applications of their "charms" were the most dramatic practices, conjurers possessed a knowledge of folk medicine that allowed them to perform a vital role as medical practitioners in the slave community. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (1972; New York, 1976), 217–18, 223–24, 227; Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South (New York, 1978), 80–86, 275–88. said to be possessed by African and eastern nations. He told me that he could help me; that, in those very woods, there was an herb. which in the morning might be found, possessing all the powers required for my protection, (I put his thoughts in my own language;) and that, if I would take his advice, he would procure me the root of the herb of which he spoke. He told me further, that if I would take that root and wear it on my right side, it would be impossible for Covey to strike me a blow; that with this root ahout my person, no white man could whip me. He said he had carried it for years. and that he had fully tested its virtues. He had never received a blow from a slaveholder since he carried it; and he never expected to receive one, for he always meant to carry that root as a protection. He knew Covey well, for Mrs. Covey was the daughter of Mr. Kemp; and he (Sandy) had heard of the barbarous treatment to which I was suhjected, and he wanted to do something for me.
Now all this talk about the root, was, to me, very ahsurd and ridiculous, if not positively sinful. I at first rejected the idea that the simple carrying a root on my right side, (a root, by the way, over which I walked every time I went into the woods,) could possess any such magic power as he ascribed to it, and I was, therefore, not disposed to cumber my pocket with it. I had a positive aversion to all pretenders to "." It was beneath one of my intelligence to countenance such dealings with the devil, as this power implied. But, with all my learning—it was really precious little—Sandy was more than a match for me. "My book learning," he said, "had not kept Covey off me," (a powerful argument just then,) and he entreated me, with flashing eyes, to try this. If it did me no good, it could do me no harm, and it would cost me nothing, any way. Sandy was so earnest, and so confident of the good qualities of this weed, that, to please him, rather than from any conviction of its excellence, I was induced to take it. He had been to me the good Samaritan,†A reference to the good Samaritan in the biblical parable, beginning at Luke 10:33, generally refers to a kind and helpful person. and had, almost providentially, found me, and helped me when I could not help myself; how did I know but that the hand of the Lord
was in it? With thoughts of this sort, I took the roots from Sandy, and put them in my right hand pocket.
This was, of course, Sunday morning, Sandy now urged me to go home, with all speed, and to walk up bravely to the house, as though nothing had happened. I saw in Sandy too deep an insight into human nature, with all his superstition, not to have some respect for his advice; and perhaps, too, a slight gleam or shadow of his superstition had fallen upon me. At any rate, I started off toward Covey's, as directed by Sandy. Having, the previous night, poured my griefs into Sandy's ears, and got him enlisted in my behalf, having made his wife a sharer in my sorrows, and having, also, become well refreshed by sleep and food, I moved off, quite courageously, toward the much dreaded Covey's. Singularly enough, just as I entered his yard gate, I met him and his wife, dressed in their Sunday best—looking as smiling as angels—on their way to church. The manner of Covey astonished me. There was something really benignant in his countenance. He spoke to me as never before; told me that the pigs had got into the lot, and he wished me to drive them out; inquired how I was, and seemed an altered man. This extraordinary conduct of Covey, really made me begin to think that Sandy's herb had more virtue in it than I, in my pride, had been willing to allow; and, had the day been other than Sunday, I should have attributed Covey's altered manner solely to the magic power of the root. I suspected, however, that the , and not the , was the real explanation of Covey's manner. His religion hindered him from breaking the Sabbath, but not from breaking my skin. He had more respect for the than for the †Douglass paraphrases Mark 2:27: "The sabbath was made for man, and not man for the sabbath.", for whom the day was mercifully given; for while he would cut and slash my body during the week, he would not hesitate, on Sunday, to teach me the value of my soul, or the way of life and salvation by Jesus Christ.
All went well with me till Monday morning; and then, whether the root had lost its virtue, or whether my tormentor had gone deeper into the black art than myself, (as was sometimes said of him,) or whether he had obtained a special indulgence, for his faithful Sabbath day's worship, it is not necessary for me to know, or to inform the reader; but, this much I say—the pious and benignant smile which graced Covey's face on , wholly disappeared on . Long before daylight, I was called up to go and feed, rub, and curry the horses. I obeyed the call, and I would have so obeyed it, had it been made at an earlier hour, for I had brought my mind to a firm resolve, during that Sunday's reflection, viz: to obey every order, however unreasonable, if it were possible, and, if Mr. Covey should then undertake to beat me, to defend and protect myself to the best of my ability.
My religious views on the subject of resisting my master, had suffered a serious shock, by the savage persecution to which I had been subjected, and my hands were no longer tied by my religion. Master Thomas's indifference had severed the last link. I had now to this extent "backslidden" from this point in the slave's religious creed; and I soon had occasion to make my fallen state known to my Sunday-pious brother, Covey.
Whilst I was obeying his order to feed and get the horses ready for the field, and when in the act of going up the stable loft for the purpose of throwing down some blades,†Douglass was probably feeding the horses corn or hay. The term blades can refer to the leaves of a cereal grass or corn. Covey sneaked into the stable, in his peculiar snake-like way, and seizing me suddenly by the leg, he brought me to the stable floor, giving my newly mended body a fearful jar. I now forgot my , and remembered my pledge to . The brute was endeavoring skillfully to get a slip-knot on my legs, before I could draw up my feet. As soon as I found what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring, (my two day's rest had been of much service to me,) and by that means, no doubt, he was able to bring me to the floor so heavily. He was defeated in his plan of tying me. While down, he seemed to think he had me very securely in his power. He little thought he was—as the rowdies say—"in" for a " rough and tumble" fight; but such was the fact. Whence came the daring spirit necessary to grapple with a man who, eight-and-forty hours before, could, with his slightest word have made me tremble like a leaf in a storm, I do not know; at any rate, , and, what was better still, I was actually hard at it. The fighting madness had come upon me, and I found my strong fingers firmly attached to the throat of my cowardly tormentor; as heedless of consequences, at the moment, as though we stood as equals before the law. The very color of the man was forgotten. I felt as supple as a cat, and was ready for the snakish creature at every turn. Every blow of his was parried, though I dealt no blows in turn. I was strictly on the , preventing him from injuring me, rather than trying to injure him. I flung him on the ground several times, when he meant to have hurled me there. I held him so firmly by the throat, that his blood followed my nails. He held me, and I held him.
All was fair, thus far, and the contest was about equal. My resistance was entirely unexpected, and Covey was taken all aback by it, for he trembled in every limb. ", you scoundrel?" said he. To which, I returned a polite ";"†Emendation note: " steadily gazing my interrogator in the eye, to meet the first approach or dawning of the blow, which I expected my answer would call forth. But, the conflict did not long remain thus equal. Covey soon cried out lustily for help; not that I was obtaining any marked
advantage over him, or was injuring him, but because he was gaining none over me, and was not able, single handed, to conquer me. He called for his cousin Hughes, to come to his assistance, and now the scene was changed. I was compelled to give blows, as well as to parry them; and, since I was, in any case, to suffer for resistance, I felt (as the musty proverb goes) that "I might as well be hanged for an old sheep as a lamb."†English proverb dating to the seventeenth century. G. L. Apperson, English Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases: A Historical Dictionary (London, 1929), 562. I was still toward Covey, but toward Hughes; and, at the first approach of the latter, I dealt a blow, in my desperation, which fairly sickened my youthful assailant. He went off, bending over with pain, and manifesting no disposition to come within my reach again. The poor fellow was in the act of trying to catch and tie my right hand, and while flattering himself with success, I gave him the kick which sent him staggering away in pain, at the same time that I held Covey with a firm hand.
Taken completely by surprise, Covey seemed to have lost his usual strength and coolness. He was frightened, and stood puffing and blowing, seemingly unable to command words or blows. When he saw that poor Hughes was standing half bent with pain—his courage quite gone—the cowardly tyrant asked if I "meant to persist in my resistance." I told him "I ;" that I had been by him treated like a brute during the last six months; and that I should stand it no longer. With that, he gave me a shake, and attempted to drag me toward a stick of wood, that was lying just outside the stable door. He meant to knock me down with it; but, just as he leaned over to get the stick, I seized him with both hands by the collar, and, with a vigorous and sudden snatch, I brought my assailant harmlessly, his full length, on the clean ground—for we were now in the cowyard. He had selected the place for the fight, and it was but right that he should have all the advantages of his own selection.
By this time, Bill, the hired man, came home. He had been to Mr. Hemsley's to spend the Sunday with his nominal wife,†Philemon Hemsley (?–c. 1822) was a member of an old Eastern Shore family and the son of William Hemsley (1736/37–1812), a prominent Maryland legislator and prosperous Queen Annes County planter. In 1813, Philemon married the former Ann Fiddeman and by 1820 had become a wealthy planter in his own right in Talbot County, owning thirty-three slaves. After his death the size of his estate diminished; by 1830 Ann was left with only three female slaves. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 46; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 3; Edward C. Papenfuse et al., eds., A Biographical Dictionary of the Maryland Legislature, 1635–1789, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1979), 1 432–33. and was coming home on Monday morning, to go to work. Covey and I had been skirmishing from before daybreak, till now, that the sun was almost shooting his beams over the eastern woods, and we were still at it. I could not see where the master was to terminate. He evidently was afraid to let me go, lest I should again make off to the woods; otherwise, he would probably have obtained arms from the house, to frighten me. Holding me, Covey called upon Bill for assistance. The scene here, had something comic about it. "Bill," who knew what Covey wished him to do, affected ignorance, and pretended he did not know what to do. "What shall I do, Mr. Covey," said Bill. "Take hold of him—take hold of him!" said Covey. With a toss of his
head, peculiar to Bill, he said, "indeed, Mr. Covey, 1 want to go to work ." " is your work," said Covey; "take hold of him." Bill replied, with spirit, "My master hired me here, to work, and to help you whip Frederick." It was now my turm to speak. "Bill," said I, "don't put your hands on me." To which he replied, "MY GOD! Frederick, I aint goin' to tech ," and Bill walked off, leaving Covey and myself to settle our matters as best we might.
But, my present advantage was threatened when I saw Caroline (the slave-woman of Covey) coming to the cow yard to milk, for she was a powerful woman, and could have mastered me very easily, exhausted as I now was. As soon as she came into the yard, Covey attempted to rally her to his aid. Strangely—and, I may add, fortunately—Caroline was in no humor to take a hand in any such sport. We were all in open rebellion, that morning. Caroline answered the command of her master to "," precisely as Bill had answered, but in , it was at greater peril so to answer; she was the slave of Covey, and he could do what he pleased with her. It was so with Bill, and Bill knew it. Samuel Harris,*Actually Samuel Harrison. to whom Bill belonged, did not allow his slaves to be beaten, unless they were guilty of some crime which the law would punish. But, poor Caroline, like myself, was at the mercy of the merciless Covey; nor did she escape the dire effects of her refusal. He gave her several sharp blows.
Covey at length (two hours had elapsed) gave up the contest. Letting me go, he said,—puffing and blowing at a great rate—"now, you scoundrel, go to your work; I would not have whipped you half so much as I have had you not resisted." The fact was, . He had not, in all the scuffle, drawn a single drop of blood from me. I had drawn blood from him; and, even without this satisfaction, I should have been victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to prevent his injuring me.
During the whole six months that I lived with Covey, after this transaction, he never laid on me the weight of his finger in anger. He would, occasionally, say he did not want to have to get hold of me again—a declaration which I had no difficulty in believing; and I had a secret feeling, which answered, "you need not wish to get hold of me again, for you will be likely to come off worse in a second fight than you did in the first."
Well, my dear reader, this battle with Mr. Covey,—undignified as it was, and as I fear my narration of it is—was the turning point in my "." It rekindled in my breast the smouldering embers of liberty; it brought up my Baltimore dreams, and revived a sense of my own manhood.
I was a changed being after that fight. I was before; I WAS A MAN NOW. It recalled to life my crushed self-respect and my self-confidence, and inspired me with a renewed determination to be A FREEMAN. A man without force, is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot a helpless man, although it can him; and even this it cannot do long, if the signs of power do not arise.
He only can understand the effect of this combat on my spirit, who has himself incurred something, hazarded something, in repelling the unjust and cruel aggressions of a tyrant. Covey was a tyrant, and a cowardly one, withal. After resisting him, I felt as I had never felt before. It was a resurrection from the dark and pestiferous tomb of slavery, to the heaven of comparative freedom. I was no longer a servile coward, trembling under the frown of a brother worm of the dust, but, my long-cowed spirit was roused to an attitude of manly independence. I had reached the point, at which I was . This spirit made me a freeman in , while I remained a slave in . When a slave cannot be flogged he is more than half free. He has a domain as broad as his own manly heart to defend, and he is really "." While slaves prefer their lives, with flogging, to instant death, they will always find christians enough, like unto Covey, to accommodate that preference. From this time, until that of my escape from slavery. I was never fairly whipped. Several attempts were made to whip me, but they were always unsuccessful. Bruises I did get, as I shall hereafter inform the reader; but the case I have been describing, was the end of the brutification to which slavery had subjected me.
The reader will be glad to know why, after I had so grievously offended Mr. Covey, he did not have me taken in hand by the authorities; indeed, why the law of Maryland, which assigns hanging to the slave who resists his master,†According to Maryland law, death was the punishment for any slave who refused to surrender him- or herself or resisted apprehension. The code permitted the pursuer of a resisting slave to "shoot, kill, and destroy such negro or negroes." The General Public Statutory Law and Public Local Law of the State of Maryland, from the Year 1692 to 1839 Inclusive, 3 vols. (Baltimore, 1840), 1:65. was not put in force against me; at any rate, why I was not taken up, as is usual in such cases, and publicly whipped, for an example to other slaves, and as a means of deterring me from committing the same offense again. I confess, that the easy manner in which I got off, was, for a long time, a surprise to me, and I cannot, even now, fully explain the cause.
The only explanation I can venture to suggest, is the fact, that Covey was, probably. ashamed to have it known and confessed that he had been mastered by a boy of sixteen. Mr. Covey enjoyed the unbounded and very valuable reputation, of being a first rate overseer and . By means of this reputation, he was able to procure his hands for compensation, and with very great ease. His interest and his pride mutually suggested the wisdom of passing the matter by, in silence. The story that he
had undertaken to whip a lad, and had been resisted, was, of itself, sufficient to damage him; for his bearing should, in the estimation of slaveholders, be of that imperial order that should make such an occurrence . I judge from these circumstances, that Covey deemed it best to give me the go-by. It is, perhaps, not altogether creditable to my natural temper, that, after this conflict with Mr. Covey, I did, at times, purposely aim to provoke him to an attack, by refusing to keep with the other hands in the field, but I could never bully him to another battle. I had made up my mind to do him serious damage, if he ever again attempted to lay violent hands on me.
"Hereditary bondmen, know ye not
Who would be free, themselves must strike the blow?"†Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, canto II, stanza LXXVI.
CHAPTER XVIII.
NEW RELATIONS AND DUTIES.
CHANGE OF MASTERS—BENEFITS DERIVED BY THE CHANGE—FAME OF THE FIGHT WITH COVEY—RECKLESS UNCONCERN—AUTHOR'S ABHORRENCE OF SLAVERY—ABILITY TO READ A CAUSE OF PREJUDICE—THE HOLIDAYS--HOW SPENT—SHARP HIT AT SLAVERY—EFFECTS OF HOLIDAYS—A DEVICE OF SLAVERY—DIFFERENCE BETWEEN COVEY AND FREELAND—AN IRRELIGIOUS MASTER PREFERRED TO A RELIGIOUS ONE—CATALOGUE OF FLOGGABLE OFFENSES—HARD LIFE AT COVEY'S USEFUL TO THE AUTHOR—IMPROVED CONDITION NOT FOLLOWED BY CONTENTMENT—CONGENIAL SOCIETY AT FREELAND'S—AUTHOR'S SABBATH SCHOOL INSTITUTED—SECRECY NECESSARY—AFFECTIONATE RELATIONS OF TUTOR AND PUPILS—CONFIDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP AMONG SLAVES—THE AUTHOR DECLINES PUBLISHING PARTICULARS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH HIS FRIENDS—SLAVERY THE INVITER OF VENGEANCE.
MY term of actual service to Mr. Edward Covey ended on Christmas day. 1834. I gladly left the snakish Covey, although he was now as gentle as a lamb. My home for the year 1835 was already secured--my next master was already selected. There is always more or less excitement about the matter of changing hands, but I had become somewhat reckless. I cared very little into whose hands I fell—I meant to fight my way. Despite of Covey, too, the report got abroad, that I was hard to whip; that I was guilty of kicking back; that though generally a good tempered negro, I sometimes "got the devil in me." These sayings were rife in Talbot county, and they distinguished me among my servile brethren. Slaves, generally. will fight each
other, and die at each other's hands; but there are few who are not held in awe by a white man. Trained from the cradle up, to think and feel that their masters are superior, and invested with a sort of sacredness, there are few who can outgrow or rise above the control which that sentiment exercises. I had now got free from it, and the thing was known. One bad sheep will spoil a whole flock. Among the slaves, I was a bad sheep. I hated slavery, slaveholders. and all pertaining to them; and I did not fail to inspire others with the same feeling, wherever and whenever opportunity was presented. This made me a marked lad among the slaves, and a suspected one among the slaveholdcrs. A knowledge of my ability to read and write, got pretty widely spread, which was very much against me.
The days between Christmas day and New Year's, are allowed the slaves as holidays. During these days, all regular work was suspended, and there was nothing to do but to keep fires, and look after the stock. This time we regarded as our own, by the grace of our masters, and we, therefore used it, or abused it, as we pleased. Those who had families at a distance, were expected to visit them, and to spend with them the entire week. The younger slaves, or the unmarried ones, were expected to see to the cattle, and attend to incidental duties at home. The holidays were variously spent. The sober, thinking and industrious ones of our number, would employ themselves in manufacturing corn brooms, mats, horse collars and baskets, and some of these were very well made. Another class spent their time in hunting opossums, coons, rabbits, and other game. But the majority spent the holidays in sports, ball playing, wrestling, boxing, running foot races, dancing, and drinking whisky; and this latter mode of spending the time was generally most agreeable to their masters. A slave who would work during the holidays, was thought, by his master, undeserving of holidays. Such an one had rejected the favor of his master. There was, in this simple act of continued work, an accusation against slaves; and a slave could not help thinking, that if he made three dollars during the holidays, he might make three hundred during the year. Not to be drunk during the holidays, was disgraceful; and he was esteemed a lazy and improvident man, who could not afford to drink whisky during Christmas.
The fiddling, dancing and ""†Because slaves seldom had the means to obtain musical instruments, they often improvised and used their feet to tap out a tune in coordination. "Patting juba," or jubilee beating, as Douglass called it, took the form of a variety of dances that were usually accompanied by song. During holidays, and especially Christmas, dances and parties were common on southern plantations. Some favorite "patting juba" dances included "Cuttin' the Pigeon Wings," which found the dancers flapping their arms as well as "patting" with their feet; and "Set de Flo," which involved couples facing each other in turn while "patting" the floor. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 572–73; Blassingame, Slave Community, 125; Oates, Fires of Jubilee, 23–24. was going on in all directions. This latter performance is strictly southern. It supplies the place of a violin, or of other musical instruments, and is played so easily, that almost every farm has its "Juba" beater. The performer improvises as he beats, and sings his merry songs, so ordering the words as to have them fall pat with the movement of his hands. Among a mass of nonsense and wild frolic,
once in a while a sharp hit is given to the meanness of slaveholders. Take the following, for an example:
"We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn;
We bake de bread,
Dey gib us de cruss;
We sif de meal,
Dey gib us de huss;
We peal de meat,
Dey gib us de skin,
And dat's de way
Dey takes us in.
We skim de pot,
Dey gib us the liquor.
And say dat's good enough for nigger.
Walk over! walk over!
Tom butter and de fat:
Poor nigger you can't get over dat:
Walk over!"
This is not a bad summary of the palpable injustice and fraud of slavery giving—as it does—to the lazy and idle, the comforts which God designed should be given solely to the honest laborer. But to the holiday's.
Judging from my own observation and experience, I believe these holidays to be among the most effective means, in the hands of slaveholdcrs, of keeping down the spirit of insurrection among the slaves.
To enslave men, successfully and safely, it is necessary to have their minds occupied with thoughts and aspirations short of the liberty of which they are deprived. A certain degree of attainable good must be kept before them. These holidays serve the purpose of keeping the minds of the slaves occupied with prospective pleasure, within the limits of slavery. The young man can go wooing; the married man can visit his wife; the father and mother can see their children; the industrious and money loving can make a few dollars; the great wrestler can win laurels; the young people can meet, and enjoy each other's society; the drunken man can get plenty of whisky; and the religious man can hold prayer meetings, preach, pray and exhort during the holidays. Before the holidays, these are pleasures in prospect; after the holidays, they become pleasures of memory, and they serve to keep out thoughts and wishes of a more dangerous character. Were slaveholders
at once to abandon the practice of allowing their slaves these liberties, periodically, and to keep them, the year round, closely confined to the narrow circle of their homes, I doubt not that the south would blaze with insurrections. These holidays are conductors or safety valves to carry off the explosive elements inseparable from the human mind, when reduced to the condition of slavery. But for these, the rigors of bondage would become too severe for endurance, and the slave would be forced up to dangerous desperation. Woe to the slaveholder when he undertakes to hinder or to prevent the operation of these electric conductors. A succession of earthquakes would be less destructive, than the insurrectionary fires which would be sure to burst forth in different parts of the south, from such interference.
Thus, the holidays, become part and parcel of the gross fraud, wrongs and inhumanity of slavery. Ostensibly, they are institutions of benevolence, designed to mitigate the rigors of slave life, but, practically, they are a fraud, instituted by human selfishness, the better to secure the ends of injustice and oppression. The slave's happiness is not the end sought, but, rather, the master's safety. It is not from a generous unconcern for the slave's lahor that this cessation from labor is allowed, but from a prudent regard to the safety of the slave system. I am strengthened in this opinion, by the fact, that most slaveholders like to have their slaves spend the holidays in such a manner as to be of no real benefit to the slaves. It is plain, that everything like rational enjoyment among the slaves, is frowned upon; and only those wild and low sports, peculiar to semi-civilized people, are encouraged. All the license allowed, appears to have no other object than to disgust the slaves with their temporary freedom, and to make them as glad to return to their work, as they were to leave it. By plunging them into exhausting depths of drunkenness and dissipation, this effect is almost certain to follow. I have known slaveholders resort to cunning tricks, with a view of getting their slaves deplorably drunk. A usual plan is, to make bets on a slave, that he can drink more whisky than any other; and so to induce a rivalry among them, for the mastery in this degradation. The scenes, brought ahout in this way, were often scandalous and loathsome in the extreme. Whole multitudes might be found stretched out in brutal drunkenness, at once helpless and disgusting. Thus, when the slave asks for a few hours of virtuous freedom, his cunning master takes advantage of his ignorance, and cheers him with a dose of vicious and revolting dissipation, artfully labeled with the name of LIBERTY. We were induced to drink. I among the rest, and when the holidays were over, we all staggered up from our filth and wallowing, took a long breath, and went away to our various fields of work;
feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go from that which our masters artfully deceived us into the belief was freedom, back again to the arms of slavery. It was not what we had taken it to be, nor what it might have been, had it not been abused by us. It was about as well to be a slave to master, as to be a slave to and .
I am the more induced to take this view of the holiday system, adopted by slaveholders, from what I know of their treatment of slaves, in regard to other things. It is the commonest thing for them to try to disgust their slaves with what they do not want them to have, or to enjoy. A slave, for instance, likes molasses; he steals some; to cure him of the taste for it, his master, in many cases, will go away to town, and buy a large quantity of the poorest quality, and set it before his slave, and, with whip in hand, compel him to eat it, until the poor fellow is made to sicken at the very thought of molasses. The same course is often adopted to cure slaves of the disagreeable and inconvenient practice of asking for more food, when their allowance has failed them. The same disgusting process works well, too, in other things, but I need not cite them. When a slave is drunk, the slaveholder has no fear that he will plan an insurrection; no fear that he will escape to the north. It is the sober, thinking slave who is dangerous, and needs the vigilance of his master, to keep him a slave. But, to proceed with my narrative.
On the first of January, 1835. I proceeded from St. Michael's to Mr. William Freeland's,†William Freeland, the son of William and Elizabeth Freeland of Talbot County, Maryland, was a farmer and slave owner near St. Michaels. The 1820 U.S. census lists William as a young adult between sixteen and twenty-five years of age. Between 1820 and 1830, and perhaps later, he lived in a household headed by his mother. They shared their home with two white boys and six slaves. By 1830 the Freeland's household had diminished: Elizabeth and William now lived with only one young white man and four slaves. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 10; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 35. my new home. Mr. Freeland livcd only three miles from St. Michael's, on an old worn out farm, which required much labor to restore it to anything like a self-supporting establishment.
I was not long in finding Mr.†Emendation note: Mr.] Freeland to he a very different man from Mr. Covey. Though not rich, Mr. Freeland was what may he called a well-bred southern gentleman, as different from Covey, as a well-trained and hardened negro breaker is from the best specimen of the first families of the south. Though Freeland was a slaveholder, and shared many of the vices of his class, he seemed alive to the sentiment of honor. He had some sense of justice, and some feelings of humanity. He was fretful, impulsive and passionate, but I must do him the justice to say, he was free from the mean and selfish characteristics which distinguished the creature from which I had now, happily, escaped. He was open, frank, imperative, and practiced no concealments, disdaining to play the spy. In all this, he was the opposite of the crafty Covey.
Among the many advantages gained in my change from Covey's to Freeland's—startling as the statement may be—was the fact that the latter gentleman made no profession of religion. I assert most unhesitatingly that
the religion of the south—as I have observed it and proved it—is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes; the justifier of the most appalling barbarity; a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds; and a secure shelter, under which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal abominations fester and flourish. Were I again to be reduced to the condition of a slave, to that calamity, I should regard the fact of being the slave of a religious slaveholder, the greatest that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have found them, almost invariably, the vilest, meanest and basest of their class. Exceptions there may be, but this is true of religious slaveholders, . It is not for me to explain the fact. Others may do that; I simply state it as a fact, and leave the theological, and psychological inquiry, which it raises, to be decided by others more competent than myself. Religious slaveholders, like religious persecutors, are ever extreme in their malice and violence. Very near my new home, on an adjoining farm, there lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden,†Daniel Weeden (c. 1794–?) was a farmer and Methodist minister in Talbot County. Though an overseer without any of his own slaves in 1820, Weeden appears by 1830 to have become an independent farmer with two slaves and a growing family. By 1850 he owned six slaves. In 1839 Weeden forced a free black man back into slavery by revealing that he had served time in a Maryland jail. He then purchased the man at a greatly reduced price. By the early 1840s Weeden was well established as a local minister, having presided over a number of Talbot County weddings in 1843 and 1844. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 32; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 36a; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 37 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 130, 227n8; Charles Montgomery Haddaway III, "Marriages Recorded in Talbot County Newspapers, 1819–1823, 1841–1843, and 1870,'' MdHM, 81:254, 260, 262, 267–68, 270 (fall 1986). who was both pious and cruel after the real Covey pattern. Mr. Weeden was a local preacher of the Protestant Methodist persuasion, and a most zealous supporter of the ordinances of religion, generally. This Weeden owned a woman called "Ceal," who was a standing proof of his mercilessness. Poor Ceal's back, always scantily clothed, was kept literally raw, by the lash of this religious man and gospel minister. The most notoriously wickcd man—so called in distinction from church members—could hire hands more easily than this brute. When sent out to find a home, a slave would never enter the gates of the preacher Weeden, while a sinful sinner needed a hand. Behave ill, or behave well, it was the known maxim of Weeden, that it is the duty of a master to use the lash. If, for no other reason, he contended that this was essential to remind a slave of his condition, and of his master's authority. The good slave must he whipped, to be good, and the bad slave must he whipped, to be good. Such was Weeden's theory, and such was his practice. The back of his slave-woman will, in the judgment, be the swiftest witness against him.
While I am stating particular cases, I might as well immortalize another of my neighbors, by calling him by name, and putting him in print. He did not think that a "chiel"†A familiar term for a young man; lad, fellow, chap. was near, "taking notes," and will, doubtless, feel quite angry at having his character touched off in the ragged style of a slave's pen. I beg to introduce the reader to REV. RIGBY HOPKINS.†Rigby Hopkins was a Methodist minister who had long lived and farmed in Talbot County. In 1830 he was between fifty and sixty years old and had in his household two white males, six white females, and one black female. Whereas in 1820 he owned seventeen slaves, in 1830 he had none, possibly as a result of a preference for renting black labor. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 19; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 31; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 130. Mr. Hopkins resides between Easton and St. Michael's, in Talbot county, Maryland. The severity of this man made him a perfect terror to the slaves of his neighborhood. The peculiar feature of his government, was, his system of
whipping slaves, as he said, of deserving it. He always managed to have one or two slaves to whip on Monday morning, so as to start his hands to their work, under the inspiration of a new assurance on Monday, that his preaching about kindness, mercy, brotherly love, and the like, on Sunday, did not interfere with, or prevent him from establishing his authority, by the cowskin. He seemed to wish to assure them, that his tears over poor, lost and ruined sinners, and his pity for them, did not reach to the blacks who tilled his fields. This saintly Hopkins used to boast, that he was the best hand to manage a negro in the county. He whipped for the smallest offenses, by way of preventing the commission of large ones.
The reader might imagine a difficulty in finding faults enough for such frequent whipping. But, this is because you have no idea how easy a matter it is to offend a man who is on the look-out for offenses. The man, unaccustomed to slaveholding, would be astonished to observe how many floggable offenses there are in the slaveholder's catalogue of crimes; and how easy it is to commit any one of them, even when the slave least intends it. A slaveholder, bent on finding fault, will hatch up a dozen a day, if he chooses to do so, and each one of these shall be of a punishable description. A mere look, word, or motion, a mistake, accident, or want of power, are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time. Does a slave look dissatisfied with his condition? It is said, that he has the devil in him, and it must he whipped out. Does he answer , when spoken to by his master, with an air of sclfconsciousness? Then, must he be taken down a button-hole lower, by the lash, well laid on. Does he forget, and omit to pull off his hat, when approaching a white person? Then, he must, or may be, whipped for his bad manners. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when harshly and unjustly accused? Then, he is guilty of impudence, one of the greatest crimes in the social catalogue of southern society. To allow a slave to escape punishment, who has impudently attempted to exculpate himself from unjust charges, preferred against him by some white person, is to be guilty of great dereliction of duty. Does a slave ever venture to suggest a better way of doing a thing, no matter what? he is, altogether, too officious—wise ahovc what is written—and he deserves, even if he does not get, a flogging for his presumption. Does he, while plowing, break a plow, or while hoeing, brcak a hoe, or while chopping, break an ax? no matter what were the imperfections of the implement broken, or the natural liabilities for breaking, the slave can be whipped for carelessness. The slaveholder could always find something of this sort, to justify him in using the lash several times during the week. Hopkins—like Covey and Weeden—were shunned by slaves who had
the privilege (as many had) of finding their own masters at the end of each year; and yet, there was not a man in all that section of country, who made a louder profession of religion, than did Mr. RIGBY HOPKINS.
But, to continue the thread of my story, through my experience when at Mr. William Freeland's.
My poor, weather-beaten bark now reached smoother water, and gentler breezes. My stormy life at Covey's had been of service to me. The things that would have seemed very hard, had I gone direct to Mr. Freeland's, from the home of Master Thomas, were now (after the hardships at Covey's) "trifles light as air."†Othello, act 3, sc. 3, line 322. I was still a field hand, and had come to prefer the severe labor of the field, to the enervating duties of a house servant. I had become large and strong; and had begun to take pride in the fact, that I could do as much hard work as some of the older men. There is much rivalry among slaves, at times, as to which can do the most work, and masters generally seek to promote such rivalry. But some of us were too wise to race with each other very long. Such racing, we had the sagacity to see, was not likely to pay. We had our times for measuring each other's strength, but we knew too much to keep up the competition so long as to produce an extraordinary day's work. We knew that if, by extraordinary exertion, a large quantity of work was done in one day, the fact, becoming known to the master, might lead him to require the same amount every day. This thought was enough to bring us to a dead halt when ever so much excited for the race.
At Mr. Freeland's, my condition was every way improved. I was no longer the poor scape-goat that I was when at Covey's, where every wrong thing done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped over my shoulders. Mr. Freeland was too just a man thus to impose upon me, or upon any one else.
It is quite usual to make one slave the object of especial abuse, and to beat him often, with a view to its effect upon others, rather than with any expectation that the slave whipped will be improved by it, but the man with whom I now was, could descend to no such meanness and wickedness. Every man here was held individually responsible for his own conduct.
This was a vast improvement on the rule at Covey's. There, I was the general pack horse. Bill Smith was protected, by a positive prohibition†Emendation note: prohibition] probibition made by his rich master, and the command of the rich slaveholder is LAW to the poor one; Hughes was favored, because of his relationship to Covey; and the hands hired temporarily, escaped flogging, except as they got it over my poor shoulders. Of course, this comparison refers to the time when Covey whip me.
Mr. Freeland, like Mr. Covey, gave his hands enough to eat, but, unlike Mr. Covey, he gave them time to take their meals; he worked us hard during the day, but gave us the night for rest—another advantage to be set to the credit of the sinner, as against that of the saint. We were seldom in the field after dark in the evening, or before sunrise in the morning. Our implements of husbandry were of the most improved pattern, and much superior to those used at Covey's.
Notwithstanding the improved condition which was now mine, and the many advantages I had gained by my new home, and my new master, I was still restless and discontented. I was about as hard to please by a master, as a master is by a slave. The freedom from bodily torture and unceasing labor, had given my mind an increased sensibility, and imparted to it greater activity. I was not yet exactly in right relations. "How be it, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual."†1 Cor. 15:46. When entombed at Covey's, shrouded in darkness and physical wretchedness, temporal well-being was the grand ; but, temporal wants supplied, the spirit puts in its claims. Beat and cuff your slave, keep him hungry and spiritless, and he will follow the chain of his master like a dog; but, feed and clothe him well—work him moderately—surround him with physical comfort,—and dreams of freedom intrude. Give him a master, and he aspires to a master; give him a good master, and he wishes to become his master. Such is human nature. You may hurl a man so low, beneath the level of his kind, that he loses all just ideas of his natural position; but elevate him a little, and the clear conception of rights rises to life and power, and leads him onward. Thus elevated, a little, at Freeland's, the dreams called into being by that good man. Father Lawson, when in Baltimore, began to visit me; and shoots from the tree of liberty began to put forth tender buds, and dim hopes of the future began to dawn.
I found myself in congenial society, at Mr. Freeland's. There were Henry Harris, John Harris, Handy Caldwell, and Sandy Jenkins.*
Henry and John were brothers, and belonged to Mr. Freeland. They were both remarkably bright and intelligent, though neither of them could read. Now for mischief! I had not been long at Freeland's before I was up to my old tricks. I early began to address my companions on the subject of
*This is the same man who gave me the roots to prevent my heing whipped by Mr. Covey. He was "a clever soul." We used frequently to talk about the fight with Covey, and as often as we did so, he would claim my success as the result of the roots which he gave me. This superstition is very common among the more ignorant slaves. A slave seldom dies, but that his death is attributed to trickery.
education, and the advantages of intelligence over ignorance, and, as far as I dared, I tried to show the agency of ignorance in keeping men in slavery. Webster's spelling book and the Columbian Orator were looked into again. As summer came on, and the long Sabbath days stretched themselves over our idleness, I became uneasy, and wanted a Sabbath school, in which to exercise my gifts, and to impart the little knowledge of letters which I possessed, to my brother slaves. A house was hardly necessary in the summer time; I could hold my school under the shade of an old oak tree, as well as any where else. The thing was, to get the scholars, and to have them thoroughly imbued with the desire to learn. Two such boys were quickly secured, in Henry and John, and from them the contagion spread. I was not long in bringing around me twenty or thirty young men, who enrolled themselves, gladly, in my Sabbath school, and were willing to meet me regularly, under the trees or elsewhere, for the purpose of learning to read. It was surprising with what ease they provided themselves with spelling books. These were mostly the cast off books of their young masters or mistresses. I taught, at first, on our own farm. All were impressed with the necessity of keeping the matter as private as possible, for the fate of the St. Michael's attempt was notorious, and fresh in the minds of all. Our pious masters, at St. Michael's, must not know that a few of their dusky brothers were learning to read the word of God, lest they should come down upon us with the lash and chain. We might have met to drink whisky, to wrestle, fight and to do other unseemly things, with no fear of interrnption from the saints or sinners of St. Michael's.
But, to meet for the purpose of improving the mind and heart, by learning to read the sacred scriptures, was esteemed a most dangerous nuisance, to be instantly stopped. The slaveholders of St. Michael's, like slaveholders elsewhere, would always prefer to see the slaves engaged in degrading sports, rather than to see them acting like moral and accountable beings.
Had any one asked a religious white man, in St. Michael's, twenty years ago, the names of three men in that town, whose lives were most after the pattern of our Lord and Master, Jesus Christ, the first three would have been as follows:
GARRISON WEST, .†Emendation note: ]
WRIGHT FAIRBANKS, .
THOMAS AULD, .
And yet, these were men who ferociously rushed in upon my Sabbath school, at St. Michael's, armed with mob-like missiles, and forbade our
meeting again, on pain of having our backs made bloody by the lash. This same Garrison West was my class leader, and I must say. I thought him a christian, until he took part in breaking up my school. He led me no more after that. The plea for this outrage was then, as it is now and at all times,—the danger to good order. If the slaves learnt to read. they would learn something else, and something worse. The peace of slavery would be disturbed; slave rule would be endangered. I leave the reader to characterize a system which is endangered by such causes. I do not dispute the soundness of the reasoning. It is perfectly sound; and, if slavery be. Sabbath schools for teaching slaves to read the bible are , and ought to be put down. These christian class leaders were, to this extent, consistent. They had settled the question, that slavery is , and, by that standard, they determined that Sabbath schools are wrong. To be sure, they were Protestant, and held to the great Protestant right of every man to ","†John 5:39. for himself: but, then, to all general rules, there are . How convenient! what crimes, may not be committed under the doctrine of the last remark. But, my dear, class leading Methodist brethren, did not condescend to give†Emendation note: give] give give me a reason for breaking up the Sabbath school at St. Michael's; it was enough that they had determined upon its destruction. I am, however, digressing.
After getting the school cleverly into operation, the second time—holding it in the woods, behind the barn, and in the shade of trees—I succeeded in inducing a free colored man, who lived several miles from our house, to permit me to hold my school in a room at his house. He, very kindly, gave me this liberty; but he incurred much peril in doing so, for the assemblage was an unlawful one. I shall not mention, here, the name of this man; for it might, even now, subject him to persecution, although the offenses were committed more than twenty years ago. I had, at one time, more than forty scholars, all of the right sort; and many of them succeeded in learning to read. I have met several slaves from Maryland, who were once my scholars; and who obtained their freedom, I doubt not, partly in consequence of the ideas imparted to them in that school. I have had various employments during my short life; but I look back to with more satisfaction, than to that afforded by my Sunday school. An attachment, deep and lasting, sprung up between me and my persecuted pupils, which made my parting from them intensely grievous; and, when I think that most of these dear souls are yet shut up in this abject thralldom, I am overwhelmed with grief.
Besides my Sunday school, I devoted three evenings a week to my fellow slaves, during the winter. Let the reader reflect upon the fact, that, in
this christian country, men and women are hiding from professors of religion, in barns, in the woods and fields, in order to learn to read the . Those dear souls, who came to my Sabbath school, came because it was popular or reputable to attend such a place, for they came under the liability of having forty stripes laid on their naked backs. Every moment they spent in my school, they were under this terrible liability; and, in this respect, I was a sharer with them. Their minds had been cramped and starved by their cruel masters; the light of education had been completely excluded; and their hard earnings had been taken to educate their master's children. I felt a delight in circumventing the tyrants, and in blessing the victims of their curses.
The year at Mr. Freeland's passed off very smoothly, to outward seeming. Not a blow was given me during the whole year. To the credit of Mr. Freeland,—irreligious though he was—it must be stated, that he was the best master I ever had, until I became my own master, and assumed for myself, as I had a right to do, the responsibility of my own existence and the exercise of my own powers. For much of the happiness—or absence of misery—with which I passed this year with Mr. Freeland, I am indebted to the genial temper and ardent friendship of my brother slaves. They were, every one of them, manly, generous and brave, yes; I say they were brave, and I will add, fine looking. It is seldom the lot of mortals to have truer and better friends than were the slaves on this farm. It is not uncommon to charge slaves with great treachery toward each other, and to believe them incapable of confiding in each other; but I must say, that I never loved, esteemed, or confided in men, more than I did in these. They were as true as steel, and no hand of brothers could have been more loving. There were no mean advantages taken of each other, as is sometimes the case where†Textual note: copy text's omission of the "h" in "where" is corrected in A2–5 (the 1855 printing that were members of one or more later impressions). Emendation note: where] A2-F: were slaves are situated as we were; no tattling; no giving each other bad names to Mr. Freeland; and no elevating one at the expense of the other. We never undertook to do any thing, of any importance, which was likely to affect each other, without mutual consultation. We were generally a unit, and moved together. Thoughts and sentiments were exchanged between us, which might well he called very incendiary, by oppressors and tyrants; and perhaps the time has not even now come, when it is safe to unfold all the flying suggestions which arise in the minds of intelligent slaves. Several of my friends and brothers, if yet alive, are still in some part of the house of bondage; and though twenty years have passed away, the suspicious malice of slavery might punish them for even listening to my thoughts.
The slaveholder, kind or cruel, is a slaveholder still—the every hour
violator of the just and inalienable rights of man; and he is, therefore, every hour silently whetting the knife of vengeance for his own throat. He never lisps a syllable in commendation of the fathers of this republic, nor denounces any attempted oppression of himself, without inviting the knife to his own throat, and asserting the rights of rebellion for his own slaves.
The year is ended, and we are now in the midst of the Christmas holidays, which are kept this year as last, according to the general description previously given.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE RUN-AWAY PLOT.
NEW YEAR'S THOUGHTS AND MEDITATIONS—AGAIN BOUGHT BY FREELAND—NO AMBITION TO BE A SLAVE—KINDNESS NO COMPENSATION FOR SLAVERY—INCIPIENT STEPS TOWARD ESCAPE—CONSIDERATIONS LEADING THERETO—IRRECONCILABLE HOSTILITY TO SLAVERY—SOLEMN VOW TAKEN—PLAN DIVULGED TO THE SLAVES—COLUMBIAN ORATOR—SCHEME GAINS FAVOR, DESPITE PRO-SLAVERY PREACHING—DANGER OF DISCOVERY—SKILLS OF SLAVEHOLDERS IN READING THE MINDS OF THEIR SLAVES—SUSPICION AND COERCION—HYMNS WITH DOUBLE MEANING—VALUE, IN DOLLARS, OF OUR COMPANY—PRELIMINARY CONSULTATION—PASS-WORD—CONFLICTS OF HOPE AND FEAR—DIFFICULTIES TO BE OVERCOME—IGNORANCE OF GEOGRAPHY—SURVEY OF IMAGINARY DIFFICULTIES—EFFECT ON OUR MINDS—PATRICK HENRY—SANDY BECOMES A DREAMER—ROUTE TO THE NORTH LAID OUT—OBJECTIONS CONSIDERED—FRAUDS PRACTICED ON FREEMEN—PASSES WRITTEN—ANXIETIES AS THE TIME DREW NEAR—DREAD OF FAILURE—APPEALS TO COMRADES—STRANGE PRESENTIMENT—COINCIDENCE—THE BETRAYAL DISCOVERED—THE MANNER OF ARRESTING US—RESISTANCE MADE BY HENRY HARRIS—ITS EFFECT—THE UNIQUE SPEECH OF MRS. FREELAND—OUR SAD PROCESSION TO PRISON—BRUTAL JEERS BY THE MULTITUDE ALONG THE ROAD—PASSES EATEN—THE DENIAL—SANDY TOO WELL LOVED TO BE SUSPECTED—DRAGGED BEHIND HORSE—THE JAIL A RELIEF—A NEW SET OF TORMENTORS—SLAVE TRADERS—JOHN, CHARLES AND HENRY RELEASED—THE AUTHOR LEFT ALONE IN PRISON—HE IS TAKEN OUT, AND SENT TO BALTIMORE.
I AM now at the beginning of the year 1836, a time favorable for serious thoughts. The mind naturally occupies itself with the mysteries of life in all its phases-the ideal, the real and the actual. Sober people look hoth ways at the beginning of the year, surveying the errors of the past, and providing against possible errors of the future. I, too, was thus exercised. I had little
pleasure in retrospect, and the prospect was not very brilliant. "Notwithstanding," thought I, "the many resolutions and prayers I have made, in behalf of freedom, I am, this first day of the year 1836, still a slave, still wandering in the depths of spirit-devouring thralldom. My faculties and powers of body and soul are not my own, but are the property of a fellow mortal, in no sense superior to me, except that he has the physical power to compel me to be owned and controlled by him. By the combined physical force of the community, I am his slave,—a slave for life." With thoughts like these, I was perplexed and chafed; they rendered me gloomy and disconsolate. The anguish of my mind may not be written.
At the close of the year 1835, Mr. Freeland,†William Freeland. my temporary master, had bought me of Capt. Thomas Auld, for the year 1836. His promptness in securing my services, would have been flattering to my vanity, had I been ambitious to win the reputation of heing a valuable slave. Even as it was, I felt a slight degree of complacency at the circumstance. It showed he was as well pleased with me as a slave, as I was with him as a master. I have already intimated my regard for Mr. Freeland, and I may say here, in addressing northern readers—where there is no selfish motive for speaking in praise of a slaveholder—that Mr. Freeland was a man of many excellent qualities, and to me quite preferable to any master I ever had.
But the kindness of the slavemaster only gilds the chain of slavery, and detracts nothing from its weight or power. The thought that men are made for other and better uses than slavery, thrives best under the gentle treatment of a kind master. But the grim visage of slavery can assume no smiles which can fascinate the partially enlightened slave, into a forgetfulness of his bondage, nor of the desirableness of liberty.
l was not through the first month of this, my second year with the kind and gentlemanly Mr. Freeland, before I was earnestly considering and devising plans for gaining that freedom, which, when I was but a mere child, I had ascertained to be the natural and inborn right of every member of the human family. The desire for this freedom had been benumbed, while I was under the brutalizing dominion of Covey; and it had been postponed, and rendered inoperative, by my truly pleasant Sunday school engagements with my friends, during the year 1835, at Mr. Freeland's. It had, however, never entirely subsided. I hated slavery, always, and the desire for freedom only needed a favorable breeze, to fan it into a blaze, at any moment. The thought of only being a creature of the and the , troubled me, and I longed to have a —a future with hope in it. To be shut up entirely to the past and present, is abhorrent to the human mind; it is to the
soul—whose life and happiness is unceasing progress—what the prison is to the body; a blight and mildew, a hell of horrors. The dawning of this, another year, awakened me from my temporary slumber, and roused into life my latent, but long-cherished†Emendation note: long-cherished] aspirations for freedom. I was now not only ashamed to be contented in slavery, but ashamed to to be contented, and in my present favorable condition, under the mild rule of Mr. F., I am not sure that some kind reader will not condemn me for being over ambitious, and greatly wanting in proper humility, when I say the truth, that I now drove from me all thoughts of making the best of my lot, and welcomed only such thoughts as led me away from the house of bondage. The intense desire, now felt, , quickened by my present favorable circumstances, brought me to the determination to act, as well as to think and speak. Accordingly, at the beginning of this year 1836, I took upon me a solemn vow, that the year which had now dawned upon me should not close, without witnessing an earnest attempt, on my part, to gain my liberty. This vow only bound me to make my escape individually; but the year spent with Mr. Freeland had attached me, as with "hooks of steel,"†Douglass substitutes "hooks" for "hoops" when quoting Hamlet, act 1, sc. 3, line 63. to my brother slaves. The most affectionate and confiding friendship existed between us; and I felt it my duty to give them an opportunity to share in my virtuous determination, by frankly disclosing to them my plans and purposes. Toward Henry and John Harris, I felt a friendship as strong as one man can feel for another; for I could have died with and for them. To them, therefore, with a suitable degree of caution, I began to disclose my sentiments and plans; sounding them, the while, on the subject of running away, provided a good chance should offer. I scarcely need tell the reader, that I did my very best to imbue the minds of my dear friends with my own views and feelings. Thoroughly awakened, now, and with a definite vow upon me, all my little reading, which had any bearing on the subject of human rights, was rendered available in my communications with my friends. That (to me) gem of a book, the Columbian Orator, with its eloquent orations and spicy dialogues, denouncing oppression and slavery—telling of what had been dared, done and suffered by men, to obtain the inestimable boon of liberty—was still fresh in my memory, and whirled into the ranks of my speech with the aptitude of well trained soldiers, going through the drill. The fact is, I here began my public speaking. I canvassed, with Henry and John, the subject of slavery, and dashed against it the condemning brand of God's eternal justice, which it every hour violates. My fellow servants were neither indifferent, dull, nor inapt. Our feelings were more alike than our opinions. All, however, were ready to act, when a feasible plan should be
proposed. "Show us how the thing is to be done," said they, "and all else is clear."
We were all, except Sandy, quite free from slaveholding priestcraft. It was in vain that we had been taught from the pulpit at St. Michael's, the duty of obedience to our masters; to recognize God as the author of our enslavement; to regard running away an offense, alike against God and man; to deem our enslavement a merciful and beneficial arrangement; to esteem our condition, in this country, a paradise to that from which we had been snatched in Africa; to consider our hard hands and dark color as God's mark of displeasure, and as pointing us out as the proper subjects of slavery; that the relation of master and slave was one of reciprocal benefits; that our work was not more serviceable to our masters, than our master's thinking was serviceable to us.†In response to the rise of immediate abolitionism in the 1830s, southern Christians developed an elaborate scriptural defense of slavery. From the Old Testamentthey cited the curse placed on Noah's son Ham to claim that God had inaugurated slavery. They also argued that Mosaic law permitted slavery and that many Old Testament prophets had been slave owners. Southerners also insisted that neither Christ nor his apostles had condemned slavery in the New Testament. In addition, southern clergy defended slavery by insisting that the institution elevated the moral character and physical well-being of the bondsmen and bondswomen. Mitchell Snay, Gospel of Disunion: Religion and Separatism in the Antebellum South (New York, 1993), 78–99; Tise, Proslavery, 122–23, 328–30. I say, it was in vain that the pulpit of St. Michael's had constantly inculcated these plausible doctrines. Nature laughed them to scorn. For my own part, I had now become altogether too big for my chains. Father Lawson's†Charles Lawson. solemn words, of what I ought to be, and might be, in the providence of God, had not fallen dead on my soul. I was fast verging toward manhood, and the prophecies of my childhood were still unfulfilled. The thought, that year after year had passed away, and my best resolutions to run away had failed and faded—that I was , and a slave, too, with chances for gaining my freedom diminished and still diminishing—as not a matter to he slept over easily; nor did I easily sleep over it.
But here came a new trouble. Thoughts and purposes so incendiary as those I now cherished, could not agitate the mind long, without danger of making themselves manifest to scrutinizing and unfriendly beholders. I had reason to fear that my sable face might prove altogether too transparent for the safe concealment of my hazardous enterprise. Plans of greater moment have leaked through stone walls. and revealed their projectors. But, here was no stone wall to hide my purpose. I would have given my poor, tell-tale†Emendation note: tell-tale] face for the immovable countenance of an Indian, for it was far from being proof against the daily, searching glances of those with whom I met.
It is the interest and business of slaveholders to study human nature, with a view to practical results, and many of them attain astonishing proficiency in discerning the thoughts and emotions of slaves. They have to deal not with earth, wood, or stone, but with ; and, by every regard they have for their safety and prosperity, they must study to know the material on which they are at work. So much intellect as the slaveholder has around him, requires watching. Their safety depends upon their vigilance. Conscious
of the injustice and wrong they are every hour perpetrating, and knowing what they themselves would do if made the victims of such wrongs, they are looking out for the first signs of the dread retribution of justice. They watch, therefore, with skilled and practiced eyes, and have learned to read, with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slave, through his sable face. These uneasy sinners are quick to inquire into the matter, where the slave is concerned. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstraction, sullenness and indifference—indeed, any mood out of the common way—afford ground for suspicion and inquiry. Often relying on their superior position and wisdom, they hector and torture the slave into a confession, by affecting to know the truth of their accusations. "You have got the devil in you," say they. "and we will whip him out of you." I have often been put thus to the torture, on bare suspicion. This system has its disadvantages as well as their opposite. The slave is sometimes whipped into the confession of offenses which he never committed. The reader will see that the good old rule—"a man is to be held innocent until proved to be guilty"†The most concise statement of this fundamental legal principle is in the anonymously authored public letters from "Junius" to leading eighteenth-century English government officials. In his letter to Lord Chief Justice Mansfield of 21 January 1772. "Junius" declared that "favorable circumstances, alleged before the judge, may justify a doubt whether the prisoner be guilty or not; and where the guilt is doubtful, a presumption of innocence should in general, be admitted." Junius: Stat Nominus Umbra, 2 vols. (1793; London, 1801), 2:242.—does not hold good on the slave plantation. Suspicion and torture are the approved methods of getting at the truth, here. It was necessary for me, therefore, to keep a watch over my deportment, lest the enemy should get the better of me.
But with all our caution and studied reserve, I am not sure that Mr. Freeland did not suspect that all was not right with us. It seem that he watched us more narrowly, after the plan of escape had hccn conceivcd and discussed amongst us. Men seldom see themselves as others see them; and while, to ourselves, everything connected with our contemplated escape appeared concealed, Mr. Freeland may have, with the peculiar prescience of a slaveholder, mastered the huge thought which was disturbing our peace in slavery.
I am the more inclined to think that he suspected us, because, prudent as we were, as I now look back, I can see that we did many silly things, very well calculated to awaken suspicion. We were, at times, remarkably buoyant, singing hymns and making joyous exclamations, almost as triumphant in their tone as if we had reached a land of freedom and safety. A keen ohserver might have detected in our repeated singing of
"O Canaan, sweet Canaan,
I am bound for the land of Canaan."†Douglass quotes a variation of the spiritual "Sweet Canaan." A published version includes the lyrics "Oh, de land I am bound for, Sweet Canaan's happy land I am bound for." Thomas P. Fenner, ed., Religious Folk Songs of the Negro as Sung on the Plantations, rev. ed. (Hampton, Va., 1909), 62.
something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the —and the north was our Canaan.†Emendation note: Canaan.]
"I thought I heard them say,
There were lions in the way,
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here .
Run to Jesus—shun the danger—
I don't expect to stay
Much longer here,"†From "Run to Jesus,'' a song Douglass gave to the Fisk University "Jubilee Singers." The group's biographer notes that Douglass presented them with the song in Washington. D.C., with the statement that it "first suggested to him the thought of escaping from slavery." J. B. T. Marsh, The Story of the Jubilee Singers; With Their Songs, rev. ed. (Boston, 1880), 188.
was a favorite air, and had a double meaning. In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but, in the lips of our company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery.
I had succeeded in winning to my (what slaveholders would call wicked) scheme, a company of five young men, the very flower of the neighhorhood, each one of whom would have commanded one thousand dollars in the home market. At New Orleans, they would have brought fifteen hundred dollars a piece, and, perhaps, more. The names of our party were as follows: Henry Harris; John Harris, brother to Henry; Sandy Jenkins, of root memory; Charles Roberts, and Henry Bailey. I was the youngest, but one, of the party. I had, however, the advantage of them all, in experience, and in a knowledge of letters. This gave me great influence over them. Perhaps not one of them, left to himself, would have dreamed of escape as a possible thing. Not one of them was self-moved in the matter. They all wanted to he free, but the serious thought of running away, had not entered into their minds, until I won them to the undertaking. They all were tolerably well off—for slaves—and had dim hopes of being set free, some day, by their masters. If any one is to blame for disturbing the quiet of the slaves and slave-masters of the neighborhood of St. Michael 's, . I claim to be the instigator of the high crime, (as the slaveholders regard it,) and I kept life in it, until life could be kept in it no longer.
Pending the time of our contemplated departure out of our Egypt,†A reference to the departure of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt, as told in the biblical book of Exodus. we met often by night, and on every Sunday. At these meetings we talked the matter over; told our hopes and fears, and the difficulties discovered or imagined; and, like men of sense, we counted the cost of the enterprise to which we were committing ourselves.
These meetings must have resembled, on a small scale, the meetings of revolutionary conspirators, in their primary condition. We were plotting against our (so called) lawful rulers; with this difference—that we sought
our own good, and not the harm of our enemies. We did not seek to overthrow them, but to escape from them. As for Mr. Freeland, we all liked him, and would have gladly remained with him, , LIBERTY was our aim; and we had now come to think that we had a right to liberty, against every obstacle—even against the lives of our enslavers.
We had several words, expressive of things, important to us, which we understood, but which, even if distinctly heard by an outsider, would convey no certain meaning. I have reasons for suppressing these . which the reader will easily divine. I hated the secrecy; but where slavery is powerful, and liberty is weak, the latter is driven to concealment or to destruction.
The prospect was not always a bright one. At times, we were almost tempted to abandon the enterprise, and to get back to that comparative peace of mind, which even a man under the gallows might feel, when all hope of escape had vanished. Quiet bondage was felt to be better than the doubts, fears and uncertainties, which now so sadly perplexed and disturbed us.
The infirmities of humanity, generally, were represented in our little
band. We were confident, bold and determined, at times; and, again, doubting, timid and wavering; whistling, like the boy in the grave-yard, to keep away the spirits.
To look at the map, and observe the proximity of Eastern Shore, Maryland, to Delaware and Pennsylvania, it may seem to the reader quite absurd, to regard the proposed escape as a formidable undertaking. But to , some one has said a man must . The real distance was great enough, but the imagined distance was, to our ignorance, even greater. Every slaveholder seeks to impress his slave with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory, and of his own almost illimitable power. We all had vague and indistinct notions of the geography of the country.
The distance, however, is not the chief trouble. The nearer arc the lines of a slave state and the borders of a free one, the greater the peril. Hired kidnappers infest these borders. Then, too, we knew that merely reaching a free state did not free us; that, wherever caught. we could be returned to slavery. We could see no spot on this side the ocean, where we could be free. We had heard of Canada, the real Canaan of the American bondmen, simply as a country to which the wild goose and the swan repaired at the end of winter, to escape the heat of summer, but not as the home of man. 1 knew something of theology, but nothing of geography. I really did not, at that time, know that there was a state of New York, or a state of Massachusetts.
I had heard of Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey, and all the southern states, but was ignorant of the free states, generally. New York city was our northern limit, and to go there, and to be forever harassed with the liability of being hunted down and returned to slavery—with the certainty of being treated ten times worse than we had ever been treated before—was a prospect far from delightful, and it might well cause some hesitation about engaging in the enterprise. The case, sometimes, to our excited visions, stood thus: At every gate through which we had to pass, we saw a watchman; at every ferry, a guard; on every bridge, a sentinel; and in every wood, a patrol or slave-hunter. We were hemmed in on every side. The good to he sought, and the evil to be shunned, were flung in the balance, and weighed against each other. On the one hand, there stood slavery; a stern reality. glaring frightfully upon us, with the blood of millions in his polluted skirts—terrible to behold—greedily devouring our hard earnings and feeding himself upon our flesh. Here was the evil from which to escape. On the other hand, far away, back in the hazy distance, where all forms seemed but shadows, under the flickering light of the north star—behind some craggy hill or snow-covered mountain—stood a doubtful freedom, half frozen, beckoning us to her icy domain. This was, the good to be sought. The inequality was as great as that between certainty and uncertainty. This, in itself, was enough to stagger us; but when we came to survey the untrodden road, and conjecture the many possible difficulties, we were appalled, and at times, as I have said, were upon the point of giving over the struggle altogether.
The reader can have little idea of the phantoms of trouble which flit, in such circumstances, before the uneducated mind of the slave. Upon either side, we saw grim death assuming a variety of horrid shapes. Now, it was starvation, causing us, in a strange and friendless land, to eat our own flesh. Now, we were contending with the waves, (for our journey was in part by water,) and were drowned. Now, we were hunted by dogs, and overtaken and torn to pieces hy their merciless fangs. We were stung by scorpions—chased hy wild beasts—bitten by snakes; and, worst of all, after having succeeded in swimming rivers—encountering wild beasts—sleeping in the woods—suffering hunger, cold, heat and nakedness—we supposed ourselves to he overtaken by hired kidnappers, who, in the name of the law, and for their thrice accursed reward, would, perchance, fire upon us—kill some, wound others, and capture all. This dark picture, drawn by ignorance and fear, at times greatly shook our determination, and not unfrequently caused us to
"Rather bear those ills we had
Than fly to others which we knew not of."†Douglass slightly misquotes Hamlet, act 3, sc. 1, lines 81–82.
I am not disposed to magnify this circumstance in my experience. and yet I think I shall seem to be so disposed, to the reader. No man can tell the intense agony which is felt by the slave, when wavering on the point of making his escape. All that he has is at stake; and even that which he has not, is at stake, also. The life which he has, may be lost, and the liberty which he seeks, may not be gained.
Patrick Henry, to a listening senate, thrilled by his magic eloquence, and ready to stand by him in his boldest flights, could say, "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH,"†Patrick Henry (1736–99), a Virginia patriot, lawyer, and Revolutionary statesman, attended the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia and was governor of Virginia from 1776 to 1779. Douglass paraphrases Patrick Henry's speech in a Virginia revolutionary convention on 23 March 1775. William Wirt, The Life and Character of Patrick Henry, rev. ed. (New York, 1832), 141; DAB, 7:554–59. and this saying was a sublime one, even for a freeman; but, incomparably more sublime, is the same sentiment, when asserted by men accustomed to the lash and chain—men whose sensibilities must have become more or less deadened by their bondage. With us it was a liberty, at best, that we sought; and a certain, lingering death in the rice swamps and sugar fields, if we failed. Life is not lightly regarded by men of sane minds. It is precious, alike to the pauper and to the prince—to the slave, and to his master; and yet, 1 believe there was not one among us, who would not rather have been shot down, than pass away life in hopeless bondage.
In the progress of our preparations, Sandy, the root man, became troubled. He began to have dreams, and some of them were very distressing. One of these, which happened on a Friday night, was, to him, of great significance; and I am quite ready to confess, that I felt somewhat damped by it myself. He said. "I dreamed, last night, that I was roused from sleep, by strange noises, like the voices of a swarm of angry birds, that caused a roar as they passed, which fell upon my ear like a coming gale over the tops of the trees. Looking up to see what it could mean," said Sandy, "l saw you, Frederick, in the claws of a huge bird, surrounded by a large number of birds, of all colors and sizes. These were all picking at you, while you, with your arms, seemed to be trying to protect your eyes. Passing over me, the birds flew in a south-westerly direction, and I watched them until they were clean out of sight. Now, I saw this as plainly as I now see you; and furder, honey, watch de Friday night dream; dare is sumpon in it, shose you born; dare is, indeed, honey."
I confess I did not like this dream; but I threw off concern ahout it, by attributing it to the general excitement and perturbation consequent upon our contemplated plan of escape. I could not, however, shake off its effect
at once. I felt that it boded me no good. Sandy was unusually emphatic and oracular, and his manner had much to do with the impression made upon me.
The plan of escape which I recommended, and to which my comrades assented, was to take a large canoe, owned by Mr. Hamilton, and, on the Saturday night previous to the Easter holidays, launch out into the Chesapeake bay, and paddle for its head,—a distance of seventy miles—with all our might. Our course, on reaching this point, was, to turn the canoe adrift, and bend our steps toward the north star, till we reached a free state.
There were several objections to this plan. One was, the danger from gales on the bay. In rough weather, the waters of the Chesapeake are much agitated, and there is danger, in a canoe, of being swamped by the waves. Another objection was, that the canoe would soon be missed; the absent persons would, at once, be suspected of having taken it; and we should be pursued by some of the fast sailing bay craft out of St. Michael's. Then, again, if we reached the head of the bay, and turned the canoe adrift, she might prove a guide to our track, and bring the land hunters after us.
These and other objections were set aside, by the stronger ones which could he urged against every other plan that could then be suggested. On the water, we had a chance of being regarded as fishermen, in the service of a master. On the other hand, by taking the land route, through the counties adjoining Delaware, we should he subjected to all manner of interruptions, and many very disagreeable questions, which might give us serious trouble. Any white man is authorized to stop a man of color, on any road, and examine him, and arrest him, if he so desires.†The laws and social customs of the South gave whites the authority to stop any African American deemed suspicious. In the early nineteenth century most southern states enacted pass laws that required blacks to carry proof of their free status. Failure to produce this evidence would result in arrest. Any white person could arrest a suspected fugitive or discipline any slave. In many states, blacks who lost their free papers would be treated as a slave until their free status was proven. Although any white could make an arrest, formal power usually rested with locally organized patrols of men who rode through a district, arrested runaways, stopped any slaves away from their home plantation to examine their passes, and generally instilled fear in the black population. Ira Berlin, Slaves without Masters: The Free Negro in the Ante bellum South (New York, 1974), 94–95; Richard C. Wade, Slavery in the Cities: The South 1820–1860 (New York, 1964), 80–81.
By this arrangement, many abuses (considered such even by slaveholders) occur. Cases have heen known, where freemen have been called upon to show their free papers, by a pack of ruffians—and, on the presentation of the papers, the ruffians have torn them up, and seized their victim, and sold him to a life of endless bondage.
The week before our intended start, I wrote a pass for each of our party, giving them permission to visit Baltimore, during the Easter holidays. The pass ran after this manner:
"This is to certify, that I, the undersigned, have given the bearer, my servant, John, full liberty to go to Baltimore, to spend the Easter holidays.
"W. H.
"Near St. Michael's, Talbot county, Maryland.''
Although we were not going to Baltimore, and were intending to land east of North Point, in the direction where I had seen the Philadelphia steamers go, these passes might be made useful to us in the lower part of the bay, while steering toward Baltimore. These were not, however, to be shown by us, until all other answers failed to satisfy the inquirer. We were all fully alive to the importance of being calm and self-possessed, when accosted, if accosted we should be; and we more times than one rehearsed to each other how we should behave in the hour of trial.
Those were long, tedious days and nights. The suspense was painful, in the extreme. To balance probabilities, where life and liberty hang on the result, requires steady nerves. I panted for action, and was glad when the day, at the close of which we were to start, dawned upon us. Sleeping, the night before, was out of the question. I probably felt more deeply than any of my companions, because I was the instigator of the movement. The responsibility of the whole enterprise rested on my shoulders. The glory of success, and the shame and confusion of failure, could not be matters of indifference to me. Our food was prepared; our clothes were packed up; we were all ready to go, and impatient for Saturday morning—considering that the last morning of our bondage.
I cannot describe the tempest and tumult of my brain, that morning. The reader will please to bear in mind, that, in a slave state, an unsuccessful runaway is not only subjected to cruel torture, and sold away to the far south, but he is frequently execrated by the other slaves. He is charged with making the condition of the other slaves intolerable, by laying them all under the suspicion of their masters—subjecting them to greater vigilance, and imposing greater limitations on their privileges. I dreaded murmurs from this quarter. It is difficult, too. for a slave-master to believe that slaves escaping have not been aided in their flight by some one of their fellow slaves. When, therefore, a slave is missing, every slave on the place is closely examined as to his knowledge of the undertaking; and they are sometimes even tortured, to make them disclose what they are suspected of knowing of such escape.
Our anxiety grew more and more intense. as the time of our intended departure for the north drew nigh. It was truly felt to be a matter of life and death with us; and we fully intended to as well as , if necessity should occur for that extremity. But the trial hour was not yet come. It was easy to resolve, but not so easy to act. I expected there might be some drawing back, at the last. It was natural that there should be; therefore. during the intervening time, I lost no opportunity to explain away difficulties, to
remove doubts, to dispel fears, and to inspire all with firmness. It was too late to look back; and was the time to go forward. Like most other men, we had done the talking part of our work, long and well; and the time had come to as if we were in earnest, and meant to be as true in action as in words. I did not forget to appeal to the pride of my comrades, by telling them that, if after having solemnly promised to go, as they had done, they now failed to make the attempt, they would, in effect, brand themselves with cowardice, and might as well sit down, fold their arms, and acknowledge themselves as fit only to be . This detestable character, all were unwilling to assume. Every man except Sandy (he, much to our regret, withdrew) stood firm; and at our last meeting we pledged ourselves afresh, and in the most solemn manner, that, at the time appointed, we certainly start on our long journey for a free country. This meeting was in the middle of the week, at the end of which we were to start.
Early that morning we went, as usual, to the field, but with hearts that heat quickly and anxiously. Any one intimately acquainted with us, might have seen that all was not well with us, and that some monster lingered in our thoughts. Our work that morning was the same as it had been for several days past—drawing out and spreading manure. While thus engaged, I had a sudden presentiment, which flashed upon me like lightning in a dark night, revealing to the lonely traveler the gulf before, and the enemy behind. I instantly turned to Sandy Jenkins, who was near me, and said to him. "; something has just told me so." I felt as sure of it, as if the officers were there in sight. Sandy said, "Man, dat is strange; but I feel just as you do." If my mother—then long in her grave—had appeared before me, and told me that we were betrayed, I could not, at that moment, have felt more certain of the fact.
In a few minutes after this, the long, low and distant notes of the horn summoned us from the field to breakfast. I felt as one may be supposed to feel before being led forth to be executed for some great offense. I wanted no breakfast; but I went with the other slaves toward the house, for form's sake. My feelings were not disturbed as to the right of running away; on that point I had no trouble, whatever. My anxiety arose from a sense of the consequences of failure.
In thirty minutes after that vivid presentiment, came the apprehended crash. On reaching the house, for breakfast, and glancing my eye toward the lane gate, the worst was at once made known. The lane gate of Mr. Freeland's house, is nearly a half a mile from the door, and much shaded by the heavy wood which bordered the main road. I was, however, able to descry
four white men, and two colored men, approaching. The white men were on horseback, and the colored men were walking behind, and seemed to be tied. "," thought I, "." I now became composed, or at least comparatively so, and calmly awaited the result. I watched the ill-omened company, till I saw them enter the gate. Successful flight was impossible, and I made up my mind to stand, and meet the evil, whatever it might be; for I was now not without a slight hope that things might tum differently from what I at first expected. In a few moments, in came Mr. William Hamilton, riding very rapidly, and evidently much excited. He was in the habit of riding very slowly, and was seldom known to gallop his horse. This time, his horse was nearly at full speed, causing the dust to roll thick behind him. Mr. Hamilton, though one of the most resolute men in the whole neighborhood, was, nevertheless, a remarkably mild spoken man; and, even when greatly excited, his language was cool and circumspect. He came to the door, and inquired if Mr. Freeland was in. I told him that Mr. Freeland was at the barn. Off the old gentleman rode, toward the barn, with unwonted speed. Mary, the cook, was at a loss to know what was the matter, and I did not profess any skill in making her understand. I knew she would have united, as readily as any one, in cursing me for bringing trouble into the family; so I held my peace, leaving matters to develop themselves, without my assistance. In a few moments, Mr. Hamilton and Mr. Freeland came down from the barn to the house; and, just as they made their appearance in the front yard, three men (who proved to be constables) came dashing into the lane, on horseback, as if summoned by a sign requiring quick work. A few seconds brought them into the front yard, where they hastily dismounted, and tied their horses. This done, they joined Mr. Freeland and Mr. Hamilton, who were standing a short distance from the kitchen. A few moments were spent, as if in consulting how to proceed, and then the whole party walked up to the kitchen door. There was now no one in the kitchen but myself and John Harris, Henry and Sandy were yet at the barn. Mr. Freeland came inside the kitchen door, and with an agitated voice, called me by name, and told me to come forward; that there were some gentlemen who wished to see me. I stepped toward them, at the door, and asked what they wanted, when the constables grabbed me, and told me that I had better not resist; that I had been in a scrape, or was said to have been in one; that they were merely going to take me where I could he examined; that they were going to carry me to St. Michael's, to have me brought before my master. They further said, that, in case the evidence against me was not true, I should be acquitted. I was now firmly tied, and
completely at the mercy of my captors. Resistance was idle. They were five in number, armed to the very teeth. When they had secured me, they next turned to John Harris, and, in a few moments, succeeded in tying him as firmly as they had already tied me. They next turned toward Henry Harris, who had now returned from the barn. "Cross your hands," said the constables, to Henry. "I won't" said Henry, in a voice so firm and clear, and in a manner so determined, as for a moment to arrest all proceedings. "Won't you cross your hands?" said Tom Graham,†Thomas Graham was the constable for St. Michaels Parish in 1833 and the next-door neighhor of Thomas Auld. In 1830 he was between the ages of forty and fifty, married, the father of one son, and the owner of one female slave. He appears to have died hetween 1840 and 1850, as he was not listed in the census for the latter year. After the publication of the Narrative, Graham publicly disputed Douglass's characterization of his treatment by Auld. Lib., 20 February 1846; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 39; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 48a; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 116, 136–37. the constable. "," said Henry, with increasing emphasis. Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Freeland, and the officers, now came near to Henry. Two of the constables drew out their shining pistols, and swore by the name of God, that he should cross his hands, or they would shoot him down. Each of these hired ruffians now cocked their pistols, and, with fingers apparently on the triggers, presented their deadly weapons to the breast of the unarmed slave, saying, at the same time, if he did not cross his hands, they would "blow his d---d heart out of him."
"" said Henry. Shoot!—shoot! and be d---d. I won't be tied." This, the brave fellow said in a voice as defiant and heroic in its tone, as was the language itself; and, at the moment of saying this, with the pistols at his very breast, he quickly raised his arms, and dashed them from the puny hands of his assassins, the weapons flying in opposite directions. Now came the struggle. All hands now rushed upon the brave fellow, and, after beating him for some time, they succeeded in overpowering and tying him. Henry put me to shame; he fought, and fought bravely. John and I had made no resistance. The fact is, I never see much use in fighting, unless there is a reasonable probability of whipping somebody. Yet there was something almost providential in the resistance made by the gallant Henry. But for that resistance, every soul of us would have been hurried off to the far south. Just a moment previous to the trouble with Henry, Mr. Hamilton said—and this gave me the unmistakable clue to the cause of our arrest—"Perhaps we had now better make a search for those protections, which we understand Frederick has written for himself and the rest." Had these passes been found, they would have been point blank proof against us, and would have confirmed all the statements of our betrayer. Thanks to the resistance of Henry, the excitement produced by the scuffle drew all attention in that direction, and I succeeded in flinging my pass, unobserved, into the fire. The confusion attendant upon the scuffle, and the apprehension of further trouble, perhaps, led our captors to forego, for the present, any search for ""; so we were not yet convicted of the
purpose to run away; and it was evident that there was some doubt, on the part of all, whether we had been guilty of such a purpose.
Just as we were all completely tied, and about ready to start toward St. Michael's, and thence to jail, Mrs. Betsey Freeland†Elizabeth Freeland was one of eleven children born to William and Nancy Needle Hambleton of Old Martingham, Talbot County, Maryland. As a Hambleton, she joined a clan of prominent landowners, merchants, and professionals. She married William Freeland of Talbot County, who died between 1810 and 1820. She is listed in the 1820 U.S. census as the head of a household that included three white boys, a young white adult male, and six slaves. She appears again in 1830, presiding over a home that included two white men and four slaves. One of those white men was her son, William. 1810 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 338; 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 10; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 35; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:455–58. (mother to William, who was very much attached—after the southern fashion—to Henry and John, they having been reared from childhood in her house) came to the kitchen door, with her hands full of biscuits,—for we had not had time to take our breakfast that morning—and divided them between Henry and John. This done, the lady made the following parting address to me, looking and pointing her bony finger at me. "You devil! you yellow devil It was you that put it into the heads of Henry and John to run away. But for you, you , Henry and John would never have thought of running away." I gave the lady a look, which called forth a scream of mingled wrath and terror, as she slammed the kitchen door, and went in, leaving me, with the rest, in hands as harsh as her own broken voice.
Could the kind reader have been quietly riding along the main road to or from Easton, that morning, his eye would have met a painful sight. He would have seen five young men, guilty of no crime, save that of preferring to a life of , drawn along the public highway—firmly bound together—tramping through dust and heat, bare-footed and bareheaded—fastened to three strong horses, whose riders were armed to the teeth, with pistols and daggers—on their way to prison, like felons, and suffering every possible insult from the crowds of idle, vulgar people, who clustered around, and heartlessly made their failure the occasion for all manner of ribaldry and sport. As I looked upon this crowd of vile persons, and saw myself and friends thus assailed and persecuted, I could not help seeing the fulfillment of Sandy's dream. I was in the hands of moral vultures, and firmly held in their sharp talons, and was being hurried away toward Easton, in a south-easterly direction, amid the jeers of new birds of the same feather, through every neighborhood we passed. It seemed to me, (and this shows the good understanding between the slaveholders and their allies,) that every body we met knew the cause of our arrest, and were out, awaiting our passing by, to feast their vindictive eyes on our misery and to gloat over our ruin. Some said, , and others, ; others, I ought to have the "" taken from my back; while no one gave us a kind word or sympathizing look, except the poor slaves, who were lifting their heavy hoes, and who cautiously glanced at us through the post-and-rail fences, behind which they were at work. Our sufferings, that morning, can be more easily imagined than described. Our hopes were all
blasted, at a blow. The cruel injustice, the victorious crime, and the helplessness of innocence, led me to ask, in my ignorance and weakness—"Where now is the God of justice and mercy? and why have these wicked men the power thus to trample upon our rights, and to insult our feelings?" And yet, in the next moment, came the consoling thought, "."†A loose paraphrase of Prov. 28: 16–18. Of one thing I could be glad—not one of my dear friends, upon whom I had brought this great calamity, either by word or look, reproached me for having led them into it. We were a band of brothers, and never dearer to each other than now. The thought which gave us the most pain, was the probable separation which would now take place, in case we were sold off to the far south, as we were likely to be. While the constables were looking forward, Henry and I being fastened together, could occasionally exchange a word, without being observed by the kidnappers who had us in charge. "What shall I do with my pass?" said Henry. "Eat it with your biscuit." said I; "'it won't do to tear it up." We were now near St. Michael's. The direction concerning the passes was passed around, and executed. "," said I. "," was passed around and enjoined, and assented to. Our confidence in each other was unshaken; and we were quite resolved to succeed or fail together—as much after the calamity which had befallen us, as before.
On reaching St. Michael's. we underwent a sort of examination at my master's store, and it was evident to my mind, that Master Thomas suspected the truthfulness of the evidence upon which they had acted in arresting us; and that he only affected, to some extent, the positiveness with which he asserted our guilt. There was nothing said by any of our company, which could, in any manner, prejudice our cause; and there was hope, yet, that we should be able to return to our homes—if for nothing else, at least to find out the guilty man or woman who had betrayed us.
To this end. we all denied that we had been guilty of intended flight. Master Thomas said that the evidence he had of our intention to run away, was strong enough to hang us, in a case of murder. "But," said I "the cases are not equal. If murder were committed, some one must have committed it—the thing is done! In our case, nothing has been done! We have not run away. Where is the evidence against us? We were quietly at our work." I talked thus, with unusual freedom, to bring out the evidence against us, for we all wanted, above all things, to know the guilty wretch who had betrayed us, that we might have something tangible upon which to pour our execrations. From something which dropped, in the course of the talk, it appeared that there was but one witness against us—and that that witness could not
be produced. Master Thomas would not tell us who his informant was; but we suspected, and suspected person . Several circumstances seemed to point SANDY out, as our betrayer. His entire knowledge of our plans—his participation in them—his withdrawal from us—his dream, and his simultaneous presentiment that we were betrayed—the taking us, and the leaving him—were calculated to turn suspicion toward him; and yet, we could not suspect him. We all loved him too well to think it that he could have betrayed us. So we rolled the guilt on other shoulders.
We were literally dragged, that morning, behind horses, a distance of fifteen miles, and placed in the Easton jail. We were glad to reach the end of our journey, for our pathway had been the scene of insult and mortification. Such is the power of public opinion, that it is hard, even for the innocent, to feel the happy consolations of innocence, when they fall under the maledictions of this power. How could we regard ourselves as in the right, when all about us denounced us as criminals, and had the power and the disposition to treat us as such.
In jail, we were placed under the care of Mr. Joseph Graham,†Joseph Graham (c. 1797 –?) was the sheriff of Talbot County in 1836. By 1830 he was married and the father of two young daughters. Graham was still alive in 1878 when Douglass returned to visit Talbot County. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 36; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 139, 190. the sheriff of the county. Henry, and John, and myself, were placed in one room. and Henry Baily and Charles Roberts, in another, by themselves. This separation was intended to deprive us of the advantage of concert, and to prevent trouble in jail.
Once shut up, a new set of tormentors came upon us. A swarm of imps, in human shape—the slave-traders, deputy slave-traders, and agents of slave-traders—that gather in every country town of the state, watching for chances to buy human flesh, (as buzzards to eat carrion,) flocked in upon us, to ascertain if our masters had placed us in jail to be sold. Such a set of debased and villainous creatures, I never saw before, and hope never to see again. I felt myself surrounded as by a pack of , fresh from . They laughed, leered, and grinned at us; saying, "Ah! boys, we've got you, haven't†Emendation note: haven't] havn 't we? So you were about to make your escape? Where were you going to?" After taunting us, and jeering at us, as long as they liked, they one by one subjected us to an examination, with a view to ascertain our value; feeling our arms and legs, and shaking us by the shoulders to see if we were sound and healthy; impudently asking us, "how we would like to have them for masters?" To such questions, we were, very much to their annoyance. quite dumb, disdaining to answer them. For one, I detested the whisky-bloated gamblers in human flesh; and I believe I was as much detested by them in turn. One fellow told me, "if he had me, he would cut the devil out of me pretty quick."
These negro buyers are very offensive to the genteel southron†A substitute for southern or southerner, traceable to the 1820s, that first was popular among early southern sectionalists but later was also used by abolitionists to deride that group. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 2: 1602. christian public. They are looked upon, in respectable Maryland society, as necessary, but detestable characters. As a class, they are hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation. Their ears are made quite familiar with the agonizing cry of outraged and woe-smitten humanity. Their eyes are forever open to human misery. They walk amid desecrated affections, insulted virtue, and blasted hopes. They have grown intimate with vice and blood; they gloat over the wildest illustrations of their soul-damning and earth-polluting business, and are moral pests. Yes; they are a legitimate fruit of slavery; and it is a puzzle to make out a case of greater villainy for them, than for the slaveholders, who make such a class . They are mere hucksters of the surplus slave produce of Maryland and Virginia—coarse, cruel, and swaggering bullies, whose very breathing is of blasphemy and blood.
Aside from these slave-buyers, who infested the prison, from time to time, our quarters were much more comfortable than we had any right to expect they would be. Our allowance of food was small and coarse, but our room was the best in the jail—neat and spacious, and with nothing about it necessarily reminding us of being in prison, but its heavy locks and bolts and the black, iron lattice-work at the windows. We were prisoners of state, compared with most slaves who are put into that Easton jail. But the place was not one of contentment. Bolts, bars and grated windows are not acceptable to freedom-loving people of any color. The suspense, too, was painful. Every step on the stairway was listened to, in the hope that the comer would cast a ray of light on our fate. We would have given the hair off our heads for half a dozen words with one of the waiters in Sol. Lowe's hotel.†Solomon Lowe was a prominent tavern-keeper in Easton, Maryland, for more than thirty years. The first of several taverns he operated was across from the Easton courthouse and began business as early as 1802. In 1814 he opened a larger tavern and hostelry, called the Union Tavern, on the northeast corner of Washington and Goldsborough streets, but sometimes moved his operations to a larger brick hotel at the corner of Washington and Fednal streets that boasted twenty-two rooms. Wherever its location, Lowe's tavern was a popular hall for balls, banquets, and foxhunts. It was also known to be headquarters for out-of-town slave traders and traveling salesmen. The establishment served as the offices for the local newspaper and the site of the annual slave auction, which was first held at the tavern in 1818. Leonard, Tavern in the Town, 153–54; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 78. Such waiters were in the way of hearing, at the table, the probable course of things. We could see them flitting about in their white jackets, in front of this hotel, but could speak to none of them.
Soon after the holidays were over, contrary to all our expectations, Messrs. Hamilton and Freeland came up to Easton; not to make a bargain with the "Georgia traders," nor to send us up to Austin Woldfolk,† Austin Woolfolk. as is usual in the case of run-away slaves, but to release Charles, Henry Harris, Henry Baily and John Harris, from prison, and this, too, without the infliction of a single blow. I was now left entirely alone in prison. The innocent had been taken, and the guilty left. My friends were separated from me, and apparently forever. This circumstance caused me more pain than any other incident connected with our capture and imprisonment. Thirty-nine lashes on my naked and bleeding back, would have been joyfully borne, in preference
to this separation from these, the friends of my youth. And yet, I could not but feel that I was the victim of something like justice. Why should these young men, who were led into this scheme by me, suffer as much as the instigator? I felt glad that they were released from prison, and from the dread prospect of a life (or death I should rather say) in the rice swamps. It is due to the noble Henry, to say, that he seemed almost as reluctant to leave the prison with me in it, as he was to be tied and dragged to prison. But he and the rest knew that we should, in all the likelihoods of the case, be separated, in the event of being sold; and since we were now completely in the hands of our owners. we all concluded it would be best to go peaceably home.
Not until this last separation, dear reader, had I touched those profounder depths of desolation, which it is the lot of slaves often to reach. I was solitary in the world, and alone within the walls of a stone prison, left to a fate of life-long misery. I had hoped and expected much, for months before, but my hopes and expectations were now withered and blasted. The ever dreaded slave life in Georgia, Louisiana and Alabama—from which escape is next to impossible—now, in my loneliness, stared me in the face. The possibility of ever becoming anything but an abject slave, a mere machine in the hands of an owner, had now fled, and it seemed to me it had fled forever. A life of living death, beset with the innumerable horrors of the cotton field, and the sugar plantation, seemed to be my doom. The fiends, who rushed into the prison when we were first put there, continued to visit me, and to ply me with questions and with their tantalizing remarks. I was insulted, but helpless; keenly alive to the demands of justice and liberty, but with no means of asserting them. To talk to those imps about justice and mercy, would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and tigers. Lead and steel are the only arguments that they understand.
After remaining in this life of misery and despair about a week, which, by the way, seemed a month, Master Thomas, very much to my surprise, and greatly to my relief, came to the prison, and took me out, for the purpose, as he said, of sending me to Alabama, with a friend of his, who would emancipate me at the end of eight years. I was glad enough to get out of prison; but I had no faith in the story that this friend of Capt. Auld would emancipate me, at the end of the time indicated. Besides, I never had heard of his having a friend in Alabama, and I took the announcement, simply as an easy and comfortable method of shipping me off to the far south. There was a little scandal, too, connected with the idea of one christian selling another to the Georgia traders, while it was deemed every way proper for
them to sell to others. I thought this friend in Alabama was an invention, to meet this difficulty, for Master Thomas was quite jealous of his christian reputation, however unconcerned he might be about his real christian character. In these remarks, however, it is possible that I do Master Thomas Auld injustice. He certainly did not exhaust his power upon me, in the case, but acted, upon the whole, very generously, considering the nature of my offense. He had the power and the provocation to send me, without reserve, into the very everglades of Florida, beyond the remotest hope of emancipation; and his refusal to exercise that power, must be set down to his credit.
After lingering about St. Michael's a few days, and no friend from Alabama making his appearance, to take me there, Master Thomas decided to send me hack again to Baltimore, to live with his brother Hugh, with whom he was now at peace; possibly he became so by his profession of religion, at the camp-meeting in the Bay Side. Master Thomas told me that he wished me to go to Baltimore, and learn a trade; and that. if I behaved myself properly, he would Thanks for this one beam of hope in the future. The promise had but one fault: it seemed too good to be true.
CHAPTER XX.
APPRENTICESHIP LIFE.
NOTHING LOST BY THE ATTEMPT TO RUN AWAY—COMRADES IN THEIR OLD HOMES—REASONS FOR SENDING AUTHOR AWAY—RETURN TO BALTIMORE—CONTRAST BETWEEN "TOMMY" AND THAT OF HIS COLORED COMPANION—TRIALS IN GARDINER'S SHIP-YARD—DESPERATE FIGHT—ITS CAUSES—CONFLICT BETWEEN WHITE AND BLACK LABOR—DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTRAGE—COLORED TESTIMONY NOTHING—CONDUCT OF MASTER HUGH—SPIRIT OF SLAVERY IN BALTIMORE—AUTHOR'S CONDITION IMPROVES—NEW ASSOCIATIONS—SLAVEHOLDERS' RIGHT TO TAKE HIS WAGES—HOW TO MAKE A CONTENTED SLAVE.
WELL! dear reader, I am not, as you may have already inferred, a loser by the general upstir, described in the foregoing chapter. The little domestic revolution, notwithstanding the sudden snub it got by the treachery of somebody—-I dare not say or think —did not, after all, end so disastrously, as, when in the iron cage at Easton, I conceived it would. The prospect, from that point, did look about as dark as any that ever cast its gloom over the vision of the anxious, out-looking, human spirit. "All is well that ends well."†The title of Shakespeare's 1602 play is actually derived from the line "all ends well,'' in Orestes, a play by the Greek author Euripides, believed written in 410 B.C. Burton Stevenson, ed., The Home Book of Proverbs, Maxims and Familiar Phrases (New York, 1948), 678–79. My affectionate comrades, Henry and John Harris, are
still with Mr. William Freeland. Charles Roberts and Henry Baily are safe at their homes. I have not, therefore, any thing to regret on their account. Their masters have mercifully forgiven them, probably on the ground suggested in the spirited little speech of Mrs. Freeland, made to me just before leaving for the jail—namely: that they had been allured into the wicked scheme of making their escape, by me; and that, but for me, they would never have dreamed of a thing so shocking! My friends had nothing to regret, either; for while they were watched more closely on account of what had happened, they were, doubtless, treated more kindly than before, and got new assurances that they would be legally emancipated, some day, provided their behavior should make them deserving, from that time forward. Not a blow, as I learned, was struck any one of them. As for Master William Freeland, good, unsuspecting soul, he did not believe that we were intending to run away at all. Having given—as he thought—no occasion to his boys to leave him, he could not think it probable that they had entertained a design so grievous. This, however, was not the view taken of the matter hy "Mas' Billy," as we used to call the soft spoken, but crafty and resolute Mr. William Hamilton. He had no doubt that the crime had been meditated; and regarding me as the instigator of it, he frankly told Master Thomas, that he must remove me from that neighborhood, or he would shoot me down. He would not have one so dangerous as "Frederick" tampering with his slaves. William Hamilton was not a man whose threat might be safely disregarded. I have no doubt that he would have proved as good as his word, had the warning given not been promptly taken. He was furious at the thought of such a piece of high-handed , as we were about to perpetrate—the stealing of our own bodies and souls! The feasibility of the plan, too could the first steps have been taken, was marvelously plain. Besides, this was a new idea, this use of the bay. Slaves escaping, until now, had taken to the woods; they had never dreamed of profaning and abusing the waters of the noble Chesapeake, by making them the highway from slavery to freedom. Here was a broad road of destruction to slavery, which, before, had been looked upon as a wall of security by slaveholders. But Master Billy could not get Mr. Freeland to see matters precisely as he did; nor could he get Master Thomas so excited as he was himself. The latter—I must say it to his credit—showed much humane feeling in his part of the transaction, and atoned for much that had been harsh, cruel and unreasonable in his former treatment of me and others. His clemency was quite unusual and unlooked for. "Cousin Tom"†Tom Bailey. told me that while I was in jail, Master Thomas was very unhappy; and that the night before his going up to release me, he had
walked the floor nearly all night, evincing great distress; that very tempting offers had been made to him, by the negro-traders, but he had rejected them all, saying that . All this I can easily believe, for he seemed quite reluctant to send me away, at all. He told me that he only consented to do so, because of the very strong prejudiice against me in the neighborhood, and that he feared for my safety if I remained there.
Thus. after three years spent in the country, roughing it in the field, and experiencing all sorts of hardships, I was again permitted to return to Baltimore, the very place, of all others, short of a free state, where I most desired to live. The three years spent in the country, had made some difference in me, and in the household of Master Hugh. "Little Tommy" was no longer Tommy; and I was not the slender lad who had left for the Eastern Shore just three years before. The loving relations between me and Mas' Tommy were broken up. He was no longer dependent on me for protection, but felt himself a , with other and more suitable associates. In childhood, he scarcely considered me inferior to himself—certainly, as good as any other boy with whom he played; but the time had come when his must become his. So we were cold, and we parted. It was a sad thing to me, that, loving each other as we had done, we must now take different roads. To him, a thousand avenues were open. Education had made him acquainted with all the treasures of the world, and liberty had flung open the gates thereunto; but I, who had attended him seven years, and had watched over him with the care of a hig brother, fighting his battles in the street, and shielding him from harm, to an extent which had induced his mother to say, "Oh! Tommy is always safe, when he is with Freddy," must be confined to a single condition. He could grow, and become a MAN; I could grow, though I could become a man, but must remain, all my life, a minor—a mere boy. Thomas Auld, junior, obtained a situation on board the brig Tweed, and went to sea. I know not what has become of him;†Douglass appears unaware that the younger Thomas Auld had died in 1848 in a maritime accident. Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891. General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 148, 228nl0. he certainly has my good wishes for his welfare and prosperity. There were few persons to whom I was more sincerely attached than to him, and there are few in the world I would he more pleased to meet.
Very soon after I went to Baltimore to live, Master Hugh succeeded in getting me hired to Mr. William Gardiner, an extensive ship builder on Fell's Point. I was placed here to learn to calk, a trade of which I already had some knowledge, gained while in Mr. Hugh Auld's ship-yard, when he was a master builder. Gardiner's, however. proved a very unfavorable place for the accomplishment of that object. Mr. Gardiner was, that season, engaged
in building two large man-of-war vessels, professedly for the Mexican government. †Baltimore was a substantial shipbuilding center, and it is likely that Gardiner's shipyard completed commissions for foreign governments as Douglass suggests. In the late 1820s and 1830s Baltimore shipbuilders launched steamboats for domestic transport, merchant ships for U.S. and British firms, and even a gunship for the Brazilian government. Scharf, History of Baltimore, 1:293.These vessels were to be launched in the month of July, of that year, and, in failure thereof, Mr. G. would forfeit a very considerable sum of money. So, when I entered the ship-yard, all was hurry and driving. There were in the yard about one hundred men; of these about seventy or eighty were regular carpenters—privileged men. Speaking of my condition here I wrote, years ago—and I have now no reason to vary the picture—as follows:
"There was no time to learn any thing. Every man had to do that which he knew how to do. In entering the ship-yard, my orders from Mr. Gardiner were, to do whatever the carpenters commanded me to do. This was placing me at the beck and call of about seventy-five men. I was to regard all these as masters. Their word was to be my law. My situation was a most trying one. At times I needed a dozen pair of hands. I was called a dozen ways in the space of a single minute. Three or four voices would strike my ear at the same moment. It was-'Fred., come help me to cant this timber here.' — 'Fred., come carry this timber yonder.' — 'Fred., bring that roller here.' — 'Fred., go get a fresh can of water.' -- 'Fred., come help saw off the end of this timber.'— 'Fred., go quick and get the crowbar.' — 'Fred., hold on the end of this fall. — 'Fred., go to†Textual note: In addition to being demanded by the context, "to" is contained in the passage from the Narrative that Douglass here quotes directly (Douglass Papers, ser 2, 1:67.18). The compositor's omission in the copy text remained uncorrected in all other impressions and printings. Emendation note: got to] go the blacksmith's shop, and get a new punch.' — 'Hurra, Fred.! run and bring me a cold chisel.' — 'I say, Fred, bear a hand, and get up a fire as quick as lightning under that steam-box.' — 'Halloo, nigger! come, turn this grindstone.—'Come, come! move, move! and this timber forward.' — 'I say, darkey, blast your eyes, why don't you heat up some pitch?' — 'Halloo! halloo! halloo!' (Three voices at the same time.) 'Come here!—Go there!—Hold on where you are! D---n you, if you move, I'll knock your brains out!'"†Douglass quotes from his . Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:67.
Such, dear reader, is a glance at the school which was mine, during the first eight months of my stay at Baltimore. At the end of eight months, Master Hugh refused longer to allow me to remain with Mr. Gardiner. The circumstance which led to his taking me away, was a brutal outrage, committed upon me by the white apprentices of the ship-yard. The fight was a desperate one, and I came out of it most shockingly mangled. I was cut and bruised in sundry places, and my left eye was nearly knocked out of its socket. The facts, leading to this barbarous outrage upon me, illustrate a phase of slavery destined to become an important element in the overthrow of the slave system, and I may, therefore state them with some minuteness.
That phase is this: .†Early in the nineteenth century, slave labor was not considered a serious competitive threat by most skilled white workers in the South, but as the pressures of expanded commerce and industry reached the South, white labor began to complain of competition from inexpensive slave labor. In some areas, slaveholders pitted skilled slaves directly against white artisan workers, a move that added to the growing feelings of hostility. White workers responded to the threat of competition from slave labor in several ways. In cities, where competition was especially intense, white workers sometimes vandalized or destroyed buildings erected by black carpenters, or otherwise damaged work completed by slave labor. Hostility was sometimes expressed in direct physical confrontation with slave workers, and many white workers simply refused to work in a racially mixed setting. White labor also mobilized politically against the threat posed by slave labor and that of free black workers. Artisan workers frequently petitioned southern state legislatures and lobbied for laws restricting the use of slaves in certain occupations. As Douglass suggests, it was common for white wage laborers to adopt the concept of "white slavery" to describe their subordinate position in industrializing America. The use of the term and the implied comparison between wage labor and black slavery was popularized during the 1830s campaign for the ten-hour day. By the middle of the nineteenth century reformers, labor leaders, and other activists expanded the concept of white slavery to include the plight of debtors, small employers, and even slaveholders, as well as wage laborers. The term was applied to any white men or women who faced political, economic, or social constraints from the wealthy and privileged in American society. Ronald Takaki, Iron Cages: Race and Culture in 19th-Century America (New York, 1990), 122–23; David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class (London, 1991), 66–67, 71–73; Berlin, Slaves without Masters, 96–97; James Sidbury, "Slave Artisans in Richmond, Virginia, 1780-1810," in American Artisans: Crafting Social ldentity, 1750–1850, ed. Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje, and Robert Asher (Baltimore, 1995), 53–54. In the country, this conflict is not so apparent; but, in cities, such as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans, Mobile, &c., it is seen pretty clearly. The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the poor, laboring white man against the blacks, succeeds in making the said white man almost as much a slave as the black slave himself. The difference between the white slave, and the black slave, is this: the latter belongs to slaveholder, and the former belongs to the slaveholders, collectively. The white slave has taken from him, by indirection, what the black slave has taken from him, directly. and without ceremony. Both are plundered, and by the same plunderers. The slave is robbed, by his master, of all his earnings, above what is required for his bare physical necessitiesl and the white man is robbed by the slave system, of the just results of his labor, because he is flung into competition with a class of laborers who work without wages. The competition, and its injurious consequences, will, one day, array the non-slaveholding white people of the slave states, against the slave system, and make them the most effective workers against the great evil. At present, the slaveholders blind them to this competition, by keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves, —not against them . They appeal to their pride, often denouncing emancipation, as tending to place the white working man, on an equality with negroes, and, by this means, they succeed in drawing off the minds of the poor whites from the real fact, that, by the rich slave-master, they are already regarded as but a single remove from equality with the slave. The impression is cunningly made, that slavery is the only power that can prevent the laboring white man from falling to the level of the slave's poverty and degradation. To make this enmity deep and broad, between the slave and the poor white man, the latter is allowed to abuse and whip the former, without hindrance.†Emendation note: hindrance] hinderance But—as I have suggested—this state of facts prevails in the country. In the city of Baltimore, there are not unfrequent murmurs, that educating the slaves to be mechanics may, in the end, give slave-masters power to dispense with the services of the poor white man altogether. But, with characteristic dread of offending the slaveholders, these poor, white mechanics in Mr. Gardiner' s shipyard—instead of applying the natural, honest remedy for the apprehended evil, and objecting at once to work there by the side of slaves—made a cowardly attack upon the free colored mechanics, saying were eating the bread which should he eaten by American freemen, and swearing that they would not work with them. The feeling was, , against having
their labor brought into competition with that of the colored people at all; but it was too much to strike directly at the interest of the slaveholders; and, therefore—proving their servility and cowardice—they dealt their blows on the poor, colored freeman, and aimed to prevent from serving himself, in the evening of life, with the trade with which he had served his master, during the more vigorous portion of his days. Had they succeeded in driving the black freemen out of the ship-yard,†Textual note: this term is hyphenated in only six instances of its approximately twenty-four occurrences in Bondage and Freedom, hyphenation is consistent both with Douglass's usual treatment of two-word nouns and with his usual treatment of "ship-yard" in his first autobiography, Narrative. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1. Emendation note: ship-yard] they would have determined also upon the removal of the black slaves. The feeling was very bitter toward all colored people in Baltimore, about this time, (1836,) and they—free and slave—suffered all manner of insult and wrong.
Until a very little while before I went there, white and black ship carpenters worked side by side, in the ship-yards†Emendation note: ship-yards] of Mr. Gardiner, Mr. Duncan,†Levin H. Dunkin was a successful Fells Point shipbuilder who specialized in constructing the swift Baltimore clippers. Between 1835 and 1848 his yard was at the southeast corner of Thames and Wolf streets. In 1836 he finished the Emanuel, which was used in the illegal Atlantic slave trade. He also built at least three schooners for Texas in 1839 after that territory achieved independence from Mexico. In 1848 Dunkin built the Isabel, the first ocean steamboat constructed in Baltimore. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1835–6, 75; Howard I. Chapelle, The Search for Speed under Sail: 1700–1855 (New York, 1967), 302; Norman G. Rukert, The Fells Point Story (Baltimore, 1976), 47, 113; John W. McGrain, "English Consul and the Labyrinth of Local Records." MdHM, 84:62–63, 65 (spring 1989). Mr. Walter Price,*Walter Price, whose family had long been engaged in shipbuilding, operated a yard on Fell Street south of Thames Street along the waterfront in the 1830s. By the latter part of the decade, a number of Baltimore shipbuilders had begun construction of clippers that found their way into the international slave trade. Brazilian and Cuban slave traders prized these ships for their ability to evade the British blockade of Africa's Slave Coast. Benjamin Auld thought that Hugh Auld began working for Walter Price about 1834, after serving a short period as a master builder in partnership with Edward Harrison. Both Auld and Douglass worked for Price during the construction of at least three ships, which he covertly sold in Cuba or Brazil. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837–8, 258; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 27 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 257–58, FD Papers, DLC; Chapelle, Speed under Sail, 297–312; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 145–47, 228n8. and Mr. Robb.† John A. Robb was a very successful Fells Point shipbuilder who specialized in constructing the Baltimore clippers. In 1836 and 1838 he built the Viper and the Clara, which were used in the illegal Atlantic slave trade. In 1839 he finished at least two schooners for the navy of the new Texas republic. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1831, 314; Chapelle, Speed under Sail, 302; McGrain, "English Consul," 62–63, 65. Nobody seemed to see any impropriety in it. To outward seeming, all hands were well satisfied. Some of the blacks were first-rate†Emendation note: first-rate] workmen, and were given jobs requiring the highest skill. All at once, however, the white carpenters knocked off, and swore that they would no longer work on the same stage with free negroes. Taking advantage of the heavy contract resting upon Mr. Gardiner, to have the war vessels for Mexico ready to launch in July, and of the difficulty of getting other hands at that season of the year, they swore they would not strike another blow for him, unless he would discharge his free colored workmen.
Now, although this movement did not extend to me, , it did reach me, . The spirit which it awakened was one of malice and bitterness, toward colored people , and I suffered with the rest, and suffered severely. My fellow apprentices very soon began to feel it to be degrading to work with me. They began to put on high looks, and to talk contemptuously and maliciously of ";" saying that "they would take the country," that "they ought to he killed." Encouraged hy the cowardly workmen, who, knowing me to he a slave, made no issue with Mr. Gardiner about my being there, these young men did their utmost to make it impossible for me to stay. They seldom called me to do any thing, without coupling the call with a curse, and, Edward North.†Edward North, Jr., was a carpenter who in 1845 lived in Fells Point at 227 Alice Anna Street. He probably is the same "Ned North" who brutally attacked Douglass at Gardiner's shipyard. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1845 (Baltimore, 1845), 87; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 61. the biggest in every thing, rascality included, ventured to strike me, whereupon I picked him up. and threw him into the dock. Whenever any of them struck me, I struck back again, regardless of consequences. I could manage any of them ; and, while I could keep them from combining, I succeeded very well. In the conflict which ended my stay at Mr. Gardiner's, I was beset by four of them at once—Ned North, Ned Hays, Bill Stewart,†William Stewart was an apprentice carpenter in 1833 and lived near the corner of Paca and Pratt streets. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1833, 174. and Tom Humphreys. Two of them were as large as myself, and they came near killing me, in broad
daylight.†Emendation note: day-light] _ . _ The attack was made suddenly, and simultaneously. One came in front, armed with a brick; there was one at each side, and one behind, and they closed up around me. I was struck on all sides; and, while I was attending to those in front, I received a blow on my head, from behind, dealt with a heavy hand-spike.†A wooden bar or pale used as a lever or as a support. I was completely stunned by the blow, and fell, heavily, on the ground, among the timbers. Taking advantage of my fall, they rushed upon me, and began to pound me with their fists. I let them lay on, for a while, after I came to myself, with a view of gaining strength. They did me little damage, so far; but, finally, getting tired of that sport, I gave a sudden surge, and, despite their weight, I rose to my hands and knees. Just as I did this, one of their number (I know not which) planted a blow with his boot in my left eye, which, for a time, seemed to have burst my eyeball. When they saw my eye completely closed, my face covered with blood, and I staggering under the stunning blows they had given me, they left me. As soon as I gathered sufficient strength, I picked up the hand-spike, and, madly enough, attempted to pursue them; but here the carpenters interfered, and compelled me to give up my frenzied pursuit. It was impossible to stand against so many.
Dear reader, you can hardly believe the statement, but it is true, and, therefore, I write it down; not fewer than fifty white men stood by, and saw this brutal and shameless outrage committed, and not a man of them all interposed a single word of mercy. There were four against one, and that one's face was beaten and haltered most horribly, and no one said. "that is enough;" but some cried out, "kill him—kill him—kill the d---d nigger! knock his brains out—he struck a white person." I mention this inhuman outcry, to show the character of the men, and the spirit of the times, at Gardiner's ship-yard,†Emendation note: ship-yard] _ . _ and, indeed, in Baltimore generally, in 1836. As I look back to this period, I am almost amazed that I was not murdered outright, in that ship-yard,†Emendation note: ship-yard] _ . _ so murderous was the spirit which prevailed there. On two occasions, while there, I came near losing my life. I was driving bolts in the hold, through the keelson,†A longitudinal structure in the framing of a wooden ship, fastened to the keel by long bolts passing through the floor timbers. The keelson helps to prevent deformations in the hold's frame by distributing the effect of concentrated loads over considerahle length. with Hays. In its course, the bolt bent. Hays cursed me, and said that it was my blow which bent the bolt. I denied this, and charged it upon him. In a fit of rage he seized an adze,†A cutting tool that has a thin arched blade sharpened on the concave side and set at right angles to the handle and is used for rough-shaping wood. and darted toward me. I met him with a maul.†A massive, heavy hammer commonly made of wood and used in driving piles in shipbuilding and various operations aboard ship. and parried his blow, or I should have then lost my life. A son of old Tom Lanman, (the latter 's double murder I have elsewhere charged upon him,) in the spirit of his miserable father, made an assault upon me, but the blow with his maul missed me. After the united assault of North, Stewart, Hays and Humphreys, finding that the carpenters were as bitter toward me as the apprentices, and that the latter were
probably set on by the former, I found my only chance for life was in flight. I succeeded in getting away, without an additional blow. To strike a white man, was death, by Lynch law,†The actual individual from whom the term lynch law derived its name has been disputed, but the expression was in common use by the early nineteenth century as a description for the punishment of individuals without due process of law. David C. Roller and Rohert W. Twyman, eds., The Encyclopedia of Southern History (Baton Rogue, 1979), 762–64. in Gardiner's ship-yard;†Emendation note: ship-yard] _ . _ nor was there much of any other law toward colored people, at that time, in any other part of Maryland. The whole sentiment of Baltimore was murderous.
After making my escape from the ship-yard,†Emendation note: ship-yard] _ . I went straight home, and related the story of the outrage to Master Hugh Auld; and it is due to him to say, that his conduct—though he was not a religious man—was every way more humane than that of his brother, Thomas, when I went to the latter in a somewhat similar plight, from the hands of "." He listened attentively to my narration of the circumstances leading to the ruffianly outrage, and gave many proofs of his strong indignation at what was done. Hugh was a rough, but manly-hearted fellow, and, at this time, his best nature showed itself.
The heart of my once almost over-kind mistress, Sophia, was again melted in pity toward me. My puffed-out eye, and my scarred and hlood-covered face, moved the dear lady to tears. She kindly drew a chair by me, and with friendly, consoling words, she took water, and washed the blood from my face. No mother's hand could have heen more tender than hers. She bound up my head, and covered my wounded eye with a lean piece of fresh beef. It was almost compensation for the murderous assault, and my suffering, that it furnished an occasion for the manifestation, once more, of the originally characteristic kindness of my mistress. Her affectionate heart was not yet dead, though much hardened by time and by circumstances.
As for Master Hugh's part, as I have said, he was furious about it; and he gave expression to his fury in the usual forms of speech in that locality. He poured curses on the heads of the whole ship-yard†Emendation note: ship-yard] _ . company, and swore that he would have satisfaction for the outrage. His indignation was really strong and healthy; but, unfortunately. it resulted from the thought that his rights of property, in my person, had not been respected, more than from any sense of the outrage committed on me . I inferred as much as this, from the fact that he could, himself, beat and mangle when it suited him to do so. Bent on having satisfaction, as he said, just as soon as I got a little the better of my bruises, Master Hugh took me to Esquire Watson's†William H. Watson (?–1846) was a justice of the peace and prominent attorney who lived at 76 Bond Street in Baltimore's Fells Point district in the late 1830s. He joined a Baltimore volunteer battalion as a captain during the war with Mexico. Watson quickly rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel but died in the Battle of Monterey in October 1846. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837–8, 321; Scharf, Chronicles of Baltimore, 516–17; Morris L. Radoff, ed., The Old Line State: A History of Maryland (Baltimore, 1971), 258. office, on Bond street, Fell's Point, with a view to procuring the arrest of those who had assaulted me. He related the outrage to the magistrate, as I had related it to him, and seemed to expect that a warrant would, at once, he issued for the arrest of the lawless ruffians.
Mr. Watson heard it all, and instead of drawing up his warrant, he inquired--
"Mr. Auld, who saw this assault of which you speak?"
"It was done, sir, in the presence of a ship-yard†Emendation note: ship-yard] _ full of hands."
"Sir," said Watson, "I am sorry, but I cannot move in this matter except upon the oath of white witnesses."
"But here's the boy; look at his head and face," said the excited Master Hugh; " show has been done."
But Watson insisted that he was not authorized to do anything, unless witnesses of the transaction would come forward, and testify to what had taken place. He could issue no warrant on my word, against white persons; and, if I had been killed in the presence of a ,†In Maryland slaves were forbidden to testify in any legal cases involving whites, although they were permitted to testify in cases involving free blacks. Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, 2:20; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 446. their testimony, combined, would have been insufficient to arrest a single murderer. Master Hugh, for once, was compelled to say, that this state of things was ; and he left the office of the magistrate, disgusted.
Of course, it was impossible to get any white man to testify against my assailants. The carpenters saw what was done; but the actors were but the agents of their malice, and only what the carpenters sanctioned. They had cried, with one accord, "" Even those who may have pitied me, if any such were among them, lacked the moral courage to come and volunteer their evidence. The slightest manifestation of sympathy or justice toward a person of color, was denounced as abolitionism: and the name of abolitionist, subjected its bearer to frightful liabilities. "D---n ." were the watch-words of the foul-mouthed ruffians of those days. Nothing was done, and probably there would not have been any thing done, had I been killed in the affray. The laws and the morals of the christian city of Baltimore, afforded no protection to the sable denizens of that city.
Master Hugh, on finding he could get no redress for the cruel wrong, withdrew me from the employment of Mr. Gardiner, and took me into his own family. Mrs. Auld kindly taking care of me, and dressing my wounds, until they were healed, and I was ready to go again to work.
While I was on the Eastern Shore, Master Hugh had met with reverses, which overthrew his business; and he had given up ship building in his own yard, on the City Block,†To reduce the frequency of yellow fever epidemics, a marshy area between Fells Point and Baltimore's central city was dredged in the 1820s to form the City Dock, also called the "City Block," which added to the Fells Point wharf area. A drawbridge at the entrance to the City Dock connected Block Street in Fells Point to the Basin area wharves. Scharf, History of Baltimore, 54, 59–60, 292–94; Olson, Baltimore, 52–53, 85. and was now acting as foreman of Mr. Walter Price. The best he could now do for me, was to take me into Mr. Price's yard, and afford me the facilities there, for completing the trade which I had began to learn at Gardiner's. Here I rapidly became expert in the use of my
calking tools; and, in the course of a single year, I was able to command the highest wages paid to journeymen calkers in Baltimore.
The reader will observe that I was now of some pecuniary value to my master. During the busy season, I was bringing six and seven dollars per week. I have, sometimes, brought him as much as nine dollars a week, for the wages were a dollar and a half per day.
After learning to calk, I sought my own employment, made my own contracts, and collected my own earnings; giving Master Hugh no trouble in any part of the transactions to which I was a party.†In the urban south masters commonly hired their slaves out to other employers for specified periods. The less common practice of allowing their slaves to seek their own employment and pay their masters a specified sum grew over time. causing public fears that it would undermine the slave system itself. The Maryland legislature periodically passed legislation to control or abolish this practice, with little result. Robert S. Starobin, Industrial Slavery in the Old South (New York, 1970), 128–37 ; Wade, Slavery in the Cities, 38–54; Jeffrey R. Brackett, The Negro in Maryland: A Study of the Institution of Slavery (Baltimore, 1889), 104–08, 174.
Here, then, were better days for the Eastern Shore . I was now free from the vexatious assaults of the apprentices at Mr. Gardiner's; and free from the perils of plantation life, and once more in a favorahle condition to increase my little stock of education, which had heen at a dead stand since my removal from Baltimore. I had, on the Eastern Shore, been only a teacher, when in company with other slaves, but now there were colored persons who could instruct me. Many of the young calkers could read, write and cipher. Some of them had high notions about mental improvement; and the free ones, on Fell's Point, organized what they called the ""†The East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society was a debating club that Douglass joined in the 1830s. This group was one of several literary, or debating, societies formed by free blacks in antebellum Baltimore with the aim of educating and providing a source of moral and mental uplift for members. Group activities included reading and critiquing famous works of fiction and poetry, debating current events, and sponsoring lectures on topics of interest to members. Douglass was the only enslaved member of the East Baltimore Mental lmprovement Society, which met in various homes and buildings. The group debated topics ranging from the principles of theology to the legal status of blacks in Maryland. It was at one of the society's social gatherings that Douglass met his first wife, Anna Murray. Other members of the society included James Mingo, William E. Lloyd, William Chester, Joseph Lewis, and Henry Rolles. Phillips, Freedom's Port, 72–73; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 148–49. To this society, notwithstanding it was intended that only free persons should attach themsehes, I was admitted, and was, several times, assigned a prominent part in its debates. I owe much to the society of these young men.
The reader already knows enough of the effects of good treatment on a slave, to anticipate what was now the case in my improved condition. It was not long before I began to show signs of disquiet with slavery, and to look around for means to get out of that condition by the shortest route. I was living among ; and was, in all respects, equal to them by nature and by attainments. Why should ? There was reason why I should be the thrall of any man.
Besides, I was now getting—as I have said—a dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it, worked for it, earned it, collected it; it was paid to me, and it was my own; and yet, upon every returning Saturday night, this money—my own hard earnings, every cent of it—was demanded of me, and taken from me by Master Hugh. He did not earn it; he had no hand in earning it; why, then, should he have it? I owed him nothing. He had given me no schooling, and I had received from him only my food and raiment; and for these, my services were supposed to pay, from the first. The right to take my earnings, was the right of the robber. He had the power to compel me to give him the fruits of my labor, and this power was
his only right in the case. I became more and more dissatisfied with this state of things; and, in so becoming, I only gave proof of the same human nature which every reader of this chapter in my life—slaveholder, or nonslaveholder—is conscious of possessing.
To make a contented slave. you must make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate his power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery. The man that takes his earnings, must be able to convince him that he has a perfect right to do so. It must not depend upon mere force; the slave must know no Higher Law than his master's will. The whole relationship must not only demonstrate, to his mind, its necessity, but its absolute rightfulness. If there be one crevice through which a single drop can fall, it will certainly rust off the slave's chain.
CHAPTER XXI.
MY ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY
CLOSING INCIDENTS OF "MY LIFE AS A SLAVE"—REASONS WHY FULL PARTICULARS OF THE MANNER OF MY ESCAPE WILL NOT BE GIVEN—CRAFTINESS AND MALICE OF SLAVEHOLDERS—SUSPICION OF AIDING A SLAVE'S ESCAPE ABOUT AS DANGEROUS AS POSITIVE EVIDENCE—WANT OF WISDOM SHOWN IN PUBLISHING DETAILS OF THE ESCAPE OF FUGITIVES—PUBLISHED ACCOUNTS REACH THE MASTERS, NOT THE SLAVES—SLAVEHOLDERS STIMULATED TO GREATER WATCHFULNESS—AUTHOR'S CONDITION—DISCONTENT—SUSPICIONS IMPLIED BY MASTER HUGH'S MANNER, WHEN RECEIVING MY WAGES—HIS OCCASIONAL GENEROSITY!—DIFFICULTIES IN THE WAY OF ESCAPE—EVERY AVENUE GUARDED—PLAN TO OBTAIN MONEY—AUTHOR ALLOWED TO HIRE HIS TIME—A GLEAM OF HOPE—ATTENDS CAMP-MEETING, WITHOUT PERMISSION—ANGER OF MASTER HUGH THEREAT—THE RESULT—MY PLANS OF ESCAPE ACCELERATED THEREBY—THE DAY FOR MY DEPARTURE FIXED—HARASSED BY DOUBTS AND FEARS—PAINFUL THOUGHTS OF SEPARATION FROM FRIENDS—THE ATTEMPT MADE—ITS SUCCESS.
I WILL now make the kind reader acquainted with the closing incidents of my "Life as a Slave," having already trenched upon the limit allotted to my "Life as a Freeman." Before, however, proceeding with this narration, it is, perhaps, proper that I should frankly state, in advance, my intention to withhold a part of the facts connected with my escape from slavery. There are reasons for this suppression, which I trust the reader will deem altogether valid. It may he easily conceived, that a full and complete statement
of all the facts pertaining to the flight of a bondman, might implicate and embarrass some who may have, wittingly or unwittingly, assisted him; and no one can wish me to involve any man or woman who has befriended me, even in the liability of embarrassment or trouble.
Keen is the scent of the slaveholder; like the fangs of the rattlesnake, his malice retains its poison long; and, although it is now nearly seventeen years since I made my escape, it is well to be careful, in dealing with the circumstances relating to it. Were I to give but a shadowy outline of the process adopted, with characteristic aptitude, the crafty and malicious among the slaveholders might, possibly, hit upon the track I pursued, and involve some one in suspicion, which, in a slave state, is about as bad as positive evidence. The colored man, there, must not only shun evil, but shun the very of evil, or be condemned as a criminal. A slaveholding community has a peculiar taste for ferreting out offenses against the slave system, justice there heing more sensitive in its regard for the peculiar rights of this system, than for any other interest or institution. By stringing together a train of events and circumstances, even if I were not very explicit, the means of escape might be ascertained, and, possibly, those means be rendered, thereafter, no longer available to the liberty-seeking children of bondage I have left behind me. No anti-slavery man can wish me to do anything favoring such results,and no slaveholding reader has any right to expect the impartment of such information.
While, therefore, it would afford me pleasure, and perhaps would materially add to the interest of my story, were I at liberty to gratify a curiosity which I know to exist in the minds of many, as to the manner of my escape, I must deprive myself of this pleasure, and the curious of the gratification, which such a statement of facts would afford. I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations that evil minded men might suggest. rather than exculpate myself by an explanation, and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother in suffering might clear himself of the chains and fetters of slavery.
The practice of publishing every new invention by which a slave is known to have escaped from slavery, has neither wisdom nor necessity to sustain it. Had not Henry Box Brown†Henry "Box" Brown (1815– ?), a celebrated fugitive, was born into slavery in Louisa County, Virginia. Brown became a skilled tobacco worker in Richmond and apparently received wages, with which he intended to buy his wife and children out of bondage. Brown's owner, however, cheated him of the purchase money and then sold his wife and children to North Carolina in 1848. Enraged, Brown began to plan for flight. Working with two Richmond shopkeepers in 1849, he had himself sealed inside a packing crate that was three feet long and two feet six inches wide. He then arranged for the box to be shipped to an antislavery office in Philadelphia. He soon became a major attraction at antislavery meetings, speaking and singing in seven states. During 1850 he joined Benjamin Roberts, a black Bostonian, on a New England tour displaying a diorama depicting Brown's experiences. After an attempt to capture him in August 1850, he sailed to England, where he again displayed his diorama and enjoyed further popularity on the antislavery lecture circuit. Brown may have settled in England. NS, 15 June 1849; Lib., 31 May 185; Henry Box Brown, Narrative of Henry Box Brown, Who Escaped Slavery Enclosed in a Box 3 Feet Long and 2 Wide, ed. Charles Stearns (Boston, 1849); William Still, The Underground Railroad (Philadelphia, 1872), 81–86; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 36–38, 66. and his friends attracted slave holding attention to the manner of his escape, we might have had a thousand per annum. The singularly original plan adopted by William and Ellen Crafts,†Douglass alludes to the case of William and Ellen Craft, two fugitive slaves who had sought refuge in Boston after escaping their master, Robert Collins of Macon, Georgia, in December 1848. Two agents for Collins, Willis H. Hughes (?–1851) and John Knight, arrived in Boston in October 1850 to attempt to recapture the Crafts under the new fugitive slave law. The Boston Vigilance Committee and the local black community took immediate action to defend the fugitives. Each time Hughes and Knight attempted to approach the Crafts, the southerners were arrested, once for slander and once for kidnapping. Large crowds of blacks besieged the agents' hotel and shadowed their movements. This harassment, coupled with thinly veiled threats against their lives delivered by the Reverend Theodore Parker, eventually unnerved Hughes and Knight and persuaded them to return to Georgia empty-handed. The Crafts soon after fled to England. Lib., 6 December 1850, 24 January 1851; R. J. M. Blackett, "Fugitive Slaves in Britian: The Odyssey of William and Ellen Craft," Journal of American Studies, 12:41–44 (April 1978); Donald Martin Jacobs, "A History of the Boston Negro from the Revolution to the Civil War" (Ph.D. diss., Boston University, 1968), 273–74. perished with the first using, because every slaveholder in the land was apprised of it. The who hung in the guards of a steamer, being washed three days and three nights—like another Jonah†In the Bible book named for him, Jonah is called by God to prophesy against Ninevah, but he tries to flee on board a ship. God brings the wrath of nature to force him back, and out of fear the pagan sailors on the ship throw Jonah overboard. He is then swallowed by a "great fish. " After praying to God from inside the fish's belly, Jonah is expelled by the fish and his life saved. When Jonah receives a second call from God, he obeys and goes to Ninevah to prophesy. Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 3: 936–37.—
by the waves of the sea, has, by the publicity given to the circumstance, set a spy on the guards of every steamer departing from southern ports.
I have never approved of the very public manner, in which some of our western friends have conducted what they call the "," but which, I think, by their open declarations, has been made, most emphatically, the "-ground Railroad." Its stations are far better known to the slaveholders than to the slaves. I honor those good men and women for their noble daring, in willingly subjecting themselves to persecution, by openly avowing their participation in the escape of slaves; nevertheless, the good resulting from such avowals, is of a very questionable character. It may kindle an enthusiasm, very pleasant to inhale; but that is of no practical benefit to themselves, nor to the slaves escaping. Nothing is more evident, than that such disclosures are a positive evil to the slaves remaining, and seeking to escape. In publishing such accounts, the anti-slavery man addresses the slaveholder, : he stimulates the former to greater watchfulness. and adds to his facilities for capturing his slave. We owe something to the slaves, south of Mason and Dixon's line, as well as to those north of it; and, in discharging the duty of aiding the latter, on their way to freedom, we should be careful to do nothing which would be likely to hinder the former, in making their escape from slavery. Such is my detestation of slavery, that I would keep the merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave. He should be left to imagine himself surrounded by myriads of invisible tormentors, ever ready to snatch, from his infernal grasp, his trembling prey. In pursuing his victim, let him be left to feel his way in the dark; let shades of darkness, commensurate with his crime, shut every ray of light from his pathway; and let him he made to feel, thata, at every step he takes, with the hellish purpose of reducing a brother man to slavery, he is running the frightful risk of having his hot brains dashed out by an invisible hand.
But, enough of this. I will now proceed to the statement of those facts, connected with my escape, for which I am alone responsible, and for which no one can he made to suffer but myself.
My condition in the year (1838) of my escape, was, comparatively, a free and easy one, so far, at least, as the wants of the physical man were concerned; but the reader will hear in mind, that my troubles from the beginning, have been less physical than mental, and he will thus he prepared to find, after what is narrated in the previous chapters, that slave life was adding nothing to its charms for me, as I grew older, and became better acquainted with it. The practice, from week to week, of openly robbing me of
all my earnings, kept the nature and character of slavery constantly before me. I could be robbed by , but this was open and barefaced to be endured. I could see no reason why I should, at the end of each week, pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of any man. The thought itself vexed me, and the manner in which Master Hugh received my wages, vexed me more than the original wrong. Carefully counting the money and rolling it out, dollar by dollar, he would look me in the face, as if he would search my heart as well as my pocket, and reproachfully ask me. "Is that all?"—implying that I had, perhaps, kept back part of my wages; or, if not so, the demand was made, possibly, to make me feel, that, after all, I was an "unprofitable servant." Draining me of the last cent of my hard earnings, he would, however, occasionally--when I brought home an extra large sum—dole out to me a sixpence or a shilling,† In Britain sixpence was a sum of money equivalent to six pennies. The shilling, which went out of use in the United Kingdom in 1971, was equal to twelve pence or pennies. with a view, perhaps, of kindling up my gratitude; but this practice had the opposite effect--it was an admission of my right . The fact, that he gave me any part of my wages, was proof that he suspected that I had a right . I always felt uncomfortable, after having received anything in this way, for I feared that the giving me a few cents, might, possibly, ease his conscience, and make him feel himself a pretty honorable robber, after all!
Held to a strict account, and kept under a close watch—the old suspicion of my running away not having heen entirely removed—escape from slavery, even in Baltimore, was very difficult. The railroad from Baltimore to Philadelphia was under regulations so stringent, that even colored travelers were almost excluded. They must have papers; they must he measured and carefully examined, before they were allowed to enter the cars; they only went in the day time, even when so examined. The steamboats were under regulations equally stringent. All the great turnpikes, leading northward, were beset with kidnappers, a class of men who watched the newspapers for advertisements for runaway slaves, making their living by the accursed reward of slave hunting.
My discontent grew upon me, and I was on the look-out for means of escape. With money, I could easily have managed the matter, and, therefore, I hit upon the plan of soliciting the privilege of hiring my time. It is quite common, in Baltimore, to allow slaves this privilege, and it is the practice, also, in New Orleans. A slave who is considered trust-worthy, can, by paying his master a definite sum regularly, at the end of each week, dispose of his time as he likes. It so happened that I was not in very good odor, and I was far from being a trust-worthy slave. Nevertheless, I watched my opportunity when Master Thomas came to Baltimore, (for I was still his
property, Hugh only acted as his agent,) in the spring of 1838, to purchase his spring supply of goods, and applied to him, directly, for the much-coveted privilege of hiring my time. This request Master Thomas unhesitatingly refused to grant; and he charged me, with some sternness, with inventing this stratagem to make my escape. He told me, "I could go but he could catch me";†Emendation note: me"] and, in the event of my running away, I might be assured he should spare no pains in his efforts to recapture me. He recounted, with a good deal of eloquence, the many kind offices he had done me, and exhorted me to be contented and obedient. "Lay out no plans for the future," said he. "If you behave yourself properly, I will take care of you." Now, kind and considerate as this offer was, it failed to soothe me into repose. In spite of Master Thomas, and, I may say, in spite of myself, also, I continued to think, and worse still, to think almost exclusively about the injustice and wickedness of slavery. No effort of mine or of his could silence this trouble-giving thought, or change my purpose to run away.
Ahout two months after applying to Master Thomas for the privilege of hiring my time, I applied to Master Hugh for the same liberty, supposing him to be unacquainted with the fact that I had made a similar application to Master Thomas, and had been refused. My boldness in making this request, fairly astounded him at the first. He gazed at me in amazement. But I had many good reasons for pressing the matter; and, after listening to them awhile, he did not absolutely refuse, but told me he would think of it. Here, then, was a gleam of hope. Once master of my own time, I felt sure that I could make, over and above my obligation to him, a dollar or two every week. Some slaves have made enough, in this way, to purchase their freedom. It is a sharp spur to industry; and some of the most enterprising colored men in Baltimore hire themselves in this way. After mature reflection—as I must suppose it was—Master Hugh granted me the privilege in question, on the following terms: I was to be allowed all my time; to make all bargains for work; to find my own employment, and to collect my own wages; and, in return for this liberty, I was required, or obliged, to pay him three dollars at the end of each week, and to board and clothe myself, and buy my own calking tools. A failure in any of these particulars would put an end to my privilege. This was a hard bargain. The wear and tear of clothing, the losing and breaking of tools, and the expense of board, made it necessary for me to earn at least six dollars per week, to keep even with the world. All who are acquainted with calking, know how uncertain and irregular that employment is. It can be done to advantage only in dry weather, for it is useless to put wet oakum into a seam. Rain or shine, however,
work or no work, at the end of each week the money must be forthcoming.
Master Hugh seemed to be very much pleased, for a time, with this arrangement; and well he might be, for it was decidedly in his favor. It relieved him of all anxiety concerning me. His money was sure. He had armed my love of liberty with a lash and a driver, far more efficient than any I had before known; and, while he derived all the benefits of slaveholding by the arrangement, without its evils, I endured all the evils of being a slave, and yet suffered all the care and anxiety of a responsible freeman. "Nevertheless," thought I, "it is a valuable privilege—another step in my career toward freedom." It was something even to be permitted to stagger under the disadvantages of liberty, and I was determined to hold on to the newly-gained†Emendation note: newly-gained] footing, by all proper industry. I was ready to work by night as well as by day; and being in the enjoyment of excellent health, I was able not only to meet my current expenses, but also to lay by a small sum at the end of each week. All went on thus, from the month of May till August; then for reasons which will become apparent as I proceed—my much-valued†much-valued] liberty was wrested from me.
During the week previous to this (to me) calamitous event. I had made arrangements with a few young friends, to accompany them, on Saturday night, to a camp-meeting, held about twelve miles from Baltimore. On the evening of our intended start for the camp-ground, something occurred in the ship-yard†Emendation note: ship-yard] where I was at work, which detained me unusually late, and compelled me either to disappoint my young friends, or to neglect carrying my weekly dues to Master Hugh. Knowing that I had the money, and could hand it to him on another day, I decided to go to camp-meeting, and to pay him the three dollars, for the past week, on my return. Once on the campground, I was induced to remain one day longer than I had intended, when I left home. But, as soon as I returned, I went straight to his house on Fell street, to hand him his (my) money. Unhappily, the fatal mistake had heen committed. I found him exceedingly angry. He exhibited all the signs of apprehension and wrath, which a slaveholder may he surmised to exhibit on the supposed escape of a favorite slave. "You rascal! I have a great mind to give you a severe whipping. How dare you go out of the city without first asking and obtaining my permission?" "Sir," said I, "I hired my time and paid you the price you asked for it. I did not know that it was any part of the bargain that I should ask you when or where I should go.
"You did not know, you rascal! You are bound to show yourself here every Saturday night." After reflecting, a few moments, he became somewhat
cooled down; but, evidently greatly troubled, he said, "Now, you scoundrel! you have done for yourself; you shall hire your time no longer. The next thing I shall hear of, will be your running away. Bring home your tools and your clothes, at once. I'll teach you how to go off in this way."
Thus ended my partial freedom. I could hire my time no longer; and I obeyed my master's orders at once. The little taste of liberty which I had had—although as the reader will have seen, it was far from being unalloyed—by no means enhanced my contentment with slavery. Punished thus by Master Hugh, it was now my turn to punish him. "Since," thought I, "you make a slave of me, I will await your orders in all things;" and, instead of going to look for work on Monday morning, as I had formerly done, I remained at home during the entire week, without the performance of a single stroke of work. Saturday night came, and he called upon me, as usual, for my wages. I, of course, told him I had done no work, and had no wages. Here we were at the point of coming to blows. His wrath had been accumulating during the whole week; for he evidently saw that I was making no effort to get work, but was most aggravatingly awaiting his orders, in all things. As I look back to this behavior of mine, I scarcely know what possessed me, thus to trifle with those who had such unlimited power to bless or to blast me. Master Hugh raved and swore his determination to "" but, wisely for , and happily for , his wrath only employed those very harmless, impalpable missiles, which roll from a limber tongue. In my desperation, I had fully made up my mind to measure strength with Master Hugh, in case he should undertake to execute his threats. I am glad there was no necessity for this; for resistance to him could not have ended so happily for me, as it did in the case of Covey. He was not a man to be safely resisted by a slave; and I freely own, that in my conduct toward him, in this instance, there was more folly than wisdom. Master Hugh closed his reproofs, by telling me that, hereafter, I need give myself no uneasiness about getting work; that he "would, himself, see to getting work for me, and enough of it, at that." This threat I confess had some terror in it; and, on thinking the matter over, during the Sunday, I resolved, not only to save him the trouble of getting me work, but that, upon the third day of September, I would attempt to make my escape from slavery. The refusal to allow me to hire my time, therefore, hastened the period of my flight. I had three weeks, now, in which to prepare for my journey.
Once resolved. I felt a certain degree of repose, and on Monday, instead of waiting for Master Hugh to seek employment for me, I was up by break of day, and off to the ship-yard†Emendation note: ship-yard] of Mr. Butler,†Samuel Butler, a Baltimore ship's carpenter, established a shipyard in 1819 in partnership with Robert Lambdin. Apparently Lambdin moved to St. Michaels, Talhot County, in 1830 while maintaining his financial interest in the yard. Butler remained to manage the operation throughout the 1830s during which time it launched the noted ship Catherine. Entries for Samuel Butler, a ship's carpenter on Exeter Street, and Robert Lamden, a ship's carpenter on City Block, appear in the 1840 city directory. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y], for 1840–1 (Baltimore, n.d), 86, 221; Chapelle, Speed under Sail, 302; John Philips Cranwell, ed., "Ship-Building on the Chesapeake: Recollections of Robert Dawson Lambdin," MdHM, 36:172 (June 1941); Lewis Addison Beck, Jr., "Seaman and the Seaman's Bride, Baltimore Clipper Ships," MdHM, 51:305 (December 1956). on the City Block, near the
draw-bridge.†According to contemporary maps, there was an unnamed drawbridge from Falls Avenue to Block Street on the City Dock. Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore. I was a favorite with Mr. B., and, young as I was, I had served as his foreman on the float-stage,†Textual note: As indicated in the note above, Douglass's usual practice was to pull together two-word nouns with a hyphen, as in "draw-bridge" in the immediate context and in a second occurrence of "float-stage" following this instance. Emendation note: float-stage] at calking. Of course, I easily obtained work, and, at the end of the week—which by the way was exceedingly fine—I brought Master Hugh nearly nine dollars. The effect of this mark of returning good sense, on my part, was excellent. He was very much pleased; he took the money, commended me, and told me I might have done the same thing the week before. It is a blessed thing that the tyrant may not always know the thoughts and purposes of his victim. Master Hugh little knew what my plans were. The going to camp-meeting without asking his permission—the insolent answers made to his reproaches—the sulky deportment the week after being deprived of the privilege of hiring my time had awakened in him the suspicion that I might be cherishing disloyal purposes. My object, therefore, in working steadily, was to remove suspicion, and in this I succeeded admirably. He probably thought I was never better satisfied with my condition, than at the very time I was planning my escape. The second week passed, and again I carried him my full week's wages—; and so well pleased was he, that he gave me TWENTY-FIVE CENTS! and "bade me make good use of it!" I told him I would, for one of the uses to which I meant to put it, was to pay my fare on the underground railroad.
Things without went on as usual; but I was passing through the same internal excitement and anxiety which I had experienced two years and a half before. The failure, in that instance, was not calculated to increase my confidence in the success of this, my second attempt; and I knew that a second failure could not leave me where my first did—I must either get to the , or be sent to the . Besides the exercise of mind from this state of facts, I had the painful sensation of being about to separate from a circle of honest and warm-hearted†Emendation note: warm-hearted] friends, in Baltimore. The thought of such a separation, where the hope of ever meeting again is excluded, and where there can be no correspondence, is very painful. It is my opinion, that thousands would escape from slavery who now remain there, but for the strong cords of affection that bind them to their families, relatives and friends. The daughter is hindered from escaping, by the love she bears her mother, and the father, by the love he bears his children; and so, to the end of the chapter. I had no relations in Baltimore, and I saw no probability of ever living in the neighborhood of sisters and brothers; but the thought of leaving my friends, was among the strongest obstacles to my running away. The last two days of the week—Friday and Saturday—were spent mostly in collecting my things together, for my journey. Having worked four days
that week, for my master, I handed him six dollars, on Saturday night. I seldom spent my Sundays at home; and, for fear that something might be discovered in my conduct, I kept up my custom, and absented myself all day. On Monday, the third day of September, 1838, in accordance with my resolution, I bade farewell to the city of Baltimore, and to that slavery which had been my abhorrence from childhood.
How I got away—in what direction I traveled—whether by land or by water; whether with or without assistance—must, for reasons already mentioned, remain unexplained.
Woodcut between pages 334 - 335 (original text), 1855 edition.
Yale Collection of American Literature. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library.
LIFE AS A FREEMAN.
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CHAPTER XXII.
LIBERTY ATTAINED.
TRANSITION FROM SLAVERY TO—A WANDERER IN NEW YORK—FEELINGS ON REACHING THAT CITY—AN OLD ACQUANTANCE MET—UNFAVORABLE IMPRESSIONS—LONELINESS AND INSECURITY—APOLOGY FOR SLAVES WHO RETURN TO THEIR MASTERS—COMPELLED TO TELL MY CONDITION—SUCCORED BY A SAILOR—DAVID RUGGLES—THE UNDER-GROUND RAILROAD—MARRIAGE—BAGGAGE TAKEN FROM ME—KINDNESS OF NATHAN JOHNSON—THE AUTHOR'S CHANGE OF NAME—DARK NOTIONS OF NORTHERN CIVILIZATION—THE CONTRAST—COLORED PEOPLE IN NEW BEDFORD—AN INCIDENT ILLUSTRATING THEIR SPIRIT—THE AUTHOR AS A COMMON LABORER—DENIED WORK AT HIS TRADE—THE FIRST WINTER IN THE NORTH—REPULSE AT THE DOORS OF THE CHURCH—SANCTIFIED HATE—THE LIBERATOR AND ITS EDITOR.
THERE is no necessity for any extended notice of the incidents of this part of my life. There is nothing very striking or peculiar about my career as a freeman, when viewed apart from my life as a slave. The relation subsisting between my early experience and that which I am now about to narrate, is, perhaps, my best apology for adding another chapter to this book.
Disappearing from the kind reader, in a flying cloud or balloon, (pardon the figure,) driven by the wind, and knowing not where I should land—whether in slavery or in freedom—it is proper that I should remove, at once, all anxiety, by frankly making known where I alighted. The flight was a bold and perilous one; but here I am, in the great city of New York, safe and sound, without loss of blood or bone. In less than a week after leaving Baltimore, I was walking amid the hurrying throng, and gazing upon the dazzling wonders of Broadway.†Central to the culture and business of nineteenth-century New York City, Broadway bustled with activity. The avenue was marked with stores, fancy hotels, and theaters that afforded inexpensive entertainment to New Yorkers of all social classes. In 1836 John Jacob Astor opened a six-story, three hundred-room hotel on Broadway, just west of City Hall Park. Called first the Park Hotel, and later renamed the Astor House, it would be the most prestigious hotel in the nation for many decades. Broadway was a constant center of activity, and trying to cross the street was considered risky because it was crowded with carriages and omnibuses on their way to some important activity. The street was home to America's first department stores and by midcentury had gained a reputation as a fashionable shopping district. The five-block strip intersected by Canal, Grand, Broome, Spring, Prince, and Houston streets was an especially popular area for window-shoppers, who found Broadway to be the perfect promenade. Broadway became a more serious business district as it reached beyond the City Hall Park area, where publishers, law firms, and newspapers found a fashionable address for their business. Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, 404, 436, 600, 668, 692. The dreams of my childhood and the purposes of my manhood were now fulfilled. A free state around me, and a free earth under my feet! What a moment was this to me! A whole year was pressed into a single day. A new world burst upon my agitated vision. I have often been asked, by kind friends to whom I have told my story, how I felt when first I found myself beyond the limits of slavery; and I must say here, as I have often said to them, there is scarcely anything about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. It was a moment of joyous excitement, which no words can describe. In a letter to a friend, written soon after reaching
New York, I said I felt as one might be supposed to feel, on escaping from a den of hungry lions. But, in a moment like that, sensations are too intense and too rapid for words. Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be described, but joy and gladness, like the rainbow of promise, defy alike the pen and pencil.
For ten or fifteen years I had been dragging a heavy chain, with a huge block attached to it, cumbering my every motion. I had felt myself doomed to drag this chain and this block through life. All efforts, before, to separate myself from the hateful encumbrance, had only seemed to rivet me the more firmly to it. Baffled and discouraged at times, I had asked myself the question, May not this. after all, be God's work? May He not, for wise ends, have doomed me to this lot? A contest had been going on in my mind for years, between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible errors of superstition; between the wisdom of manly courage, and the foolish weakness of timidity. The contest was now ended; the chain was severed; God and right stood vindicated. I WAS A FREEMAN. and the voice of peace and joy thrilled my heart.
Free and joyous, however, as I was, joy was not the only sensation I experienced. It was like the quick blaze, beautiful at the first, but which subsiding, leaves the building charred and desolate. I was soon taught that I was still in an enemy's land. A sense of loneliness and insecurity oppressed me sadly. I had been but a few hours in New York, before I was met in the streets by a fugitive slave, well known to me, and the information I got from him respecting New York, did nothing to lessen my apprehension of danger. The fugitive in question was "Allender's Jake,"† A Dr. Joseph Allender lived in Fells Point at Thames and Market streets at least through the early 1830s. Douglass lived in a house owned by Dr. Allender on Philpot Street when the Aulds moved to it in the late 1820s. Douglass to Capt. Benjamin F. Auld, 24 March 1894, Hall Collection, MdAA; Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 14. in Baltimore; but, said he, I am "WILLIAM DIXON," in New York! I knew Jake well, and knew when Tolly Allender and Mr. Price (for the latter employed Master Hugh as his foreman, in his ship-yard†Emendation note: ship-yard] shipyard on Fell's Point) made an attempt to recapture Jake, and failed. Jake told me all about his circumstances, and how narrowly he escaped being taken back to slavery; that the city was now full of southerners, returning from the springs;†Wealthy southerners frequently traveled to fashionable northern watering places, including Saratoga Springs, Balston, Newport, and Cape May. Known for the medicinal qualities of their mineral water, these resort communities promised visitors relief from such ailments and diseases as dyspepsia, constipation, rheumatism, joint ailments, diabetes, and vertigo. But many southern visitors to resorts such as Saratoga Springs did not use the waters as an excuse for vacationing there. The ability to mix with others of high social standing and to attend balls and nightly social activities held in the elegant hotels was as much an attraction as the area water cures. John Hope Franklin, A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North (Baton Rouge, 1976), 26–29; M. L. North, Analysis of Saratoga Waters: Also of Sharon, Avon, Virginia and other Mineral Waters of the United States (New York, 1846). that the black people in New York were not to be trusted; that there were hired men on the lookout for fugitives from slavery, and who, for a few dollars, would betray me into the hands of the slave-catchers; that I must trust no man with my secret; that I must not think of going either on the wharves to work, or to a hoarding-house to board; and, worse still, this same Jake told me it was not in his power to help me. He seemed, even while cautioning me, to be fearing lest, after all, I might be a party to a second attempt to recapture him. Under the inspiration of this thought, I must suppose it was, he gave signs of a wish to get rid of
me, and soon left me—his whitewash brush in hand—as he said, for his work. He was soon lost to sight among the throng, and I was alone again, an easy prey to the kidnappers, if any should happen to be on my track.
New York. seventeen years ago, was less a place of safety for a runaway slave than now, and all know how unsafe it now is, under the new fugitive slave bill.†As a part of the Compromise of 1850, this act was a measure designed to increase the ease of recapturing slaves who had fled to the North. Replacing the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, the new law created a federal position of "commissioner" authorized to issue warrants for arrest of fugitives and to certify removal of captives to the South. The law went a long way toward increasing abolitionist sentiment in the North, where opposition centened on the inherent bias of the commissioners, who were paid a fee of ten dollars each time they ordered the removal of a fugitive, but only five dollars if they judged that the captive was not a fugitive slave. Many also objected to the creation of a bureau of federal officials to enforce the property rights of slave owners in the South. Stanley W. Campbell, The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850–1860 (1968; New York, 1972), 23–25; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 276. I was much troubled. I had very little money—enough to buy me a few loaves of bread, but not enough to pay board, outside a lumber yard. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship-yards,†Emendation note: ship-yards] for if Master Hugh pursued me, he would naturally expect to find me looking for work among the calkers. For a time, every door seemed closed against me. A sense of my loneliness and helplessness crept over me, and covered me with something bordering on despair. In the midst of thousands of my fellow-men, and yet a perfect stranger! In the midst of human brothers, and yet more fearful of them than of hungry wolves! I was without home, without friends, without work, without money, and without any definite knowledge of which way to go, or where to look for succor.
Some apology can easily he made for the few slaves who have, after making good their escape, turned hack to slavery, preferring the actual rule of their masters, to the life of loneliness, apprehension, hunger, and anxiety, which meets them on their first arrival in a free state. It is difficult for a freeman to enter into the feelings of such fugitives. He cannot see things in the same light with the slave, because he does not, and cannot, look from the same point from which the slave does. "Why do you tremble," he says to the slave—"you are in a free state;" but the difficulty is, in realizing that he is in a free state, the slave might reply. A freeman cannot understand why the slave-master's shadow is bigger, to the slave, than the might and majesty of a free state; but when he reflects that the slave knows more about the slavery of his master than he does of the might and majesty of the free state, he has the explanation. The slave has heen all his life learning the power of his master—being trained to dread his approach—and only a few hours learning the power of the state. The master is to him a stern and flinty reality, but the state is little more than a dream. He has heen accustomed to regard every white man as the friend of his master, and every colored man as more or less under the control of his master's friends—the white people. It takes stout nerves to stand up, in such circumstances. A man, homeless, shelterless, breadless, friendless, and moneyless, is not in a condition to assume a very proud or joyous tone; and in just this condition was I, while wandering about the streets of New York city, and lodging, at least one night, among the barrels on one of its wharves. I was not only free from slavery, but I was free from
home, as well. The reader will easily see that I had something more than the simple fact of being free to think of, in this extremity.
I kept my secret as long as I could, and at last was forced to go in search of an honest man—a man sufficiently not to betray me into the hands of slave-catchers. I was not a bad reader of the human face, nor long in selecting the right man, when once compelled to disclose the facts of my condition to some one.
I found my man in the person of one who said his name was Stewart. He was a sailor, warm-hearted and generous, and he listened to my story with a brother's interest. I told him I was running for my freedom—knew not where to go—money almost gone—was hungry—thought it unsafe to go the ship-yards†Emendation note: ship-yards] shipyards for work, and needed a friend. Stewart promptly put me in the way of getting out of my trouble. He took me to his house, and went in search of the late David Ruggles.†David Ruggles (1810–49), a free black man, was born and educated in Norwich, Connecticut. In 1827 he moved to New York, where he worked as a grocer. In 1834 he opened a printing and book shop that specialized in abolitionist literature. Ruggles became active in the New York antislavery movement, serving as a writer, lecturer, and traveling agent for the reform publication Emancipator and Journal of Public Morals. He also was a conductor on the Underground Railroad, editor of the Genius of Freedom and the Mirror of Liberty, and secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee. His career in the antislavery movement ended abruptly in 1842 when temporary blindness, an affliction that would recur for the rest of his life, forced him to curtail his activities and seek medical attention. At the Northampton Association of Education and Industry in Florence, Massachusetts, he underwent hydrotherapy, which temporarily relieved his blindness. Soon thereafter he began a career as a hydrotherapist in Northampton, Massachusetts, treating such celebrated individuals as Sojourner Truth and William Lloyd Garrison. His reputation as a hydrotherapist rivaled his stature as an abolitionist. NASS, 20 December 1849; Lib., 21 December 1849; New York Evangelist, 27 December 1849; ASB, 29 December 1849; NS, 1 February 1850; Penn, Afro-American Press, 118; DANB, 536–38. who was then the secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee,†Northern blacks along with some sympathetic white supporters maintained a loose, clandestine system to clothe, feed, and shelter fugitive slaves from the South. These vigilance committees also operated to expose the presence of slave hunters and, on occasion, to rescue fugitives in the process of rendition to their masters. The New York City Vigilance Committee was founded in November 1835 with David Ruggles serving as its secretary. Ruggles's penchant for aggressive and even extralegal activities to protect fugitives led other members of the committee to force his resignation in 1839. Without Ruggles's leadership, the organization languished for a decade until it became the nucleus for statewide vigilance society in 1848. Larry Gara, The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad (Lexington, Ky., 1961), 101, 104–09; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 207–12; Freeman, "Free Negro in New York City," 68–72, 203–04. and a very active man in all anti-slavery works. Once in the hands of Mr. Ruggles, I was comparatively safe. I was hidden with Mr. Ruggles several days. In the mean-time, my intended wife, Anna,†Anna Murray Douglass (c. 1813-82), Frederick Douglass's first wife, was born free in Denton, Caroline County, Maryland. She was the eighth child of Bambarra Murray and his wife Mary, who had been manumitted shortly before Anna's birth. At seventeen she moved to Baltimore, where she worked as a domestic. She met Douglass at meetings of the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, helped finance his escape, and, accoring to plan, joined him in New York City, where they were married on 15 September 1838. During Douglass's tour of the British Isles in 1845-47, she remained in Lynn, Massachusetts, where she supported herself by binding shoes. There she gained a reputation for frugality and skillful household management—qualities that would contribute greatly to her family's financial prosperity over the years. A member of the Lynn's Ladies Anti-Slavery Society and a regular participant in the annual antislavery bazaars in Boston, she continued her antislavery activities after moving to Rochester in 1847. Unlettered, reserved, and, according to her husband, never completely at ease in white company, she seldom appeared at public functions with Douglass. She was nevertheless affectionately remembered by her husband's associates as a " warm" and "hospitable" hostess at their home. On 9 July 1882, Anna Douglass suffered an attack of paralysis in Washington, D.C. She died there on 4 August. In January 1884 Douglass married Helen Pitts, a white woman. Lib., 18 November, 2 December 1853; Philadelphia Christian Recorder, 20 July 1882; Washington Post, 5 August 1882; Rosetta Douglass Sprague, My Mother as I Recall Her: A Paper Read before the Anna Murray Douglass Union, W.C.T.U., May 10, 1900 (1900; Washington, D.C., 1923); Jane Marsh Parker, " Reminiscences of Frederick Douglass," Outlook 51:552–53 (6 April 1895); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 149, 151, 154, 159; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 9–10, 100–101, 106, 109–10, 297–98. came on from Baltimore—to whom I had written, informing her of my safe arrival at New York—and, in the presence of Mrs. Mitchell†In the late 1830s Mrs. D. Michaels owned and operated a boardinghouse in New York City at 33–36 Lespanard Street. She was married to Joseph Michaels, who made floor mats and dealt in scrap metal, glass, and rags. New York Weekly Advocate, 14 January 1837; New York Colored American, 20 October 1838. and Mr. Ruggles, we were married, by Rev. James W. C. Pennington.
Mr. Ruggles* was the first officer on the under-ground railroad with whom I met after reaching the north, and, indeed, the first of whom I evcr heard anything. Learning that I was a calker by trade, he promptly decided that New Bedford was the proper place to send me. "Many ships." said he, "are there fitted out for the whaling business, and you may there find work at your trade, and make a good living." Thus, in one fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I was safe in New Bedford, regularly entered upon the exercise of the rights, responsibilities, and duties of a freeman. I may mention a little circumstance which annoyed me on reaching New Bedford. I had not a cent of money, and lacked two dollars toward paying our fare from Newport, and our baggage—not very costly—was
*He was a whole-souled man. fully imbued with a love of his afflicged and hunted people, and took pleaseure in being to me, as was his wont, "Eyes to the blind, and legs to the lame"†A slight misquotation of Job 29:15: " I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame." This brave and devoted man suffered much from the persecutions common to all who have been prominent benefactors. He at last became blind, and needed a friend to guide him, even as he had been a guide to others. Even in his blindness, he exhibited his manly character. In search of health, he became a physician. When hope of gaining his own was gone, he had hope for others. Believing in hydrotherapy,†Hydropathy, or "water-cure," was introduced into the United States from Europe in the 1840s and became a widely used form of alternative medicine. Proponents of hydropathy believed that ingesting, applying, or bathing in water could cure almost any disease known to man. The Northampton Water Cure established in Northampton, Massachusetts, by David Ruggles was one of three establishments in that town. During the heyday of hydropathic medicine, roughly 1840 to 1860, hundreds of patients received treatment. The water-cures were especially fashionable with those wealthy enough to pay weekly rates of five to ten dollars. Popular among women reformers, the cures were frequented by such well-known women as Harriet Beecher Stowe, Catharine Beecher, and Susan B. Anthony. In 1847 Ruggles advertised the cost of his establishment to be $5.50 per week. Jane B. Donegan, "Hydropathic Highway to Health": Women and Water-Cure in Antebellum America (Westport, Conn., 1986); 3–4, 185, 195; Susan E. Caleff, Wash and Be Healed: The Water-Cure Movement and Women's Health (Philadelphia, 1987), 80, 86, 102, 143, 148, 152. he established, at Northampton, Massachusetts, a large "Water Cure," and became one of the most successful of all engaged in that mode of treatment.
taken by the stage driver, and held until I could raise the money to redeem it. This difficulty was soon surmounted. Mr. Nathan Johnson,†Owners of a confectionery shop and a thriving catering business. Nathan Johnson (?–1880) and Mary Page Johnson (?–c. 1870) were two of the most prominent blacks in New Bedford, Massachusetts. They had helped and housed black fugitives on many occasions, and Nathan had long been an active abolitionist, serving at one point as a manager of the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1832 Johnson represented New Bedford at the National Negro Convention in Philadelphia, and in 1837 he was one of three local African Americans chosen to question all county political candidates about their views on slavery and the slave trade. Johnson left New Bedford for California in 1849 and did not return until 1871 after his wife, who had remained behind, died. New York Colored American, 18 November 1837; Henry H. Crapo, ed., The New Bedford Directory [for 1838] (New Bedford, Mass., 1838), 77; Vital Records of New Bedford, Massachusetts, to the Year 1850, 3 vols. (Boston, 1932), 2: 309, 396; Barbara Clayton and Kathleen Whitley, Guide to New Bedford (Chester, Conn., 1979), 134–35; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2: 712; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 76–78, 84. to whom we had a line from Mr. Ruggles, not only received us kindly and hospitably, but, on being informed about our baggage, promptly loaned me two dollars with which to redeem my little property. I shall ever be deeply grateful, both to Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson, for the lively interest they were pleased to take in me, in this the hour of my extremest need. They not only gave myself and wife bread and shelter, but taught us how to begin to secure those benefits for ourselves. Long may they live, and may blessings attend them in this life and in that which is to come!
Once initiated into the new life of freedom, and assured by Mr. Johnson that New Bedford was a safe place, the comparatively unimportant matter, as to what should be my name, came up for consideration. It was necessary to have a name in my new relations. The name given me by my beloved mother was no less pretentious than "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey." I had, however, before leaving Maryland, dispensed with the , and retained the name . Between Baltimore and New Bedford, I had several different names, the better to avoid being overhauled by the hunters, which I had good reason to believe would be put on my track. Among honest men an honest man may well be content with one name, and to acknowledge it at all times and in all places; but toward fugitives, Americans are not honest. When I arrived in New Bedford, my name was Johnson; and finding that the Johnson family in New Bedford†According to the 1840 population census, there were eleven black families in New Bedford with the sur-name Johnson. The members of those households totaled forty-one. 1840 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Bristol County, 357–465. were already quite numerous—sufficiently so to produce some confusion in attempts to distinguish one from another—there was the more reason for making another change in my name. In fact, "Johnson" had been assumed by nearly every slave who had arrived in New Bedford from Maryland, and this, much to the annoyance of the original "Johnsons" (of whom there were many) in that place. Mine host, unwilling to have another of his own name added to the community in this unauthorized way, after I spent a night and a day at his house, gave me my present name. He had been reading the "Lady of the Lake,"†Sir Walter Scott (1771–1832) published The Lady of the Lake in Edinburgh in 1810. Ellen Douglas and her father, Lord James of Douglas, a medieval Scotish chieftain, are the principal characters. Complete Poetical Works of Scott, 152–208; Drabble, Oxford Companion to English Literature, 542, 875–76. and was pleased to regard me as a suitable person to wear this, one of Scotland's many famous names. Considering the noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson, I have felt that he, better than I, illustrated the virtues of the great Scottish chief. Sure I am, that had any slave-catcher entered his domicile, with a view to molest any one of his household, he would have shown himself like him of the "stalwart hand."†Probably a reference to canto 1, stanza XXVIII lines 565–67 of Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake: " 'I never knew but one,' he said. / 'Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield / A blade like this in battle-field.' " Complete Poetical Works of Scott, 162.
The reader will he amused at my ignorance, when I tell the notions I
had of the state of northern wealth, enterprise, and civilization. Of wealth and refinement, I supposed the north had none. My Columbian Orator, which was almost my only book, had not done much to enlighten me concerning northern society. The impressions I had received were all wide of the truth. New Bedford, especially, took me by surprise, in the solid wealth and grandeur there exhibited. I had formed my notions respecting the social condition of the free states, by what I had seen and known of free, white, non-slaveholding people in the slave states. Regarding slavery as the basis of wealth, I fancied that no people could become very wealthy without slavery. A free white man, holding no slaves, in the country, I had known to be the most ignorant and poverty-stricken of men, and the laughing stock even of slaves themselves—called generally by them, in derision, "."†Derogatory term pertaining to the poor white population of the South. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 2: 1283. Like the non-slaveholders at the south, in holding no slaves, I supposed the northern people like them, also, in poverty and degradation. Judge, then, of my amazement and joy, when I found—as I did find—the very laboring population of New Bedford living in better houses, more elegantly furnished—surrounded by more comfort and refinement—than a majority of the slaveholders on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.†The living conditions of laborers, and especially of free blacks, was only marginally better in northern states than in the South. Blacks living in northern cities were just a bit more likely to own property than their southern counterparts, but were more likely to have difficulty finding a job that suited their occupation, if skilled. In some southern cities, free blacks lived in deplorable conditions, but others lived quite well. What Douglass must have noticed was the marked difference that freedom of self-expression brought to individuals. The churches, educational opportunities, newspapers, and abolitionist societies in the North helped to widen the contrast between the two regions. Leonard P. Curry, The Free Black in Urban America, 1800–1850: The Shadow of a Dream (Chicago, 1981), 16–18, 267–69; Luther Porter Jackson, Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830–1860 (New York, 1942), 168–70; Berlin, Slaves without Masters, 168. There was my friend, Mr. Johnson, himself a colored man, (who at the south would have been regarded as a proper marketable commodity,) who lived in a better house—dined at a richer board—was the owner of more books—the reader of more newspapers—was more conversant with the political and social condition of this nation and the world—than nine-tenths of all the slaveholders of Talbot county, Maryland. Yet Mr. Johnson was a working man, and his hands were hardened by honest toil. Here, then, was something for observation and study. Whence the difference? The explanation was soon furnished, in the superiority of mind over simple brute force. Many pages might be given to the contrast, and in explanation of its causes. But an incident or two will suffice to show the reader as to how the mystery gradually vanished before me.
My first afternoon, on reaching New Bedford, was spent in visiting the wharves and viewing the shipping.†New Bedford, in Bristol County, Massachusetts, was one of the world's leading whaling ports in the nineteenth century. The whaling industry and related shipping operations boomed after the American Revolution and reached their peak in the 1850s. Whale oil for lighting was the largest export, and in 1856, when a new city hall was erected, the motto "Lucem Diffundo" (we light the world) was placed on its seal. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 2:2153–54; James M. Lindgren, " 'Let Us Idealize Old Types of Manhood': The New Bedford Whaling Museum, 1903–1941," New England Quarterly, 72:163–206 (June 1999). The sight of the broad brim and the plain, Quaker dress, which met me at every turn, greatly increased my sense of freedom and security. "I am among the Quakers," thought I, "and am safe."†The Religious Society of Friends was founded by George Fox in Great Britain during the mid-seventeenth century. Fox emphasized the immediacy of Christ's teachings and therefore found ordained ministers, a set liturgy, or consecrated buildings to be irrelevant. Central to the sect's teachings is the "Inner Light," an innate sense of the divine and direct working of Christ in the human soul that results in the moral attributes of simplicity, purity, and truthfulness. Early in their history, Quakers faced persecution, mostly because of their refusal to take oaths, pay tithes, or enlist in military service. As a result, the colony of Pennsylvania was founded in 1682 as a refuge for Quakers. In 1743 the Society of Friends became the first religious denomination to condemn slavery as morally evil and to require its members to free their slaves. The Quakers were strong adherents of gradual emancipation, and they dominated the ranks of Revolutionary-era abolition societies that persuaded the northern states to end slavery. Three basic Quaker tenets led to support for abolition. First, the belief that all people are equal in the sight of God led to concern s that through forced slavery, masters were denying their slaves the chance to reach God. Second, a tradition of nonviolence and pacifism was at odds with the constant threat of violence and force that kept people in bondage. Finally, the abhorrence of ostentation or sloth in daily life led to dismissal of slavery on grounds that slaves were used as symbols of conspicuous consumption. Although the public controversy stirred up by abolitionism caused many Quakers to turn away from participation in the post-1831 antislavery movement, such prominent abolitionists as Benjamin Lundy and Angelina and Sarah Grimke were members of the Quaker sect. Jean R. Soderlund, Quakers and Slavery: A Divided Spirit (Princeton, 1985), 17–18; F. L. Cross, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church (London, 1974), 538–39; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 22, 28, 37; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 303, 607–09. Lying at the wharves and riding in the stream, were full-rigged ships of finest model, ready to start on whaling voyages. Upon the right and the left, I was walled in by large granite-fronted warehouses, crowded with the good things of this world. On the wharves, I saw industry without hustle, labor without noise, and heavy toil without the whip. There was no loud
singing, as in southern ports, where ships are loading or unloading—no loud cursing or swearing—but everything went on as smoothly as the works of a well adjusted machine. How different was all this from the noisily fierce and clumsily absurd manner of labor—life in Baltimore and St. Michael's! One of the first incidents which illustrated the superior mental character of northern labor over that of the south, was the manner of unloading a ship's cargo of oil. In a southern port, twenty or thirty hands would have been employed to do what five or six did here, with the aid of a single ox attached to the end of a fall.†A fall is an apparatus used for hoisting and lowering goods, and in this instance was powered by oxen to load and unload ships' cargoes. Main strength, unassisted by skill, is slavery's method of labor. An old ox, worth eighty dollars, was doing, in New Redford, what would have required fifteen thousand dollars worth of human bones and muscles to have performed in a southern port. I found that everything was done here with a scrupulous regard to economy, both in regard to men and things, time and strength. The maid servant, instead of spending at least a tenth part of her time in bringing and carrying water, as in Baltimore, had the pump at her elbow. The wood was dry, and snugly piled away for winter. Wood-houses, in-door pumps, sink, drains, self-shutting gates, washing machines, pounding barrels,†A barrel in which clothes are pounded in water to cleanse them. were all new things, and told me that I was among a thoughtful and sensible people. To the ship-repairing dock I went, and saw the same wise prudence. The carpenters struck where they aimed, and the calkers wasted no blows in idle tlourishes of the mallet. I learned that men went from New Bedford to Baltimore, and bought old ships, and brought them here to repair, and made them better and more valuable than they ever were before. Men talked here of going whaling on a four ' voyage with more coolness than sailors where I came from talked of going a four ' voyage.
I now find that I could have landed in no part of the United States, where I should have found a more striking and gratifying contrast to the condition of the free people of color in Baltimore, than I found here in New Bedford. No colored man is really free in a slaveholding state. He wears the badge of bondage while nominally free, and is often subjected to hardships to which the slave is a stranger; but here in New Bedford, it was my good fortune to see a pretty near approach to freedom on the part of the colored people. I was taken all aback when Mr. Johnson—who lost no time in making me acquainted with the fact—told me that there was nothing in the constitution of Massachusetts to prevent a colored man from holding any office in the state.†Adopted in 1780, the Massachusetts constitution makes no reference to a color bar for elected officials. When Maine was separated from Massachuselts in 1820, reformers held a constitutional convention, approving nine amendments, but none of those limited black participation in government. A second convention in 1853 attempted a complete revision of the constitution, but failed. Robert J. Taylor, ed., Massachusetts, Colony to Commonwealth: Documents on the Formation of Its Constitution, 1775–1780 (Chapel Hill, 1961), 127–46; League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Massachusetts State Government (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 51–52. There, in New Bedford, the black man's children—although anti-slavery was then far from popular—went to school side by side with the white children,†Although Douglass occasionally encountered racial discrimination in New Bedford, a stable and moderately prosperous black community had long existed in the Massachusetts seaport. Among principal cities in Massachusetts, only Boston operated a segregated public school system after the mid-1840s. Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790–1860 (Chicago, 1961), 153. and apparently without objection from any quarter. To
make me at home, Mr. Johnson assured me that no slaveholder could take a slave from New Bedford; that there were men there who would lay down their lives, before such an outrage could be perpetrated. The colored people themselves were of the best metal, and would fight for liberty to the death.
Soon after my arrival in New Bedford, I was told the following story, which was said to illustrate the spirit of the colored people in that goodly town: A colored man and a fugitive slave happened to have a little quarrel, and the former was heard to threaten the latter with informing his master of his whereabouts. As soon as this threat became known, a notice was read from the desk of what was then the only colored church in the place,†Douglass refers to the African (Third) Christian Church in New Bedford, which also served as a meeting place for local abolitionist activities. Located on the west side of New Bedford, the church was founded in 1830. Lib., 11 June 1841; Charles Cook, A Brief Account of the African Christian Church, in New-Bedford (New Bedford, Mass., 1834), 3–12; Frederick Douglass, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass Written by Himself, rev. ed. (Boston, 1892), 258–59; Kathryn Grover, The Fugitive's Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts (Amherst, Mass., 2001), 233, 274. stating that business of importance was to be then and there transacted. Special measures had been taken to secure the attendance of the would-be Judas,†That is, comparing the man with Judas Iscaiot, disciple and later betrayer of Jesus Christ. J. D. Douglas, ed., The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 3 vols. (Wheaton, Ill., 1980), 2:830–31. and had proved successful. Accordingly, at the hour appointed, the people came, and the betrayer also. All the usual formalities of public meetings were scrupulously gone through, even to the offering prayer for Divine direction in the duties of the occasion. The president himself performed this part of the ceremony, and I was told that he was unusually fervent. Yet, at the close of his prayer, the old man (one of the numerous family of Johnsons) rose from his knees, deliberately surveyed his audience, and then said, in a tone of solemn resolution, "" With this, a large body of the congregation, who well understood the business they had come there to transact, made a rush at the villain, and doubtless would have killed him, had he not availed himself of an open sash, and made good his escape. He has never shown his head in New Bedford since that time. This little incident is perfectly characteristic of the spirit of the colored people in New Bedford. A slave could not be taken from that town seventeen years ago, any more than he could he so taken away now. The reason is, that the colored people in that city are educated up to the point of fighting for their freedom, as well as speaking for it.
Once assured of my safety in New Bedford, I put on the habiliments of a common laborer, and went on the wharf in search of work. I had no notion of living on the honest and generous sympathy of my colored brother, Johnson, or that of the abolitionists. My cry was like that of Hood's laborer. "Oh! only give me work."†Douglass quotes from the sixth stanza of 'The Lay of the Labourer," by the English poet Thomas Hood (1799–1845). Thomas Hood, The Works of Thomas Hood, 9 vols. (London, 1872), 9:233. Happily for me, I was not long in searching. I found employment, the third day after my arrival in New Bedford, in stowing a sloop with a load of oil for the New York market. It was new, hard, and dirty work, even for a calker, but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing
hand. I was now my own master—a tremendous fact—and the rapturous excitement with which I seized the job, may not easily be understood, except by some one with an experience something like mine. The thoughts—"I can work! I can work for a Iiving; I am not afraid of work; I have no Master Hugh to rob me of my earnings"—placed me in a state of independence, beyond seeking friendship or support of any man. That day's work I considered the real starting point of something like a new existence. Having finished this job and got my pay for the same, I went next in pursuit of a job at calking. It so happened that Mr. Rodney French,†Rodney French (c. 1802–82) was a successful boat builder and prominent public official in New Bedford. In 1841 he was the chairman of the board of selectmen and later served as mayor. French reputedly once constructed ships for the slave trade but gradually developed antislavery sentiments. He vehemently opposed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 and appeared publicly with Douglass in 1853. Early in the Civil War, Douglass reported that "our old friend" French commanded a Union navy squadron blockading southern ports. FDP, 12 August 1853; DM, 4:561 (December 1861); New York Daily Times, 1 May 1882; Henry H. Crapo, ed., The New Bedford Directory [for 1841] (New Bedford, 1841), 70; Leonard Bolles Ellis, History of New Bedford and Its Vicinity, 1602–1892 (Syracuse, 1892), 306; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 79. late mayor of the city of New Bedford, had a ship fitting out for sea, and to which there was a large job of calking and coppering to be done. I applied to that noble-hearted man for employment, and he promptly told me to go to work; but going on the float-stage for the purpose, I was informed that every white man would leave the ship if I struck a blow upon her. "Well, well," thought I, "this is a hardship, but yet not a very serious one for me." The difference between the wages of a calker and that of a common day laborer, was an hundred per cent, in favor of the former; but then I was free, and free to work, though not at my trade. I now prepared myself to do anything which came to hand in the way of turning an honest penny; sawed wood—dug cellars—shoveled coal—swept chimneys with Uncle Lucas Debuty† In the late 1830s Lucas Debuty [Debety] lived in New Bedford on Middle Street. He worked as a chimney sweep and general laborer. In 1840 he was still living in the town, but the census enumerators classified his occupation as "navigation of the ocean." Henry H. Crapo, ed., The New Bedford Directory [for 1836] (New Bedford, 1836), 50; idem, The New Bedford Directory [for 1839] (New Bedford, 1839), 67; idem, New Bedford Directory [for 1841], 64; 1840 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Bristol County, 402.—rolled oil casks on the wharves—helped to load and unload vessels—worked in Ricketson's candle works†Joseph Ricketson (1771–1841) was the owner of a candle factory and oil refinery in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He also helped form the Bedford Fire Society in 1807, served as a cashier and a director of the New Bedford Commercial Bank, and was a trustee of the New Bedford Lyceum and Atheneum. Ricketson was a Quaker and committed to various reform and antislavery endeavors. Although a scrupulously honest and hard-working businessman, Ricketson spent his last years close to poverty because of several serious business reversals. Alanson Borden, ed., Our County and and Its People: Descriptive and Biographical Record of Bristol County, Massachusetts (Boston, 1899), 351n1, 353, 406; Crapo, New Bedford Directory [for 1836], 18; idem, New Bedford Directory [for 1841], 30; Vital Records of New Bedford, 1:386, 3: 138; Ellis, New Bedford, 252, 509, 516–17, 629; Daniel Ricketson, The History of New Bedford, Bristol County, Massachusetts (New Bedford, 1858), 232–34; D. Hamilton Hurd, comp., History of Bristol County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men (Philadelphia, 1883), 92, 105, 111.—in Richmond's brass foundery,†The shop of A. D. Richmond and Company, brass founders and coppersmiths, was located at 103 North Water Street in New Bedford. The proprietors were Anthony D. Richmond and Andrew Cragie, both of New Bedford. According to an 1865 advertisement, the shop produced a variety of bolts, spikes, nails, and eyebolts, as well as such plumbing supplies as water-closets, shower-baths, and bathtubs. The Richmond establishment also specialized in the custom production of patent composition lead- and brass-tipped candle molds. The New Bedford Directory, no. 10 (New Bedford, 1865), cover, 118. and elsewhere; and thus supported myself and family for three years.
The first winter was unusually severe, in consequence of the high prices of food; but even during that winter we probably suffered less than many who had been free all their lives. During the hardest of the winter, I hired out for nine dollars a month; and out of this rented two rooms†Douglass's family had relocated from a small house in the rear of 157 Elm Street to a larger residence at 111 Ray Street in New Bedford by 1842. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 82. for nine dollars per quarter, and supplied my wife—who was unable to work†Anna Murray Douglass was probably pregnant and therefore unable to work. The couple's first child, Rosetta, is believed to have been born 24 June 1839, just nine months after their marriage. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 70, 81.—with food and some necessary articles of furniture. We were closely pinched to bring our wants within our means; but the jail stood over the way, and I had a wholesome dread of the consequences of running in debt. This winter past, and I was up with the times—got plenty of work—got well paid for it—and felt that I had not done a foolish thing to leave Master Hugh and Master Thomas. I was now living in a new world, and was wide awake to its advantages. I early began to attend the meetings of the colored people of New Bedford,†Douglass became active in these meetings of New Bedford's black citizens as early as March 1839. Meeting at the African-American Third Christian Church, the assemblies denounced colonization and endorsed the brand of immediate abolition and non-resistance advocated by William Lloyd Garrison. By 1841 Douglass had moved into a leadership role and was chairing the meetings. Lib., 29 March 1839, 9 July 1841. and to take part in them. I was somewhat amazed to see colored men drawing up resolutions and offering them for consideration. Several colored young men of New Bedford, at that period, gave promise of great usefulness. They were educated, and possessed what seemed to me, at
that time, very superior talents. Some of them have been cut down by death, and others have removed to different parts of the world, and some remain there now, and justify, in their present activities, my early impressions of them.
Among my first concerns on reaching New Bedford, was to become united with the church, for I had never given up, in reality, my religious faith. I had become lukewarm and in a backslidden state, but I was still convinced that it was my duty to join the Methodist church. I was not then aware of the powerful influence of that religious body in favor of the enslavement of my race, nor did I see how the northern churches could be responsible for the conduct of southern churches;†A central tenet of the ideology of most American abolitionists, not just followers of William Lloyd Giarrison, was that slaveholding was inherently sinful. Unlike many moderate opponents of slavery, abolitionists refused to consider pleas of mitigating circumstances in the case of individual slave owners; they denied there could be any acceptable excuse for continuing to sin. Abolitionists therefore charged that religious institutions lent moral sanction to slaveholding by extending membership to owners of slaves. Northern congregations were regarded as culpable in the sin of slaveholding just by admitting a visiting slave owner to their communion. With only rare succcss before the Civil War, abolitionists lobbied denominations and other religious, organizations to expel all slaveholding members. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 20–23. neither did I fully understand how it could be my duty to remain separate from the church,†Douglass alludes to the abolitionist practice of religious "comeouterism." By the early 1840s, many Garrisonian abolitionists repudiated all ties with organized Christian bodies on account of their perceived complicity with slavery. Many non-Garrisonian abolitionists also seceded from national denominations and formed small independent "comeouter" sects, such as the Wesleyan Methodist Connection and the Free Presbyterian Church, in the mid-1840s. By their departure from the established religious institutions, abolitionists hoped to force fellow northern church members to reform their denomination's policies toward slavery. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 93–110. because bad men were connected with it. The slaveholding church, with its Coveys, Weedens, Aulds, and Hopkins, I could see through at once, but I could not see how Elm Street church,†The Elm Street Methodist Episcopal Church in New Bedford was pastored by Isaac Bonney. The church was attended by many prominent city residents including merchants, artisans, and industrialists. Daniel Ricketson, New Bedford of the Past (Boston, 1903), 56–58. in New Bedford, could be regarded as sanctioning the christianity of these characters in the church at St. Michael's. I therefore resolved to join the Methodist church in New Bedford, and to enjoy the spiritual advantage of public worship. The minister of the Elm Street Methodist church, was the Rev. Mr. Bonney;†Isaac Bonney (1782–1855) was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, and raised to be a farmer. His conversion at a prayer meeting in 1800 led him to become a Methodist and soon discover a deep prompting to preach. Over the next several years, Bonney became a class leader and preached in surrounding towns. By 1808, Bishop Francis Asbury admitted him to the New England Conference and assigned him to a circuit in Connecticut. For the following forty years, he rode circuits in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut and became one of the region's most popular preachers. In 1838 and 1839, he was stationed in New Bedford at the Elm Street Methodist Episcopal Church and lived at 35 Middle Street. Bonney was married twice, his first wife dying in 1828, and had several children. Crapo, New Bedford Directory [for 1839], 50; William B. Sprague, ed., Annals of the American Pulpit: or Commemorative Notices of Distinguished American Clergymen of Various Denominations, 9 vols. (New York, 1873), 7:452–54. and although I was not allowed a seat in the body of the house, and was proscribed on account of my color,†Douglass frequently recounted this incident in discussion of his experiences with "Jim Crow," or racial segregation, and included the account in a speech titled "The Church ls the Bulwark of Slavery," delivered in Boston in 1842. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 93; Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 1:17–20. regarding this proscription simply as an accommodation of the unconverted congregation who had not yet been won to Christ and his brotherhood, I was willing thus to be proscribed, lest sinners should he driven away from the saving power of the gospel. Once converted, I thought they would be sure to treat me as a man and a brother. "Surely," thought I, "these christian people have none of this feeling against color. They, at least, have renounced this unholy feeling." Judge, then, dear reader, of my astonishment and mortification, when I found, as soon I did find, all my charitable assumptions at fault.
An opportunity was soon afforded me for ascertaining the exact position of Elm Street church on that subject. I had a chance of seeing the religious part of the congregation by themselves; and although they disowned, in effect, their black brothers and sisters, before the world, I did think that where none but the saints were assembled, and no offense could be given to the wicked, and the gospel could not be "blamed," they would certainly recognize us as children of the same Father, and heirs of the same salvation, on equal terms with themselves.
The occasion to which I refer, was the sacrament of the Lord's Supper,†The Lord's Supper is a ritual meal celebrated since the first Easter in many Christian churches. The sacrament involves the rite of partaking of bread and wine, which symbolize the body and blood of Christ, respectively. Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:362–63. that most sacred and most solemn of all the ordinances of the christian
church. Mr. Bonney had preached a very solemn and searching discourse, which really proved him to be acquainted with the inmost secrets of the human heart. At the close of his discourse, the congregation was dismissed, and the church remained to partake of the sacrament. I remained to see, as I thought, this holy sacrament celebrated in the spirit of its great Founder.
There were only about a half dozen colored members†mem-] attached to the Elm Street church, at this time. After the congregation was dismissed, these descended from the gallery, and took a seat against the wall most distant from the altar. Brother Bonney was very animated, and sung very sweetly, "Salvation 'tis a joyful sound,"†Douglass alludes to a hymn from the standard collection of Methodist spirituals, although the actual title is "Salvation! O the Joyful Sound!" David Creamer, Methodist Hymnology: Comprehending Notices of the Poetical Works of John and Charles Wesley (New York, 1948), 320. and soon began to administer the sacrament. I was anxious to observe the bearing of the colored members, and the result was most humiliating. During the whole ceremony, they looked like sheep without a shepherd. The white members went forward to the altar by the bench full; and when it was evident that all the whites had been served with the bread and wine, Brother Bonney—pious Brother Bonney—after a long pause, as if inquiring whether all the white members had been served, and fully assuring himself on that important point, then raised his voice to an unnatural pitch, and looking to the corner where his black sheep seemed penned, beckoned with his hand, exclaiming. "Come forward, colored friends!—come forward! You, too, have an interest in the blood of Christ. God is no respecter of persons. Come forward, and take this holy sacrament to your comfort." The colored members—poor, slavish souls—went forward, as invited. I went , and have never been in that church since, although I honestly went there with a view to joining that body. I found it impossible to respect the religious profession of any who were under the dominion of this wicked prejudice, and I could not, therefore, feel that in joining them, I was joining a christian church, at all. I tried other churches in New Bedford, with the same result, and, finally, I attached myself to a small body of colored Methodists, known as the Zion Methodists.†The founders of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church began to meet in 1795. Dissatisfaction by black memhers of the John Street Methodist Episcopal Church resulted in black members meeting to worship amongst themselves in 1795. The group officially requested to meet as a separate group in August of 1796 with permission being granted that year. The A. M. E. Zion Church opposed racism but did not openly attack the proslavery attitudes of white Methodists. The church also held back from abolitionist religious principles, which is exemplified by the rejection of legislation aimed at barring slave holding members. David W. Blight, Frederick Douglass' Civil War: Keeping Faith in Jubilee (Baton Rouge, 1989), 6–8; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 20; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 92–104; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 93, 107–09. Favored with the affection and confidence of the members of this humble communion, I was soon made a class-leader and a local preacher among them. Many seasons of peace and joy I experienced among them, the remembrance of which is still precious, although I could not see it to be my duty to remain with that body, when I found that it consented to the same spirit which held my brethren in chains.
In four or five months after reaching New Bedford. there came a young man to me, with a copy of the "Liberator,"†Pioneer abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison published the weekly Boston newspaper, the Liberator, from 1831 to 1865. The paper advocated women's rights, temperance, pacifism, and a variety of other reforms in addition to immediate emancipation. Thomas, The Liberator, 127–28, 436; DAB, 7:168–72. the paper edited by WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON, and published by ISAAC KNAPP,† Isaac Knapp (1804–43), a longtime friend of William Lloyd Garrison, copublished the Liberator with him from its inception 1831 until 1835. After 1835, Knapp handled the publishing and financial end of the paper. With his health and his own finances failing, he gave up control of the business management of the Liberator in 1838. Knapp and Garrison parted ways in 1841, with Knapp trying to start his own newspaper, Knapp's Liberator, but this attempt failed after only one issue. Like Garrison, Knapp was an avid abolitionist One of his most significant accomplishments was his role in helping to found New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1832. Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3:309; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 1:81, 2: xxvi. and asked me to subscrihe for it. I told him I had but just escaped from slavery, and was of
course very poor, and remarked further, that I was unable to pay for it then; the agent, however, very willingly took me as a subscriber, and appeared to be much pleased with securing my name to his list. From this time I was brought in contact with the mind of William Lloyd Garrison. His paper took its place with me next to the bible.
The Liberator was a paper after my own heart. It detested slavery—exposed hypocrisy and wickedness in high places—made no truce with the traffickers in the bodies and souls of men; it preached human brotherhood, denounced oppression, and, with all the solemnity of God's word, demanded the complete emancipation of my race. I not only liked—I this paper, and its editor. He seemed a match for all the opponents of emancipation. whether they spoke in the name of the law, or the gospel. His words were few, full of holy fire, and straight to the point. Learning to love him, through his paper, I was prepared to be pleased with his presence. Something of a hero worshiper, by nature, here was one, on first sight, to excite my love and reverence.
Seventeen years ago, few men possessed a more heavenly countenance than William Lloyd Garrison, and few men evinced a more genuine or a more exalted piety. The bible was his text book—held sacred, as the word of the Eternal Father—sinless perfection—complete submission to insults and injuries—literal obedience to the injunction, if smitten on one side to tum the other also.†Douglass adapts Luke 6:29: "And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloak forbid not coat also." Not only was Sunday a Sabbath, but all days were Sabbaths, and to be kept holy. All sectarism false and mischievous—the regenerated, throughout the world, members of one body, and the HEAD Christ Jesus. Prejudice against color was rebellion against God. Of all men beneath the sky, the slaves, because most neglected and despised, were nearest and dearest to his great heart. Those ministers who defended slavery from the bible, were of their "father the devil;"†John 8:44. and those churches which fellowshiped slaveholders as christians, were synagogues of Satan, and our nation was a nation of liars. Never loud or noisy—calm and serene as a summer sky, and as pure. "You are the man, the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his modern Israel from bondage,"†Douglass's analogy suggests that Garrison, as the most prominent leader of the abolition movement, may be the chosen one to lead the slaves out of bondage. He draws a parallel with Moses of the Bible, who was chosen by God to lead the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt and into the promised land. Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 4:909. was the spontaneous feeling of my heart, as I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words; mighty in truth—mighty in their simple earnestness.
I had not long been a reader of the Liberator, and listener to its editor, before I got a clear apprehension of the principles of the anti-slavery movement. I had already the spirit of the movement, and only needed to understand its principles and measures. These I got from the Liberator, and from those who believed in that paper. My acquaintance with the movement
increased my hope for the ultimate freedom of my race, and I united with it from a sense of delight, as well as duty.
Every week the Liberator came, and every week I made myself master of its contents. All the anti-slavery meetings held in New Bedford I promptly attended, my heart burning at every true utterance against the slave system, and every rebuke of its friends and supporters. Thus passed the first three years of my residence in New Bedford. I had not then dreamed of the possibility of my becoming a public advocate of the cause so deeply imbeddcd in my heart. It was enough for me to listen—to receive and applaud the great words of others, and only whisper in private, among the white laborers on the wharves, and elsewhere, the truths which burned in my breast.
CHAPTER XXIII.
INTRODUCED TO THE ABOLITIONISTS.
FIRST SPEECH AT NANTUCKET—MUCH SENSATION—EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH OF MR. GARRISON—AUTHOR BECOMES A PUBLIC LECTURER—FOURTEEN YEARS' EXPERIENCE—YOUTHFUL ENTHUSIASM—A BRAND NEW FACT—MATTER OF THE AUTHOR'S SPEECH—HE COULD NOT FOLLOW THE PROGRAMME—HIS FUGITIVE SLAVESHIP DOUBTED—TO SETTLE ALL DOUBTS HE WRITES HIS EXPERIENCE OF SLAVERY—DANGER OF RECAPTURE INCREASED.
IN the summer of 1841, a grand anti-slavery convention was held in Nantucket, under the auspices of Mr. Garrison and his friends. Until now, I had taken no holiday since my escape from slavery. Having worked very hard that spring and summer, in Richmond 's brass foundery—sometimes working all night as well as all day—and needing a day or two of rest, I attended this convention, never supposing that I should take part in the proceedings. Indeed, I was not aware that any one connected with the convention even so much as knew my name. I was, however, quite mistaken. Mr. William C. Coffin,†William C. Coffin (1816–?) was a resident of New Bedford who in 1845 was an accountant for the local Mechanics Bank. An ardent abolitionist, Coffin was a good friend of William Lloyd Garrison and served as recording secretary of the Bristol County Anti-Slavery Society from the 1830s. Coffin, a Quaker, also advocated the doctrine of nonresistance and was jailed briefly in 1845 in New Bedford for refusing to swear an oath to the authority of a local judge. Lib., 3 September 1841, 18 April, 23 May 1845; Henry H. Crapo, ed., The New Bedford Directory [for 1845] (New Bedford, 1845), 794; Hurd, Bristol County, 105; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 2: 712. a prominent abolitionist in those days of trial, had heard me speaking to my colored friends, in the little school-house on Second street,*Douglass refers to the meeting house of the African-American Zion Methodist Church on Elm Street in New Bedford. Elm Street intersects with Second Street, so it is probable that the building was located near that intersection. Crapo, New Bedford Directory [for 1841], 17, 24; Ellis, History of New Bedford, 1; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 82. New Bedford, where we worshiped. He sought me out in the crowd, and invited me to say a few words to the convention. Thus sought out, and thus invited, I was induced to speak out the feelings inspired by the occasion, and the fresh recollection of the scenes through which I had passed as a slave. My speech on this occasion†Douglass spoke at a special meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society held in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on 10–12 August 1841. He began his speech just before the evening adjournment on 11 August and resumed at 9:30 the next morning. Douglass was followed by William Lloyd Garrison. At the conclusion of the convention, John A. Collins, the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's general agent, invited Douglass to go on the lecture circuit to tell of his life as a slave. Lib., 20 August 1841; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 87–89. is about the only one I ever made, of which I do not remember a single connected sentence. It was with the utmost difficulty
that I could stand erect, or that I could command and articulate two words without hesitation and stammering. I trembled in every limb. I am not sure that my embarrassment was not the most effective part of my speech, if speech it could be called. At any rate, this is about the only part of my performance that I now distinctly remember. But excited and convulsed as I was, the audience, though remarkably quiet before, became as much excited as myself. Mr. Garrison followed me, taking me as his text; and now, whether I had made an eloquent speech in behalf of freedom or not, his was one never to be forgotten by those who heard it. Those who had heard Mr. Garrison oftenest, and had known him longest, were astonished. It was an effort of unequaled power, sweeping down, like a very tornado, every opposing barrier, whether of sentiment or opinion. For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration, often referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting is transformed, as it were, into a single individuality—the orator wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by the simple majesty of his all controlling thought, converting his hearers into the express image of his own soul. That night there were at least one thousand Garrisonians in Nantucket! At the close of this great meeting, I was duly waited on by Mr. John A. Collins†Vermont native John Anderson Collins (1810–c. 1879) attended Middlebury College and Andover Theological Seminary before becoming a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in the late 1830s. He broke his ties with the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement in 1843 in order to devote himself to advancing the utopian philosophy of Robert Owen. Collins resided briefly on a communal farm near Skaneateles, New York, and ultimately settled in California. Carleton Mabee, Black Freedom: The Nonviolent Abolitionists from 1830 through the Civil War (London, 1970), 76, 80–82, 88, 112–25, 212, 264, 394n; DAB, 4:307–08.—then the general agent of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society—and urgently solicited by him to hecome an agent of that society, and to punlicly advocate its anti-slavery principles. I was reluctant to take the proffered position. I had not heen quite three years from slavery—was honestly distrustful of my ability—wished to be excused; publicity exposed me to discovery and arrest by my master; and other objections came up, but Mr. Collins was not to be put off, and I finally consented to go out for three months, for I supposed that I should have got to the end of my story and my usefulness, in that length of time.
Here opened upon me a new life—a life for which I had had no preparation. I was a "graduate from the peculiar institution," Mr. Collins used to say, when introducing me, ".'" The three years of my freedom had been spent in the hard school of adversity. My hands had been furnished by nature with something like a solid leather coating, and I had bravely marked out for myself a life of rough labor, suited to the hardness of my hands, as a means of supporting myself and rearing my children.
Now what shall I say of this fourteen years' experience as a public advocate of the cause of my enslaved brothers and sisters? The time is but as a speck, yet large enough to justify a pause for retrospection—and a pause it must only be.
Young, ardent, and hopeful, I entered upon this new life in the full gush of unsuspecting enthusiasm. The cause was good; the men engaged in it were good; the means to attain its triumph, good; Heaven's blessing must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions under a ruthless bondage. My whole heart went with the holy cause, and my most fervent prayer to the Almighty Disposer of the hearts of men, were continually offered for its early triumph. "Who or what." thought I, "can withstand a cause so good, so holy, so indescribably glorious. The God of Israel is with us. The might of the Eternal is on our side. Now let but the truth be spoken, and a nation will start forth at the sound!" In this enthusiastic spirit, I dropped into the ranks of freedom's friends, and went forth to the battle. For a time I was made to forget that my skin was dark and my hair crisped. For a time I regretted that I could not have shared the hardships and dangers endured by the earlier workers for the slave's release. I soon, however, found that my enthusiasm had been extravagant; that hardships and dangers were not yet passed; and that the life now before me, had shadows as well as sunbeams.
Among the first duties assigned me, on entering the ranks, was to travel, in company with Mr. George Foster,†George Foster, a Quaker, lived in Andover, Massachusetts, and often worked in New England in the 1830s and 1840s as a traveling agent for the National Anti-Slavery Standard and the Liberator; promoting abolitionism and seeking subscribers to the newspapers. In the early 1840s Frederick Douglass often accompanied him and gave lectures. Foster was with Douglass when he was forced to ride a Jim Crow railroad car in Rhode Island in December 1841. Lib., 12 November 1841, 3 June 1842; NASS, 6 January, 23 June, 7 July 1842. to secure subscribers to the "Anti-slavery Standard"† The National Anti-Slavery Standard, published in New York City from 11 June 1840 to December 1872, was the official organ of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Early editors included Lydia Maria Child, Sydney Howard Gay, and Maria Weston Chapman, John W. Blassingame, Mae G. Henderson, and Jessica M. Dunn, eds., Antislavery Newspapers and Periodicals, 5 vols. (Boston, 1980–84), 4:7–8. and the "Liberator." With him I traveled and lectured through the eastern counties of Massachusetts. Much interest was awakened—large meetings assembled. Many came, no doubt, from curiosity to hear what a negro could say in his own cause. I was generally introduced as a ""—a ""—a piece of southern ""—the chairman assuring the audience that it could speak. Fugitive slaves, at that time, were not so plentiful as now; and as a fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being a ""—the first one out. Up to that time, a colored man was deemed a fool who confessed himself a runaway slave, not only because of the danger to which he exposed himself of being retaken, but because it was a confession of a very origin! Some of my colored friends in New Bedford thought very badly of my wisdom for thus exposing and degrading myself. The only precaution I took, at the beginning, to prevent Master Thomas from knowing w'here I was, and what I was about, was the withholding my former name, my master's name, and the name of the state and county from which I came. During the first three or four months, my speeches were almost exclusively made up of narrations of my own personal experience as a slave. "Let us have the facts," said the people. So also said Friend George Foster, who always wished to pin me down to my simple narrative. "Give us the facts," said Collins, "we will take care of the philosophy." Just here arose some embarrassment. It was
impossible for me to repeat the same old story month after month, and to keep up my interest in it. It was new to the people, it is true, but it was an old story to me; and to go through with it night after night, was a task altogether too mechanical for my nature. "Tell your story, Frederick," would whisper my then revered friend, William Lloyd Garrison, as I stepped upon the platform. I could not always obey, for I was now reading and thinking. New views of the subject were presented to my mind. It did not entirely satisfy me to wrongs; I felt like them. I could not always curb my moral indignation for the perpetrators of slaveholding villainy, long enough for a circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost everybody must know. Besides, I was growing, and needed room. "People won't believe you ever was a slave, Frederick, if you keep on this way," said Friend Foster. "Be yourself," said Collins, "and tell your story." It was said to me, "Better have a of the plantation manner of speech than not; 'tis not best that you seem too learned." These excellent friends were actuated by the best of motives, and were not altogether wrong in their advice; and still I must speak just the word that seemed to me the word to he spoken by me.
At last the apprehended trouble came. People doubted if I had ever heen a slave. They said I did not talk like a slave, look like a slave, nor act like a slave, and that they believed I had never been south of Mason and Dixon's line. "He don't tell us where he came from—what his master's name was—how he got away—nor the story of his experience. Besides, he is educated, and is, in this, a contradiction of all the facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves." Thus, I was in a pretty fair way to he denounced as an impostor. The committee of the Massachusetts anti-slavery society†In the late fall of 1831. William Lloyd Garrison convened a series of meetings to advance support in the Boston area for the principles of immediate emancipation. Out of these meetings emerged the New England Anti-Slavery Society in early 1832. As abolitionist strength grew in the region, state-level societies were formed, and the group renamed itself the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. Dwight Lowell Dumond, Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (New York, 1961), 172–73. knew all the facts in my case, and agreed with me in the prudence of keeping them private. They, therefore, never doubted my being a genuine fugitive; but going down the aisles of the churches in which I spoke, and hearing the free spoken Yankees saying, repeatedly, "," I resolved to dispel all doubt, at no distant day, by such a revelation of facts as could not be made by any other than a genuine fugitive.
In a little less than four years, therefore, after becoming a public lecturer, I was induced to write out the leading facts connected with my experience in slavery, giving names of persons, places, and dates†Douglass alludes to his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). —thus putting it in the power of any who doubted, to ascertain the truth or falsehood of my story of being a fugitive slave. This statement soon became known in Maryland, and I had reason to believe that an effort would he made to recapture me.
It is not probable that any open attempt to secure me as a slave could have succeeded, further than the obtainment, by my master, of the money
value of my bones and sinews. Fortunately for me, in the four years of my labors in the abolition cause, I had gained many friends, who would have suffered themselves to be taxed to almost any extent to save me from slavery. It was felt that I had committed the double offense of running away, and exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery and slaveholders. There was a double motive for seeking my reenslavement—avarice and vengeance; and while, as I have said, there was little probability of successful recapture, if attempted openly, I was constantly in danger of being spirited away, at a moment when my friends could render me no assistance. In traveling about from place to place—often alone—I was much exposed to this sort of attack. Any one cherishing the design to betray me, could easily do so, by simply tracing my whereabouts through the anti-slavery journals, for my meetings and movements were promptly made known in advance. My true friends, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, had no faith in the power of Massachusetts to protect me in my right to liberty. Public sentiment and the law, in their opinion, would hand me over to the tormentors. Mr. Phillips, especially, considered me in danger, and said, when I showed him the manuscript of my story, if in my place, he would throw it into the fire. Thus, the reader will ohserve, the settling of one difficulty only opened the way for another; and that though I had reached a free state, and had attained a position for public usefulness, I was still tormented with the liability of my liberty. How this liability was dispelled, will be related, with other incidents. in the next chapter.
CHAPTER XXIV.
TWENTY-ONE MONTHS IN GREAT BRITAIN.
GOOD ARISING OUT OF UNPROPITIOUS EVENTS—DENIED CABIN PASSAGE—PROSCRIPTION TURNED TO GOOD ACCOUNT—THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY—THE MOB ON BOARD THE CAMBRIA—HAPPY INTRODUCTION TO THE BRITISH PUBLIC—LETTER ADDRESSED TO WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON—TIME AND LABORS WHILE ABROAD—FREEDOM PURCHASED—MRS. HENRY RICHARDSON—FREE PAPERS—ABOLITIONISTS DISPLEASED WITH THE RANSOM—HOW THE AUTHOR'S ENERGIES WERE DIRECTED—RECEPTION SPEECH IN LONDON—CHARACTER OF THE SPEECH DEFENDED—CIRCUMSTANCES EXPLAINED—CAUSES CONTRIBUTING TO THE SUCCESS OF HIS MISSION—FREE CHURCH OF SCOTLAND—TESTIMONIAL.
THE allotments of Providence, when coupled with trouble and anxiety, often conceal from finite vision the wisdom and goodness in which they are
sent; and, frequently, what seemed a harsh and invidious dispensation, is converted by after experience into a happy and beneficial arrangement. Thus, the painful liability to be returned again to slavery, which haunted me by day, and troubled my dreams by night, proved to be a necessary step in the path of knowledge and usefulness. The writing of my pamphlet, in the spring of 1845, endangered my liberty, and led me to seek a refuge from republican slavery in monarchical England. A rude, uncultivated fugitive slave was driven, by stern necessity, to that country to which young American gentlemen go to increase their stock of knowledge, to seek pleasure, to have their rough, democratic manners softened by contact with English aristocratic refinement. On applying for a passage to England, on board the Cambria,†This eighteen hundred-ton steamer of the Cunard line made her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Halifax on 4 January 1845 and was the first ship to make this journey in less than ten days. The Cambria ran the transatlantic route for the Cunard line until the British Admiralty converted her to a troopship in 1854. J. C. Arnell, Steam and the North Atlantic Mails: The Impact of the Cunard Line and Subsequent Steamship Companies on the Carriage of Transatlantic Mails (Toronto, 1986), 114, 182, 199. of the Cunard line, my friend, James N. Buffum,†James Needham Buffum (1807–87), born of Quaker parents in North Berwick, Maine, spent most of his life in Lynn, Massachusetts, where he amassed considerable wealth as a carpenter, house contractor, real estate speculator, and financier. Dissatisfied with Quaker passivity on reform issues, Buffum was an early convert to Garrisonianism and participated in the campaign to desegregate New England's public transportation during the early 1840s. From 1845 through 1847 Buffum accompanied Douglass on a lecture tour of Great Britain. He served as treasurer of the Essex County Anti-Slavery Society and as vice-president of a Fourierist organization called Friends of Social Reform. During Reconstruction he was director of Charles Stearns's Laborers' Homestead and Southern Emigration Society, which bought land in Virginia for resale to freedmen. Chosen a presidential elector in 1868, Buffum served as mayor of Lynn from 1869 to 1875 and was elected to the Massachusetts legislature in 1873. Garrison and Garrison, Garrison Life, 3:324–25, 4:358; Mabee, Black Freedom, 114, 119–21, 125, 210–11, 221, 225, 250, 342; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 3:138n; Douglass, Life and Times, 251, 259; Clarence W. Hobbs, Lynn and Surroundings (Lynn, 1886), 141–42. of Lynn,†Incorporated as a town in 1631, Lynn, in Essex County, Massachusetts, is located seven miles northeast of Boston and was known as an important center for the manufacture of shoes. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 2:1814. Massachusetts, was informed that I could not be received on board as a cabin passenger. American prejudice against color triumphed over British liberality and civilization, and erected a color test and condition for crossing the sea in the cabin of a British vessel. The insult was keenly felt by my white friends, but to me, it was common, expected, and therefore, a thing of no great consequence, whether I went in the cabin or in the steerage. Moreover, I felt that if I could not go into the first cabin, first-cabin passengers could come into the second cabin, and the result justified my anticipations to the fullest extent. Indeed, I soon found myself an object of more general interest than I wished to be; and so far from being degraded by being placed in the second cabin, that part of the ship became the scene of as much pleasure and refinement, during the voyage, as the cabin itself. The Hutchinson Family,†Although Jesse and Polly Hutchinson had no fewer than thirteen children, the family name was principally identified with the musical quartet composed of Judson (Adoniram Judson Joseph, 1817–59), John (John Wallace, 1821–1908), Asa (1823–84), and Abby (Abigail Jemina, 1829–92). This group traveled with Douglass to England aboard the Cambria in 1845 and occasionally performed at meetings where Douglass spoke. Although one of the Hutchinson brothers, Jesse, was "identified with the very beginnings of the antislavery agitation." Judson, John, and Asa Hutchinson joined the abolitionists only after meeting Frederick Douglass, who lived near their store in Lynn, Massachusetts. It was probably late in 1842 or in 1843 that the brothers first heard Douglass's story and acquired an "earnest desire to aid him in his work." "Tidings from the Hutchinsons!" Concord (N.H.) Herald of Freedom, 29 August 1845; Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., to Nathaniel P. Rogers, 23 August 1845, ibid., 26 September 1845; Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., to Horace Greeley, 24 October 1845; ibid., 26 December 1845; Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., to Nathaniel P. Rogers, 18 November 1845, ibid., 12 December 1845; "Come-Outers of Lynn—No. 4," ibid., 6 March 1846; Jesse Hutchinson, Jr., to [Henry] Clapp, 30 January 1846, ibid., 6 March 1846; William Howitt, "Memoir of the Hutchinson Family," ibid., 24 July 1846; Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons, 1: 6, 40, 70–71, 146, 187–89; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 3: 158; Carol Brink, Harps in the Wind: The Story of the Singing Hutchinsons (New York, 1947). celebrated vocalists—fellow-passengers—often came to my rude forecastle deck, and sung their sweetest songs, enlivening the place with eloquent music, as well as spirited conversation, during the voyage. In two days after leaving Boston, one part of the ship was about as free to me as another. My fellow-passengers not only visited me, but invited me to visit them, on the saloon deck. My visits there, however, were but seldom. I preferred to live within my privileges, and keep upon my own premises. I found this quite as much in accordance with good policy, as with my own feelings. The effect was, that with the majority of the passengers, all color distinctions were flung to the winds, and I found myself treated with every mark of respect, from the beginning to the end of the voyage, except in a single instance; and in that, I came near being mobbed, for complying with an invitation given me by the passengers, and the captain of the "Cambria," to deliver a lecture on slavery. Our New Orleans and Georgia passengers were pleased to regard my lecture as an insult offered to them, and swore I
should not speak. They went so far as to threaten to throw me overboard, and but for the firmness of Captain Judkins,†Charles H. E . Judkins (1811–76), the captain of the Cambria, was the first commodore of the Cunard Line and among the first civilian pilots to be awarded a commission in the Royal Navy Reserve. By the time he retired in 1871 he had commanded many of the Cunard Line's record-breaking steamers and had made more than five hundred transatlantic voyages without serious mishap. James Croil, Steam Navigation and Its Relation to the Commerce of Canada and the United States (Toronto, 1898), 86–87; Henry Fry, The History of North American Steam Navigation with Some Account of Early Ships and Shipowners (London, 1896), 105, 126; Frank C. Bowen, A Century of Atlantic Travel, 1830–1930 (London, [1930]), 60, 85–86, 103–06; F. Lawrence Babcock, Spanning the Atlantic (New York, 1931), 84–85, 103, 121. probably would have (under the inspiration of and ) attempted to put their threats into execution. I have no space to describe this scene, although its tragic and comic peculiarities are well worth describing. An end was put to the melee, by the captain's calling the ship's company to put the salt water mobocrats in irons. At this determined order, the gentlemen of the lash scampered, and for the rest of the voyage conducted themselves very decorously.
This incident†This incident occurred on 27 August 1845, following a champagne dinner on board the Cambria traditionally held at the conclusion of a transatlantic voyage. Douglass spoke at the invitation of Judkins, who had earlier been approached by Buffum, the Hutchinsons, and some English passengers recently made familiar with Douglass's Narrative. Captain Judkins had the steward ring the bell on the promenade deck, told the passengers that Douglass was going to make a few remarks on American slavery, and advised those who did not wish to hear him to go below. A few of the American passengers retired to the saloon in order "to take into consideration the propriety of expressing our feelings in some proper way, that the public might know the respect, or want of respect, paid to Americans on board this steamer." Apparently a number of American passengers remained on deck and threatened to break up the meeting, so that, according to one observer, "it was fully expected we should have had a general and bloody row." Judkins threatened to use irons to halt the attackers and suggested that Douglass leave the deck. Thus a riot was avoided. The incident, however, became infamous in the abolitionist press and in Douglass's later speeches. PaF, 25 September 1845; New York Daily Tribune, 26 September 1845; New York Herald, 1 December 1845; NASS, 18 December 1845; Douglass to Garrison, 1 September 1845, in Lib., 26 September 1845; Hutchinson, Story of the Hutchinsons, 1: 145. of the voyage, in two days after landing at Liverpool, brought me at once before the British public, and that by no act of my own. The gentlemen so promptly snubbed in their meditated violence, flew to the press†The incident aboard the Cambria was reported in the Irish press almost immediately after Douglass's arrival. Dublin's Freeman's Journal and Weekly Commercial Advertiser and Evening Freeman published accounts sympathetic to Douglass. Whereas the overseas press reprinted Douglass's side of the story, an editorial in the New York Herald on 27 September 1845 observed that when "a negro named Douglass" spoke of America in abusive tones, "there arose a general uproar." Another hostile observer wrote to the editor of the Boston Times that Douglass "was very annoying to most of the passengers during the whole voyage, and if there had been a Southerner on board his carcass would no doubt have been food for sharks." Dublin Freeman's Journal and Weekly Commercial Advertiser, 13 September 1845; Dublin Evening Freeman, 13 September 1845; New York Herald, 27 September 1845; Lib., 3 October 1845. to justify their conduct, and to denounce me as a worthless and insolent negro. This course was even less wise than the conduct it was intended to sustain; for, besides awakening something like a national interest in me, and securing me an audience, it brought out counter statements, and threw the blame upon themselves, which they had sought to fasten upon me and the gallant captain of the ship.
Some notion may be formed of the difference in my feelings and circumstances, while abroad, from the following extract from one of a series of letters addressed by me to Mr. Garrison, and published in the Liberator.†While touring Great Britain. Douglass wrote numerous letters to Garrison in the latter's capacity as editor of the Boston Liberator. These letters were dated 1, 16, 29 September, 28 October 1845, 27 January, 26 February, 16 April, 23 May 1846, Lib., 26 September, 10, 24 October, 28 November 1845, 27 February, 27 March, 15 May, 26 June 1846. It was written on the first day of January, 1846:
"MY DEAR FRIEND GARRISON: Up to this time. I have given no direct expression of the views, feelings, and opinions which I have formed, respecting the character and condition of the people of this land. I have refrained thus, purposely. I wish to speak advisedly, and in order to do this, I have waited till, I trust, experience has brought my opinions to an intelligent maturity. I have been thus careful, not because I think what I say will have much effect in shaping the opinions of the world, but because whatever of influence I may possess, whether little or much, I wish it to go in the right direction, and according to truth. I hardly need say that, in speaking of Ireland, I shall be influenced by no prejudices in favor of America. I think my circumstances all forbid that. I have no end to serve, no creed to uphold, no government to defend; and as to nation, I belong to none. I have no protection at home, or resting-place abroad. The land of my birth welcomes me to her shores only as a slave, and spurns with contempt the idea of treating me differently; so that I am an outcast from the society of my childhood, and an outlaw in the land of my birth. 'I am a stranger with thee, and a
sojourner, as all my fathers were.'†Ps. 39:12. That men should be patriotic, is to me perfectly natural; and as a philosophical fact, I am able to give it an recognition. But no further can I go. If ever I had any patriotism, or any capacity for the feeling, it was whipped out of me long since, by the lash of the American soul-drivers.
"In thinking of America. I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields, her beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slaveholding, robbery, and wrong; when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters; I am filled with unutterable loathing, and led to reproach myself that anything could fall from my lips in praise of such a land. America will not allow her children to love her. She seems bent on compelling those who would be her warmest friends, to be her worst enemies. May God give her repentance, before it is too late, is the ardent prayer of my heart. I will continue to pray, labor, and wait, believing that she cannot always be insensible to the dictates of justice, or deaf to the voice of humanity.
"My opportunities for learning the character and condition of the people of this land have been very great. I have traveled almost from the Hill of Howth†A five-mile-long and two-mile-wide hill on a peninsula in the Irish Sea in County Dublin, forming the north shore of Dublin Bay. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 806. to the Giant's Causeway,†A geological formation on the north coast of County Antrim in northern Ireland, extending three miles along the coast and consisting of thousands of basaltic columns of volcanic origin with several caves, platforms, and picturesque rocks. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 679. and from the Giant's Causeway to Cape Clear.†Cape Clear is the southernmost point in County Cork. Lippincott's Gazetteer of the World: A Complete Pronouncing Gazetteer or Geographical Dictionary of the World, 2d ed. (Philadelphia, 1883), 373. During these travels, I have met with much in the character and condition of the people to approve, and much to condemn; much that has thrilled me with pleasure, and very much that has filled me with pain. I will not, in this letter, attempt to give any description of those scenes which have given me pain. This I will do hereafter. I have enough, and more than your subscribers†Emendation note: sub-] will be disposed to read at one time, of the bright side of the picture. I can truly say, I have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country. I seem to have undergone a transformation. I live a new life. The warm and generous cooperation extended to me by the friends of my despised race; the prompt and liberal manner with which the press has rendered me its aid; the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my down-trodden and long-enslaved fellow-countrymen portrayed; the deep sympathy for the slave. and the strong abhorrence of the slaveholder. everywhere evinced; the cordiality
with which members and ministers of various religious bodies, and of various shades of religious opinion, have embraced me,†Douglass received a warm welcome from Britain's religious reformers, especially the Unitarian community. His speeches were reprinted and commented upon favorably by journals with a religious affiliation such as the London Inquirer and the monthly magazine Christian Reformer. However, at the time that Douglass wrote this letter to Garrison, he began to receive criticism for taking an uncompromising stand on some of the British clergy's unwillingness to condemn strongly American slavery. Belfast Banner of Ulster, 19 December 1845; David Turley, "British Unitarian Abolitionists, Frederick Douglass and Racial Equality," in Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform, ed. Alan J. Rice and Martin Crawford (Athens, Ga., 1999), 59–70; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 127–30. and lent me their aid; the kind hospitality constantly proffered to me by persons of the highest rank in society; the spirit of freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact, and the entire absence of everything that looked like prejudice against me, on account of the color of my skin—contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement on the transition. In the southern part of the United States, I was a slave, thought of and spoken of as property; in the language of the LAW, (Brev. Digest. 224.)†Douglass refers to the digest of judicial decisions from South Carolina, which was often called "Brevard's Digest," after the author, Joseph Brevard, a state associate judge. This three-volume compilation of decisions was frequently cited by contemporary authors of abolitionist tracts. The passage quoted by Douglass, however, does not appear on page 224 of any of those volumes. Joseph Brevard, Reports of Judicial Decisions in the State of South Carolina, 3 vols. (Charleston, S.C., 1839–40). In the northern states, a fugitive slave, liable to be hunted at any moment, like a felon, and to be hurled into the terrible jaws of slavery—doomed by an inveterate prejudice against color to insult and outrage on every hand, (Massachusetts out of the question )†Douglass probably refers to the personal liberty law of Massachusetts, passed in 1788, which prohibits "peaceable inhabitants of this Commonwealth" from being "privately carried off by force, or decoyed away under various pretences, by evil-minded persons," with the probable intention of being sold into slavery. This de jure prohibition upon kidnapping fugitive slaves combined with a de facto refusal of Massachusetts's African-American community to allow the recapture of former slaves. Hurd, Law of Freedom and Bondage, 2:29–31.—denied the privileges and courtesies common to others in the use of the most humble means of conveyance—shut out from the cabins on steamboats—refused admission to respectable hotels—caricatured, scorned, scoffed, mocked, and maltreated with impunity by any one, (no matter how black his heart,) so he has a white skin. But now behold the change! Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle.†A nickname given to Ireland around 1795 by Dr. William Drennen, on account of its prevailing lush green fields. William Morris and Mary Morris, eds., Morris Dictionary of Word and Phrase Origins (New York, 1977), 201. I breathe, and lo! the chattel becomes a man. I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlor—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended. No delicate nose grows deformed in my presence. I find no difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship, instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as any I ever saw in the United States. I meet nothing to remind me of my complexion. I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people. When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, ''
"I remember, about two years ago, there was in Boston, near the
south-west corner of Boston Common, a menagerie. I had long desired to see such a collection as I understood was being exhibited there. Never having had an opportunity while a slave, I resolved to seize this, my first, since my escape. I went, and as I approached the entrance to gain admission, I was met and told by the door-keeper, in a harsh and contemptuous tone, '' I also remember attending a revival meeting in the Rev. Henry Jackson's†Henry Jackson (1798–1863) was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He graduated from Brown University in 1817, studied for one term at Andover Theological Seminary, and in 1822 was ordained the minister of the First Baptist Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, where he remained for the next fourteen years. Between 1837 and 1845 he served as pastor at churches in Hartford and New Bedford. His last ministry was in Newport, Rhode Island, where he remained until his death. Crapo, New Bedford Directory [for 1845], 10; ACAB, 3:387. meetinghouse, at New Bedford, and going up the broad aisle to find a seat, I was met by a good deacon, who told me, in a pious tone, '.' Soon after my arrival in New Bedford, from the south, I had a strong desire to attend the Lyceum,†The New Bedford Lyceum, founded in 1828, functioned as a source of public education by providing lectures on literary, philosophical, and scientific topics. Ricketson, History of New Bedford, 324–25. but was told, "" While passing from New York to Boston, on the steamer Massachusetts,†The 353-ton Massachusetts, built in 1841, was owned by Nathaniel Rand and George C. Gardner of Nantucket, Massachusetts. It sank in August 1853 off Sable Island, just southeast of Halifax, Nova Scotia. The island was considered a major hazard to navigation and was the site of numerous shipwrecks. John Robinson and George Francis Dow, The Sailing Ships of New England, 1607–1907 (Salem, Mass., 1922), 30: Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 3:2678. on the night of the 9th of December, 1843, when chilled almost through with the cold, I went into the cabin to get a little warm. I was soon touched upon the shoulder. and told, ''" On arriving in Boston, from an anti-slavery tour, hungry and tired, I went into an eating-house, near my friend. Mr. Campbell's,†Two individuals in Boston might be the person to whom Douglass referred here. An A. R. Campbell operated a temperance eating house in the mid-1840s that was located at 5 Wilson Lane. John Reid Campbell was a longtime friend and ally of William Lloyd Garrison's in Boston. Although city directories for 1845 and 1846 list numerous John Campbells, they show no John R. Campbell. New York Colored American, 15 Aug 1840; Stimpson's Boston Directory, 1845 (Boston, 1845), 119; Stimpson's Boston Directory, 1846 (Boston, 1846), 125. to get some refreshments. I was met by a lad in a white apron, "." A week or two before leaving the United States, I had a meeting appointed at Weymouth,†Douglass made a final speaking tour of New York and Massachusetts before departing for Great Britain on 16 August 1845. Douglass spoke at a meeting in Weymouth, Massachusetts, on 7 August. Paf, 31 July 1845; Lib., 1, 22 August, 5 September 1845; NASS, 14, 21 August 1845. the home of that glorious band of true abolitionists, the Weston family,†Six daughters of Warren Weston and his first wife, Ann[e] Bates Weston, of Weymouth, Massachusetts, were active in abolitionist circles and associates of William Lloyd Garrison. The most prominent, Maria Weston Chapman (1806–85), was the wife of Boston merchant Henry Grafton Chapman and, with two of her sisters, was a guiding force in the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. The others , who all remained unmarried, were Caroline (1808–82), Anne Warren (1812–c. 1890), Deborah (1814–c. 1886), Lucia (1822–c. 1864), and Emma (1825–c. 1890). Shy about public speaking, the Westons expressed their antislavery sentiments through poems and articles published in abolitionist newspapers and operated a school on Boyd Street in Boston. Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 1:550: 2:xxiv–xxv, 57; Clare Taylor, Women of the Anti-Slavery Movement: The Weston Sisters (New York, 1995), xii–xvi, 11–12, 115; Deborah Gold Hansen, "The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Limits of Gender Politics," in The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America, ed. Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Yan Horne (Ithaca, N.Y., 1994), 45–46, 56, 61–62; Carolyn Williams, 'The Female Antislavery Movement: Fighting against Racial Prejudice and Promoting Women's Rights in Antebellum America," ibid., 171–73. and others. On attempting to take a seat in the omnibus to that place, I was told by the driver, (and I never shall forget his fiendish hate,) '.' Thank heaven for the respite I now enjoy! I had heen in Dublin but a few days, when a gentleman of great respectability kindly offered to conduct me through all the public buildings of that beautiful city; and a little afterward, I found myself dining with the lord mayor of Dublin. What a pity there was not some American democratic christian at the door of his splendid mansion, to bark out at my approach,'.' The truth is, the people here know nothing of the republican negro hate prevalent in our glorious land. They measure and esteem men according to their moral and intellectual worth, and not according to the color of their skin. Whatever may be said of the aristocracies here, there is none based on the color of a man's skin. This species of aristocracy belongs preeminently to 'the land of the free, and the home of the brave.' I have never found it abroad, in any but Americans. It sticks to them wherever they go. They find it almost as hard to get rid of, as to get rid of their skins.
"The second day after my arrival at Liverpool, in company with my
friend, Buffum, and several other friends, I went to Eaton Hall, the residence of the Marquis of Westminster,†Eaton Hall, located in Chester County in western England, is the estate of the Marquess of Westminster. At the time of Douglass's visit the estate was occupied by Richard Grosvenor (1795–1869), the second Marquess of Westminster. Burke's Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Peerage, 105th ed. (London, 1970), 2797. one of the most splendid buildings in England. On approaching the door, I found several of our American passengers, who came out with us in the Cambria, waiting for admission, as but one party was allowed in the house at a time. We all had to wait till the company within came out. And of all the faces, expressive of chagrin, those of the Americans were preeminent. They looked as sour as vinegar, and as bitter as gall, when they found I was to be admitted on equal terms with themselves. When the door was opened, I walked in, on an equal footing with my white fellow-citizens, and from all I could see, I had as much attention paid me by the servants that showed us through the house, as any with a paler skin. As I walked through the building, the statuary did not fall down, the pictures did not leap from their places, the doors did not refuse to open. and the servants did not say, '"
"A happy new-year to you. and all the friends of freedom."†This letter first appeared in the Liberator on 30 January 1846 and was widely reprinted. The original manuscript letter can be found in the William Lloyd Garrison Papers at the Boston Public Library. New York Daily Tribune, 2 February 1846; Buffalo Morning Express, 5 February 1846; NASS, 12 February 1846; London Inquirer, 11 April 1846; Glasgow Saturday Post, 25 April 1846; The American Anti-Slavery Almanac for 1847 (New York, 1846), 19–22.
My time and labors, while abroad, were divided between England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Upon this experience alone, I might write a book twice the size of this, "." I visited and lectured in nearly all the large towns and cities in the United Kingdom, and enjoyed many favorable opportunities for observation and information. But books on England are abundant, and the public may, therefore, dismiss any fear that I am meditating another infliction in that line; though, in truth, I should like much to write a book on those countries, if for nothing else, to make grateful mention of the many dear friends, whose benevolent actions toward me are ineffaceably stamped upon my memory, and warmly treasured in my heart. To these friends I owe my freedom in the United States. On their own motion, without any solicitation from me, (Mrs. Henry Richardson,†Anna Richardson, a Quaker and the wife of Henry Richardson of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. In August 1846 she wrote Hugh Auld asking him whether Douglass's freedom had a price. Auld replied in October that he would manumit Douglass for £150 sterling. At that time, if not before, Anna Richardson and her sister-in-law, Ellen Richardson, took steps to raise the purchase money and made arrangements with American abolitionists, Ellis Gray Loring of Boston in particular, to handle the details of the negotiation. On 24 November 1846, Walter Lowrie of New York City, whom Loring had apparently deputed to carry on the negotiations, notified Hugh Auld that the £150 had arrived in New York and directed him to produce proof of legal ownership of Douglass. At about this time, Lowrie also engaged the services of J. Meredith, a prominent Baltimore attorney, to act as go-between and to take care that the papers were in order. Less than a week later Thomas Auld filed a bill of sale in Talbot County signifying the transfer of Douglass to Hugh Auld, and on 5 Decemher 1846, Hugh Auld filed Douglass's manumission papers in Baltimore County. Exactly one week afterward the transaction was consummated. Hugh Auld handing over to Lowrie via Meredith a copy of the bill of sale from Thomas Auld, a deed of manumission for Douglass, and a receipt showing he had received $711.66 for Douglass's freedom. All of these papers were placed in Douglass's hands shortly thereafter. Talbot County Records, V.60, 35–36, 30 November 1846, MdTCH; Deed of Manumission for "Frederick Bailey, otherwise called Frederick Douglass," 12 December 1846, Hugh Auld's Receipt of Payment, 12 December 1846, Walter Lowrie to Ellis Gray Loring, 15 December 1846, all on reel 1, frames 637–43, FD Papers, DLC; Douglass to Editor, Belfast Protestant Journal, in Lib., 28 August 1846; NASS, 11 November 1847; NS, 3 December 1847; Glasgow Christian News, 23 December 1847. a clever lady, remarkable for her devotion to every good work, taking the lead,) they raised a fund sufficient to purchase my freedom, and actually paid it over, and placed the papers* of my manumission in my
*The follow1ng is a copy of these curious papers, both of my transfer from Thomas to Hugh Auld, and from Hugh to myself:
"Know all men by these Presents, That I, Thomas Auld, of Talbot county, and state of Maryland, for an in consideration of the sum of one hundred dollars, current money, to me paid by Hugh Auld, of the city of Baltimore in the said state, at and before the sealing and delivery of these presents, the receipt whereof, I, the said Thomas Auld, do hereby acknowledge, have granted, bargained, and sold, and by these presents do grant, bargain, and sell unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors, administrators, and assigns, ONE NEGRO MAN, by the name of FREDERICK BAILY, or DOUGLASS, as he calls himself—he is
hands, before they would tolerate the idea of my returning to this, my native country. To this commercial transaction I owe my exemption from the democratic operation of the fugitive slave bill of 1850. But for this, I might at any time become a victim of this most cruel and scandalous enactment, and be doomed to end my life, as I began it, a slave. The sum paid for my freedom was one hundred and fifty pounds sterling.
Some of my uncompromising anti-slavery friends in this country failed to see the wisdom of this arrangement, and were not pleased that I consented to it, even by my silence. They thought it a violation of anti-slavery principles—conceding a right of property in man—and a wasteful expenditure of money. On the other hand, viewing it simply in the light of a ransom, or as money extorted by a robber, and my liberty of more value than one hundred and fifty pounds sterling, I could not see either a violation of the laws of morality, or those of economy, in the transaction.
It is true, I was not in the possession of my claimants. and could have easily remained in England, for the same friends who had so generously purchased my freedom, would have assisted me in establishing myself in that country. To this, however, I could not consent. I felt that I had a duty to
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now about twenty-eight years of age-to have and to hold the said negro man for life. And I, the said Thomas Auld, for myself, my heirs, executors, and administrators, all and singular, the said FREDERICK BAILY, DOUGLASS, unto the said Hugh Auld, his executors, administrators, and assigns, against me, the said Thomas Auld, my executors, and administrators, and against all and every other person or persons whatsoever, shall and will warrant and forever defend by these presents. In witness whereof, I set my hand and seal, this thirteenth day of November, eighteen hundred and forty-six.
THOMAS AULD
"Signed, sealed, and delivered in presence of Wrightson Jones.†Wrightson Jones (1828/29–?) was a merchant in the town of St. Michaels in Talbot County, where he was born and raised. His father was an important artillerist in the battle against the British at St. Michaels in August 1813. In 1850 Jones was married, had two children, owned two slaves, and had real estate valued at one thousand dollars. Tilghman, Talbot County, 2: 157, 164; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 79 (free schedule), 39 (slave schedule).
"JOHN C. LEAS"
The authenticity of this bill of sale is attested to by N. Harrington,†Nathan Harrington (1808/09–?) was a prominent merchant in the town of St. Michaels in Talbot County and also served as the local justice of the peace. His father also resided in St. Michaels and had been a vocal proponent of war against Britain in 1812. In 1850 Harrington was married, had four children, owned three slaves, and held real estate valued at $1,500. Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:406; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 79 (free schedule), 39 (slave schedule). a justice of the peace of the state of Maryland, and for the county of Talbot, dated same day as above.
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"To all whom it may concern: Be it known that I, Hugh Auld, of the city of Baltimore, in Baltimore county, in the state of Maryland, for divers good causes and considerations, me thereunto moving, have released from slavery, liberate, manumit, and set free, MY NEGRO MAN, named FREDERICK BAILY, otherwise called DOUGLASS, being of the age of twenty-eight years, or thereabouts, and able to work and gain a sufficient livelihood and maintenance; and him the said negro man, named FREDERICK BAILY, otherwise called FREDERICK DOUGLASS, I do declare to be henceforth free, manumitted, and discharged from all manner of servitude to me, my executors, and administrators forever.
"In witness whereof, I, the said Hugh Auld, have thereunto set my hand and seal, the fifth of December, in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six. HUGH AULD.
"Sealed and delivered in present of T. Hanson Belt.†Thomas Hanson Belt was a judge in Baltimore in 1845 and lived at 121 N. Charles Street. Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . .1845, 16.
"JAMES N. S. T. WRIGHT.†James N. S. T. Wright was a member of an old Eastern Shore family whose roots in Queen Annes County stretch back at least to the latter half of the seventeenth century. The Wrights intermarried with the Tilghmans, Lloyds, De Courseys, and other prominent local families. Many of them served in both the colonial and state legislatures. Frederic Emory, Queen Anne's County, Maryland: Its Early History and Development (Baltimore, 1950), 120, 129, 219; Papenfuse, A Biographical Dictionary, 2:918–27; J. Hall Pleasants, ed., "Letters of Molly and Hetty Tilghman: Eighteenth Century Gossip of Two Maryland Girls," MdHM, 21:33–34 (March 1926).
perform—and that was, to labor and suffer with the oppressed in my native land. Considering, therefore, all the circumstances—the fugitive slave bill included—I think the very best thing was done in letting Master Hugh have the hundred and fifty pounds sterling, and leaving me free to return to my appropriate field of labor. Had I been a private person, having no other relations or duties than those of a personal and family nature, I should never have consented to the payment of so large a sum for the privilege of living securely under our glorious republican form of government. I could have remained in England, or have gone to some other country; and perhaps I could even have lived unobserved in this. But to this I could not consent. I had already become somewhat notorious, and withal quite as unpopular as notorious; and I was, therefore, much exposed to arrest and recapture.
The main object to which my labors in Great Britain were directed, was the concentration of the moral and religious sentiment of its people against American slavery. England is often charged with having established slavery in the United States, and if there were no other justification than this, for appealing to her people to lend their moral aid for the abolition of slavery, I should be justified. My speeches in Great Britain were wholly extemporaneous, and I may not always have been so guarded in my expressions, as I otherwise should have been. I was ten years younger then than now, and only seven years from slavery. I cannot give the reader a better idea of the nature of my discourses, than by republishing one of them, delivered in Finsbury chapel,†On 22 May 1846, between 2,500 and 3,000 spectators crammed Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, almost "to suffocation" to witness the "eloquent slave" Frederick Douglass. Joseph Sturge, a Quaker abolitionist, organized and chaired the meeting, which also included speeches by George William Alexander, Joseph T. Price, George Thompson, Stafford Allen, and the Reverends John Campbell, James Carlile, and John Howard Hinton. Douglass 's three-hour speech, so John Campbell advised the audience, was the sort of address for which British abolitionists "would have taken a voyage round the globe some 40 years back . . . to have heard . . . from the lips of a slave." Never before, Campbell continued, had the audience heard a bondsman with "so much logic—so much wit—so much fancy—so much eloquence." The meeting passed resolutions pledging cooperation with Americans of every creed and imploring the Free Church to "Send Back the Money." Douglass reflected in a letter to William Lloyd Garrison that "it was one of the most effective and satisfactory meetings which I have attended since landing on these shores." Douglass Papers, ser. 1. 1: 269–70; Douglass to Garrison, 23 May 1846, in Lib., 26 June 1846; London Watchman, 20 May 1846; London Daily News, 25 May 1846; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 44–45. London, to an audience of about two thousand persons, and which was published in the "London Universe,"†The London Universe was published from January 1846 until August 1848. Michael Wolff et al., eds., The Waterloo Directory of Victorian Periodicals, 1824–1900 (Waterloo, Ont., 1976), 1093. at the time.*
Those in the United States who may regard this speech as being harsh in its spirit and unjust in its statements, because delivered before an audience supposed to be anti-republican in their principles and feelings, may view the matter differently, when they learn that the case supposed did not exist. It so happened that the great mass of the people in England who attended and patronized my anti-slavery meetings, were, in truth, about as good republicans as the mass of Americans, and with this decided advantage over the latter—they are lovers of republicanism for all men, for black men as well as for white men. They are the people who sympathize with Louis Kossuth and Mazzini,†Giuseppe Mazzini (1805–72) was born in Genoa, Italy, and led the movement for Italian independence and national unification. A student, liberal activist, and newspaper editor during the 1820s. Mazzini was forced into exile in 1830 because of his connection with a conspiracy orchestrated by the nationalistic Carboneria. Settling in Marseilles, he began organizing a new democratic national movemcnt, Giovine Italia, which hoped to appeal to all social classes. A failed insurrection attempt in Savoy in 1833 in which he was implicated disrupted the movement, but Mazzini soon rebounded to inaugurate Young Europe, an international organization intended to unite all European movements for national independence. Now hunted constantly by the police, Mazzini had to move often. In 1837 he settled in London, where he continued to promote the Italian cause. The revolution in Italy in 1848 afforded him the opportunity to return to his native land. But the Roman Republic proved short-lived; and the French military restored a conservative government by the summer of 1849. Mazzini once again fled, only to return in 1861 when the Kingdom of Italy was declared. Still unpardoned for his involvement in the 1833 insurrection, Mazzini was confined to Pisa, where he lived until his death. Frank J. Coppa, ed., Dictionary of Modern Italian History (Westport, Conn., 1985), 263–65; Thorne, Chambers Biographical Dictionary, 871. and with the oppressed and enslaved, of every color and nation, the world over. They constitute the democratic element in British politics, and are as much opposed to the union of church and state as we, in America, are to such an union. At the meeting where this speech was delivered,
*See Appendix to this volume, page 411.†Actually published on pages 407 to 420 of the 1855 edition of Bondage and Freedom, this speech was delivered at the Finsbury Chapel in London on 22 May 1846. The text that Douglass's autobiography reproduces is from the London Universe of 26 May and 2 June 1846. For an annotated version of this speech taken from another contemporary report, see Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 1:269–99.
Joseph Sturge*Joseph Sturge (1793–1859), the son of a prosperous English Quaker farmer, achieved quick financial success as a corn merchant. He abandoned commercial life before age forty to devote himself fulltime to various benevolent causes. He was an original memher of the Anti-Corn Law League, and in 1831 he joined Thomas Attwood's Birmingham Political Union, where he advocated tax reform, free trade, disestablishment of the Anglican Church, ballot voting, and the abolition of capital punishment. During the 1840s he campaigned for an extended franchise, first as a Chartist and later through the newly constituted Complete Suffrage Movement, which he helped launch. Sturge's antislavery career began in the 1820s when, as a protege of abolitionist James Cropper, he supported the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery. As secretary of the Birmingham Anti-Slavery Society, he organized public demonstrations against the West Indian apprenticeship system in the fall of 1835. Two years later, after a journey to the British West Indies, Sturge testified against the apprenticeship system before parliamentary committees and coauthored The West Indies in 1837. When Frederick Douglass visited Birmingham in December 1845 to address a local temperance society, he was a dinner guest at Sturge's home. The two men met again some five months later in London at a meeting of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass to Garrison, 23 May 1846, in Lib., 26 June 1846; Howard Temperley, British Anti-Slavery, 1833–1870 (Columbia, S.C., 1972), 12–13, 24–25, 36, 69, 72, 123, 140; Brian Harrison, Drink and the Victorians: The Temperance Question in England, 1815–1872 (Pittsburgh, 1971), 133; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 42; DNB, 19: 130–31.—a world-wide philanthropist, and a member of the society of Friends—presided, and addressed the meeting. George William Alexander,*George William Alexander (1802–90) was a wealthy London banker and Quaker who became active in social reform. Alexander was the treasurer of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and backed the organization financially from 1839 to 1847. Alexander wrote a few abolitionists tracts, one of which was Letters on the Slave Trade (1842), and traveled in Europe and the United States to promote the cause of antislavery. During the 1860s Alexander also helped lead freedmen's aid efforts in the American South. Frederic Boase, ed., Modern English Biography, 6 vols. (London, 1965), 4:74; Temperley, British Antislavery, 69–70, 72–73, 82. another Friend, who has spent more than an American fortune in promoting the anti-slavery cause in different sections of the world, was on the platform; and also Dr. Campbell, )*John Campbell (1795–1867), a Congregational minister, was born in Scotland and attended the University of St. Andrews and the University of Glasgow. He was pastor of a church in Kilmarnock, Scotland, for twelve years, then moved to London in 1829 as copastor of the Tabernacle and Tottenham Court Road chapels. He became editor of the Congregational Union's Christian Witness in 1844 and later edited the Christian's Penny Magazine. In 1848 Campbell abandoned the pulpit to devote all his time to editorial work, founding the British Banner, the British Standard, and the British Ensign between 1849 and 1860. The Congregational Year Book for 1868 (London, 1868), 259–61; George Smith, "The Late Rev. John Campbell, D.D.," Christian Witness, n.s., 3: 232–34 (May 1867); John Waddington, Congregational History, 1850–1880 (London, 1880), 8–16; DNB, 3: 839. (now of the "British Banner,")*Founded by Congregationalist minister John Campbell, this reform newspaper was published in London from January 1848 until it was absorbed by the London Patriot in December 1858. The Banner's liberal and antiepiscopal editorial line appealed to moderate Seceders from the Church of England. Wolff, Waterloo Directory, 142; DNB, 8: 389. who combines all the humane tenderness of Melancthon.*Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) was a close friend of Martin Luther and an important intellectual leader of the Protestant Reformation. As a teacher of Greek and Hebrew at the University of Wittenberg, Melanchthon participated in the formal colloquies and debates and the interchurch and political negotiations that shaped early Protestantism, but always attempted to reconcile conflicting theoretical positions. Clyde Leonard Manschreck, Melanchthon: The Quiet Reformer (New York, 1958); James William Richard, Philip Melanchthon: The Protestant Preceptor of Germany, 1497–1560 (New York, 1898). with the directness and boldness of Luther.*Martin Luther (1484–1546) was an Augustinian monk who lectured in theology al the University of Wittenberg. His famous Ninety-five Theses, which he posted on the door of the castle church at Wittenberg on the eve of All Saints' Day in 1517, focused on abuses in the sale of indulgences by the Roman Catholic Church. In 1520 Pope Leo X excommunicated Luther for his rejection of the sacramental apparatus and power of the church and his call for radical religious reform. In the last two decades of his life, Luther labored prodigiously at the creation of new forms of church worship, the explication of scripture, and the education of a new ministry. Roland H. Bainton, Here I Stand: A Life of Martin Luther (New York, 1950), H[arry] G[erald] Haile, Luther: An Experiment in Biography (Garden City, N.Y., 1980). He is in the very front ranks of non-conformists, and looks with no unfriendly eye upon America. George Thompson,*George Thompson (1804–78), originally from Liverpool, was an early advocate of slave emancipation in the British colonies and an influential British ally of William Lloyd Garrison. Thompson lectured tor the Agency Committee, a group that helped force passage of the West Indian Emancipation Act of 1833. That same year, he was among the founders of the Edinburgh Society for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the World. As a member of Parliament from 1847 to 1852, Thompson was a member of the Parliamentary Reform Association and the Anti–Corn Law League, and promoted the production of East Indian cotton in order to undermine American slavery. Thompson also promoted the antislavery cause during trips to the United States during the 1830s, 1850s, and 1860s. C. Duncan Rice, "The Anti-Slavery Mission of George Thompson to the United States, 1834–1835." Journal of American Studies, 2: 13–41 (April 1968); Temperley, British Anti-Slavery, 23–29; Garrison and Garrison, Garrison Life, 1: 434–522, 2: 1–72; DNB, 19: 691. too, was there; and America will yet own that he did a true man's work in relighting the rapidly dying-out fire of true republicanism in the American heart, and be ashamed of the treatment he met at her hands. Coming generations in this country will applaud the spirit of this much abused republican friend of freedom. There were others of note seated on the platform, who would gladly ingraft upon English institutions all that is purely republican in the institutions of America. Nothing, therefore, must be set down against this speech on the score that it was delivered in the presence of those who cannot appreciate the many excellent things belonging to our system of government, and with a view to stir up prejudice against republican institutions.
Again, let it also be remembered—for it is the simple truth—that neither in this speech, nor in any other which I delivered in England, did I ever allow myself to address Englishmen as against Americans. I took my stand on the high ground of human brotherhood, and spoke to Englishmen as men, in behalf of men. Slavery is a crime, not against Englishmen, but against God, and all the members of the human family; and it belongs to the whole human family to seek its suppression. In a letter to Mr. Greeley,*Horace Greeley (1811–72), journalist, reformer, and Republican politician, was the founder and lifelong editor of the New York Tribune. After working for several years in political journalism as an editor for various Whig campaign weeklies, Greeley launched the Tribune in 1841 and quickly outstripped local competitors, gaining a large circulation throughout the North. In addition to promoting a panoply of social causes ranging from Fourierism to the abolition of capital punishment, the Tribune under Greeley became the leading editorial voice of the Republican party during the 1850s. At first openly hostile to abolitionism, Greeley grew steadily more radical on the slavery issue, but his racial attitudes mirrored the ambivalence of many northern free-labor spokesmen. Although he later campaigned to extend equal suffrage to New York blacks, Greeley's periodic support for colonization and other emigrationist schemes brought him into conflict with Douglass and other black leaders. Horace Greeley, Recollections of a Busy Life: Including Reminiscences of American Politics and Politicians (New York, 1868), 284–86; Glyndon G. Van Deusen, Horace Greeley: Nineteenth-Century Crusader (Philadelphia, 1953), 102–03, 381; Eric Foner, Free Soil, Free Labor, Free Men: The Ideology of the Republican Party before the Civil War (New York, 1970), 262–63, 297–300; DAB, 7:528–34. of the New York Tribune, written while abroad, I said:
"I am, nevertheless, aware that the wisdom of exposing the sins of one nation in the ear of another, has been seriously questioned by good and clear-sighted people, both on this and on your side of the Atlantic. And the thought is not without weight on my own mind. I am satisfied that there are many evils which can be best removed by confining our efforts to the immediate locality where such evils exist. This, however, is by no means the case with the system of slavery. It is such a giant sin—such a monstrous aggregation of iniquity—so hardening to the human heart—so destructive to the moral sense, and so well calculated to beget a character, in every one around it, favorable to its own continuance,—that I feel not only at liberty, but abundantly justified, in appealing to the whole world to aid in its removal."
But, even if I had—as has been often charged—labored to bring American institutions generally into disrepute, and had not confined my labors strictly within the limits of humanity and morality, I should not have been without illustrious examples to support me. Driven into semi-exile by civil and barbarous laws, and by a system which cannot be thought of without a shudder, I was fully justified in turning, if possible, the tide of the moral universe against the heaven-daring outrage.
Four circumstances greatly assisted me in getting the question of American slavery before the British public. First, the mob on board the Cambria, already referred to, which was a sort of national announcement of my arrival in England. Secondly, the highly reprehensible course pursued by the Free Church of Scotland,†On 18 May 1843, 474 of the 1,203 ministers of the Established Church of Scotland seceded to form the "Free Protesting Church of Scotland," which later became simply 'The Free Church of Scotland." This partition, known as the "The Disruption," resulted from conflicts about civil authority over church matters and was led by Thomas Chalmers. The schism persisted until 1929, when a majority returned to the Church of Scotland. The remainder today constitute the United Free Church of Scotland. Cross, Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 410–11. in soliciting, receiving, and retaining money in its sustentation fund for supporting the gospel in Scotland, which was evidently the ill-gotten gain of slaveholders and slave-traders. Third, the great Evangelical Alliance†In August 1846, 922 delegates from Great Britain, Europe, and the United States met in London in the hope of forming an organization uniting evangelical Protestants of the Western Hemisphere. The Evangelical Alliance, as this organization was called, was extremely short-lived. On the ninth day of the conference the Reverend J. Howard Hinton, a London Baptist, moved that the organization exclude all slaveholders. Almost immediately, members of the American delegation, led by conservative Presbyterians, protested that they could not exclude such a large number of American evangelicals. No compromise could be reached before the conference adjourned and the delegates left London resolving to form separate national alliances. Ernest R. Sandeenk "The Distinctiveness of American Denominationalism: A Case Study of the 1846 Evangelical Alliance," Church History, 45:222–34 (June 1976).—or rather the attempt to form such an alliance, which should include slaveholders of a certain description—added immensely to the interest felt in the slavery question. About the same time, there was the World's Temperance Convention,†Douglass attended the World 's Temperance Convention, which met in London from 4 to 8 August 1846 at Covent Garden Theatre, but not as an official delegate. On 7 August he nonetheless addressed the convention after "loud and repeated calls from the audience, and a very pressing invitation from the chairman." Most of the English, Scottish, Irish, and American delegates in attendance restricted their remarks to the progress of the temperance movement, but Douglass introduced the question of the American temperance movement's relationship to slavery and free blacks. Many of the delegates were not pleased with the speech. The Reverend Edward Norris Kirk of Boston, who followed Douglass on the podium, suggested that Douglass had "left an impression on the minds of those present that the temperance advocates in American had sanctioned or supported slavery." After the convention a few American temperance reformers rushed to the defense of their movement. Samuel L. Cox reported to the New York Evangelist: "The moral scene was superb and glorious—when Frederick Douglass the coloured abolition agitator and ultraist, came to the platform, and so spake a la mode, as to ruin the influence, almost, of all that preceded! He lugged in anti-slavery . . . no doubt prompted to it by some of the politic ones, who can use him to do what they would not themselves adventure to do in person." Douglass eventually responded to Cox's allegations in a letter that included the full text of his Covent Garden speech. Lib., 27 November 1846; London Morning Chronicle, 10 August 1846; Correspondence between the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D. . . . and Frederick Douglass . . . (New York, 1846), 13–14; Douglass, Life and Times, 277–79; Daniel Dorchester, The Liquor Problem in All Ages (New York, 1884), 280, 330. where I had the misfortune to come in collision with sundry American doctors of divinity—Dr. Cox†The Reverend Dr. Samuel Hanson Cox (1793–1880) was born into a New Jersey Quaker family that traced its lineage to Talbot County, Maryland. Cox left the Society of Friends in 1813 and was licensed to preach by the presbytery of New York three years later. Cox joined his brother Abraham L. Cox on the executive committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1834. He actively denounced Jim Crow pews and called for racial integration in the church. His tactics left him open to attack during the New York antiabolitionist riots of July 1834. He later moderated his views, and at the World's Temperance Convention, held in London in August 1846, Cox defended the American temperance movement against charges of racial prejudice leveled by Douglass. Cox was accused of compromising his abolitionist principles to gain church offices after he helped block attempts to exclude slaveholders from the Evangelical Alliance. London Morning Chronicle, 10 August 1846; London National Temperance Chronicle and Recorder, September 1846; London Patriot, 17 September 1846; Correspondence between the Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D. . . . and Frederick Douglass, 5, 10; American Anti-Slavery Society, First Annual Report (New York, 1834), 15–16, 28–31, 61; George Lewis Prentiss, The Union Theological Seminary in the City of New York (Ashury Park, N.J., 1899), 156–63; Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappen and the Evangelical War against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969), 114–18; Linda K. Kerber, "Abolitionists and Amalgamators: The New York City Race Riots of 1834," NYH, 48:28–39 (January 1967); NCAB, 7:557; DAB, 4:481–82. among the number—with whom I had a small controversy.
It has happened to me—as it has happened to most other men engaged in a good cause—often to be more indebted to my enemies than to my own skill or to the assistancc of my friends, for whatever success has attended my labors. Great surprise was expressed by American newspapers, north and south, during my stay in Great Britain, that a person so illiterate and insignificant as myself could awaken an interest so marked in England. These papers were not the only parties surprised. I was myself not far behind them in surprise. But the very contempt and scorn, the systematic and extravagant disparagement of which I was the object, served, perhaps, to magnify my few merits, and to render me of some account, whether deserving or not. A man is sometimes made great, by the greatness of the abuse a portion of mankind may think proper to heap upon him. Whether I was of as much consequence as the English papers made me out to be, or not, it was easily seen, in England, that I could not he the ignorant and worthless creature, some of the American papers would have them believe I was. Men, in their senses, do not take bowie-knives†A long hunting-knife with a double-edged point and a straight blade that is single-edged at the hilt, invented by Colonel James Bowie. to kill mosquitoes, nor pistols to shoot flies; and the American passengers who thought proper to get up a mob to silence me, on board the Cambria, took the most effective method of telling the British public that I had something to say.
But to the second circumstance, namely, the position of the Free Church of Scotland, with the great Doctors Chalmers,†Thomas Chalmers (1780–1847), son of a Scots merchant, was an evangelical minister and university professor who tried to combat poverty among residents of his Glasgow parish—a problem he described as "home heathenism"—by using parish lay agents to administer poor relief. A prolific writer with a long-standing interest in social economy, natural science, and moral philosophy, Chalmers is best remembered for his role in the controversy over church self-government and lay patronage that split the established Church of Scotland in the 1840s. Protesting civil interference in church affairs, Chalmers led the secession in 1843 of the 474 ministers who founded the Free Church of Scotland and elected Chalmers its first moderator. To provide salaries for Free Church clergymen, Chalmers proposed to collect a penny a week from each church member. A deputation from the Free Church visited the United States in 1844 and returned home with approximately £3,000 contributed by American slaveholders. When abolitionists urged Chalmers to return this money, Chalmers defended his refusal to excommunicate slaveholders. John Smith, Our Scottish Clergy: Fifty-two Sketches, Biographical, Theological, and Critical, Including Clergymen of All Denominations, 3 vols. (Edinburgh, 1848), 1:149–60; William Hanna, ed., Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., L.L.D., 4 vols. (Edinburgh, 1852), 4:581–91; George Shepperson, "The Free Church and American Slavery," Scottish Historical Review, 30:126–42 (October 1951); idem. ed., "Notes and Documents: Thomas Chalmers, the Free Church of Scotland, and the South," JSH, 17:517–37 (November 1951); DNB, 3:1358–63. Cunningham,†Dr. William Cunningham (1805–61), a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and a minister of the Trinity College Church of the same city, early distinguished himself as one of the ablest advocates of the "nonintrusionist" point of view. In 1843 the Free Church sent him to the United States to explain its position to American Presbyterians. In 1844, while still in the United States, he joined the Free Church deputation, which raised the controversial donations from American slaveholders. As late as 1847 he felt that the "Send Back the Money'' campaign had been "an ingenious device of Satan to injure the Church." In 1847 he became principal of New College, where he had held a chair of theology since 1843, and in 1859 he was appointed moderator of the church's General Assembly. Robert Rainy and James Mackenzie, Life of William Cunningham, D.D. (London, 1871), 213–21; Shepperson, "Thomas Chalmers, the Free Church, and the South," 518, 526; C. Duncan Rice, "Scottish Factor in the Fight against American Slavery" (Ph.D. diss., University of Edinburgh, 1969), 316, 393; DNB, 5:321–23. and Candlish†The son of a medical teacher and a graduate of the University of Glasgow, the Reverend Robert Smith Candlish (1806–73) was one of the Free Church's most effective publicists and administrators. Candlish played a leading role in the "nonintrusion" controversy, strongly denying the right of civil courts to intervene in matters of church governance. He chaired the Free Church's Committee on Slavery, helped organize the Evangelical Alliance, and served as moderator of the church's General Assembly in 1861. In late May 1846 at the General Assembly of the Free Church in Edinburgh, Candlish defended the Free Church's decision to admit slaveholders to fellowship. After the "Send Back the Money" campaign died down, Candlish sharpened his criticism of American slaveholders. He was an outspoken critic of the Kansas-Nebraska bill and defended the aims of John Brown's raid. William Wilson, Memorial of Robert Smith Candlish, D.D. (Edinburgh, 1880), 381; Shepperson, "Thomas Chalmers, the Free Church, and the South," 523–24; Rice, "Scottish Factor," 191: DNB, 5:321–23. at its head. That church, with its leaders, put it out of the power of the Scotch people to ask the old question, which we in the north have often most wickedly asked—"" That church had taken the price of blood into its treasury, with which to build churches, and to pay church ministers for preaching the gospel; and, worse still, when honest John Murray, of Bowlien Bay†Scottish abolitionist John Murray (?–1849) of Bowling Bay, near Glasgow, was among the founders of the Glasgow Emancipation Society in 1833. While working as a carpenter and builder of houses in St. Kitts, where he had taken up residence to recover from a pulmonary infection, Murray became an outspoken critic of slavery. Upon returning to Glasgow in the mid-1820s, he opened a spirit shop but abandoned the business when he became a temperance advocate. As cosecretary (1833–49) of the Glasgow Emancipation Society, Murray organized antislavery lecture series in Scotland, attacked proslavery advocates in the articles that he regularly contributed to several Glasgow papers, and played a major role in maintaining the Glasgow Emancipation Society's ties with Garrisonian abolitionists in the United States. A garbled text of Garrison's eulogy of Murray, in which Garrison is mistakenly reported as having informed the meeting of "the death of a colored friend and coadjutor on the other side of the Atlantic," appears in NS, 15 June 1849. James McCune Smith, "John Murray (of Glasgow)," in Autographs for Freedom, ed. Julia Griffiths, 2 vols. (1853–54; Miami, 1969), 1:62–67; Lib., 1 June 1849; Henry C. Wright to Garrison, 7 June 1849, in Lib., 29 June 1849; R[ichard] D. Webb to [Sidney Howard] Gay, 8 April 1849, in NASS, 24 May 1849.—now gone to his reward in heaven—with William Smeal,†William Smeal (1793–1877) was a Glasgow Quaker and a successful tea merchant. He was a leading member of the Glasgow Emancipation Society and often served in its powerful position of secretary. A friend and devoted supporter of William Lloyd Garrison, Smeal believed with Garrison that abolitionism could be achieved only under a program that pursued such related reforms as peace, temperance, and women's rights with equal fervor. A strong Union supporter during the Civil War, Smeal and Andrew Paton prevented some clippers bound for the Confederacy from leaving Glasgow. C. Duncan Rice, The Scots Abolitionists, 1833–1861 (Baton Rouge, 1981), 37, 41–44; Temperley, British Antislavery, 210–13; Garrison and Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 2:398, 402; 4: 67, 222–23, 283. Andrew Paton,†Andrew Paton (1805–84) was a leading member of the Glasgow Emancipation Society in the 1840s and 1850s. A loyal friend and supporter of William Lloyd Garrison and his doctrine of nonresistance, Paton aided numerous American abolitionists who visited Scotland, including Douglass, Garrison, Wendell Phillips, and Henry Clarke Wright. Paton ardently endorsed the North during the Civil War and on at least one occasion prevented a clipper built for the Confederacy from leaving the Glasgow docks. Paton was a successful local businessman involved in the processing of malt. Rice, Scots Abolitionists, 53, 88, 130, 135, 158, 162, 199, 213; Garrison and Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 3:175; 4: 67, 223, 283, 402. Frederick Card, and other sterling anti-slavery men in Glasgow, denounced the transaction as disgraceful and shocking to the religious sentiment of Scotland, this church, through its leading divines, instead of repenting and seeking to mend the mistake into which it had fallen, made it a flagrant sin, by undertaking to defend, in the name of God and the bible, the principle not only of taking the money of slave-dealers to build churches, but of holding fellowship with the holders and traffickers in human flesh. This, the reader will see, brought up the whole question of slavery, and opened the way to its full discussion, without any agency of mine. I have never seen a people more deeply moved than were the people of Scotland, on this very question. Puhlic meeting succeeded public meeting. Speech after speech, pamphlet after pamphlet, editorial after editorial, sermon after sermon, soon lashed the conscientious Scotch people into a perfect . "SEND BACK THE MONEY!" was indignantly cried out, from Greenock†A major Scottish port in the burgh of Renfew, on the Clyde estuary at the head of Firth of Clyde. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 718. to Edinburgh, and from Edinburgh to Aberdeen.†A small city and district making up the chief port and commercial center in northeastern Scotland, Aberdeen is located on the North Sea, ninety-five miles northeast of Edinburgh. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 1:4–5. George Thompson, of London, Henry C. Wright,†Abolitionist and pacifist Henry Clarke Wright (1797–1870) was one of Garrison's close associates. Reared in central New York, Wright served an apprenticeship as a hatmaker before studying at Andover Theological Seminary. In 1835 he joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and served as one of Theodore Dwight Weld's "seventy agents" until the executive board of the American Anti-Slavery Society removed him in 1837 because of his extreme opinions. At about the same time he gave up his lecturing agency in the American Peace Society, which was also discomfited by his radicalism, and in 1838 helped found the New England Non-Resistance Society. Nonresistance, the foundation of Wright's reform philosophy, proclaimed the sovereignty of individual conscience and opposed all forms of coercion, violence, and the dominion of man over man. In practice Wright condoned violent resistance to slavery, though he personally eschewed violence. From 1842 to 1847 he traveled in Europe, lecturing on nonresistance and abolitionism. His avowal of antisabbatarian views in Scotland and his accusations (later retracted) that Free Churchmen were "drunkards" made Douglass chary of him. "Friend Wright has created against himself prejudices which I as an abolitionist do not feel myself called upon to withstand,'' Douglass wrote. Wright later turned to spiritualism and helped organize the Universal Peace Union in 1867. He died in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. Douglass to Richard D. Webb, 10 November 1845, Anti-Slavery Collection, MB; Henry C. Wright to Douglass, 12 December 1846, in Lib., 29 January 1847; Henry Clarke Wright, Human Life: Illustrated in My Individual Experience as a Child, a Youth, and a Man (Boston, 1849); idem, "My First Acquaintance with Garrison and Anti-Slavery," Liberty Bell (Boston, 1846), 148–58; Peter Brock, Pacifism in the United States from the Colonial Era to the First World War (Princeton, 1968), 516–18, 532–600, 926–27; Perry, Radical Abolitionism, 18–22, 60–61, 89–90, 159, 222–29, 234–38, 262, 278–82; ACAB, 6:623; NCAB, 2 232. of the United States, James N. Buffum, of Lynn, Massachusetts, and myself were on the anti-slavery side; and Doctors Chalmers, Cunningham, and Candlish on the other. In a conflict where the latter could have had even the show of right, the truth, in our hands as against them, must have been driven to the wall; and while I believe we were able to carry the conscience of the country against the action of the Free Church, the battle, it must be confessed, was a hard-fought one. Abler defenders of the doctrine of fellowshiping slaveholders as christians, have not been met with. In defending this doctrine, it was necessary to deny that slavery is a sin. If driven from this position, they were compelled to deny that slaveholders were responsihle for the sin; and if driven from both these positions, they must deny that it is a sin in such a sense, and that slaveholders are sinners in such a sense, as to make it wrong, in the circumstances in which they were placed, to recognize them as christians. Dr. Cunningham was the most powerful debater on the slavery side of the question; Mr. Thompson was the ablest on the anti-slavery side. A scene
occurred between these two men, a parallel to which I think I never witnessed before, and I know I never have since. The scene was caused by a single exclamation on the part of Mr. Thompson.
The general assembly of the Free Church was in progress at Cannon Mills, Edinburgh. The building would hold about twenty-five hundred persons; and on this occasion it was densely packed, notice having been given that Doctors Cunningham and Candlish would speak, that day, in defense of the relations of the Free Church of Scotland to slavery in America. Messrs. Thompson, Buffum, myself, and a few anti-slavery friends, attended, but sat at such a distance, and in such a position, that, perhaps, we were not observed from the platform. The excitement was intense, having been greatly increased by a series of meetings held by Messrs. Thompson, Wright, Buffum, and myself, in the most splendid hall in that most beautiful city, just previous to the meetings of the general assembly. "SEND BACK THE MONEY," stared at us from every street corner; "SEND BACK THE MONEY," in large capitals, adorned the broad flags of the pavement; "SEND BACK THE MONEY," was the chorus of the popular street songs; "SEND BACK THE MONEY," was the heading of leading editorials in the daily newspapers. This day, at Cannon Mills,†Douglass is referring to Tanfield Hall, the assembly hall of the Free Church of Scotland, which was in a section of Edinburgh known as "Canonmills." Theo Lang, ed., Edinburgh and the Lothians (London, 1952), 59; Stewart J. Brown, Thomas Chalmers and the Godly Commonwealth in Scotland (London, 1982), 334. the great doctors of the church were to give an answer to this loud and stern demand. Men of all parties and all sects were most eager to hear. Something great was expected. The occasion was great, the men great, and great speeches were expected from them.
In addition to the outside pressure upon Doctors Cunningham and Candlish, there was wavering in their own ranks. The conscience of the church itself was not at ease.†Textual note: the copy text's omission of "at" was corrected in the 1855 printing. Emendation note: at ease] A2-5: ease A dissatisfaction with the position of the church touching slavery, was sensibly manifest among the members, and something must he done to counteract this untoward influence. The great Dr. Chalmers was in feeble health, at the time. His most potent eloquence could not now be summoned to Cannon Mills, as formerly. He whose voice was able to rend asunder and dash down the granite walls of the established church of Scotland, and to lead a host in solemn procession from it, as from a doomed city, was now old and enfeebled. Besides, he had said his word on this very question; and his word had not silenced the clamor without, nor stilled the anxious heavings within. The occasion was momentous, and felt to be so. The church was in a perilous condition. A change of some sort must take place in her condition, or she must go to pieces. To stand where she did, was impossible. The whole weight of the matter fell on Cunningham and Candlish. No shoulders in the church were broader than theirs; and
I must say, badly as I detest the principles laid down and defended by them, I was compelled to acknowledge the vast mental endowments of the men. Cunningham rose; and his rising was the signal for almost tumultuous†Emendation note: tumultuous] tumultous applause. You will say this was scarcely in keeping with the solemnity of the occasion, but to me it served to increase its grandeur and gravity. The applause, though tumultuous, was not joyous. It seemed to me, as it thundered up from the vast audience, like the fall of an immense shaft, flung from shoulders already galled by its crushing weight. It was like saying, "Doctor, we have borne this burden long enough, and willingly fling it upon you. Since it was you who brought it upon us, take it now, and do what you will with it, for we are too weary to bear it."†Emendation note: it."]
Doctor Cunningham proceeded with his speech, abounding in logic, learning, and eloquence, and apparently bearing down all opposition; but at the moment—the fatal moment—when he was just bringing all his arguments to a point, and that point being, that neither Jesus Christ nor his holy apostles regarded slaveholding as a sin, George Thompson, in a clear, sonorous, but rebuking voice, broke the deep stillness of the audience, exclaiming, "HEAR! HEAR! HEAR!" The effect of this simple and common exclamation is almost incredible. It was as if a granite wall had been suddenly flung up against the advancing current of a mighty river. For a moment, speaker and audience were brought to a dead silence. Both the doctor and his hearers seemed appalled by the audacity, as well as the fitness of the rebuke. At length a shout went up to the cry of "" Happily, no one attempted to execute this cowardly order, and the doctor proceeded with his discourse. Not, however, as before, did the learned doctor proceed. The exclamation of Thompson must have reechoed itself a thousand times in his memory, during the remainder of his speech, for the doctor never recovered from the blow.
The deed was done, however; the pillars of the church--—were committed, and the humility of repentance was absent. The Free Church held on to the blood-stained money, and continued to justify itself in its position—and of course to apologize for slavery—and does so till this day. She lost a glorious opportunity for giving her voice, her vote, and her example to the cause of humanity; and to-day she is staggering under the curse of the enslaved, whose blood is in her skirts. The people of Scotland are, to this day, deeply grieved at the course pursued by the Free Church, and would hail, as a relief from a deep and blighting shame, the "sending back the money" to the slaveholders from whom it was gathered.
One good result followed the conduct of the Free Church; it furnished an occasion for making the people of Scotland thoroughly acquainted with the character of slavery, and for arraying against the system the moral and religious sentiment of that country. Therefore, while we did not succeed in accomplishing the specific object of our mission, namely—procure the sending back of the money—we were amply justified by the good which really did result from our labors.
Next comes the Evangelical Alliance. This was an attempt to form a union of all evangelical christians throughout the world. Sixty or seventy American divines attended, and some of them went there merely to weave a world-wide garment with which to clothe evangelical slaveholders. Foremost among these divines, was the Rev. Samuel Hanson Cox, moderator of the New School Presbyterian General Assembly.†The predominantly Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in the United States created a national religious organization soon after the Revolution. Although many staunchly Calvinistic Presbyterians were cool toward the more enthusiastic forms of revivalism, a "new school" embraced them and closely cooperated with the interdenominational evangelical benevolent movement of the early nineteenth century. Many New Schoolers also proved sympathetic to the era's moralistically defined abolitionist arguments. The combined quarrels among Presbyterians over theological and antislavery issues led to the expulsion of the New School minority from the denomination in 1837. The New School Presbyterians organized their own triennial general assembly and functioned as a separate denomination until 1869. Thanks to the resistance of conservative leaders such as the Reverend Samuel H. Cox, the New School Presbyterians did not adopt a strict antislavery discipline until after the secession of the denomination's southern members in 1857. Sydney E. Ahlstrom, A Religious History of the American People, 2 vols, (New Haven, 1975), 2:105–06; Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of Christianity (New York, 1953), 1230–33; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 45, 82–83, 125, 167–70, 178–80. He and his friends spared no pains to secure a platform broad enough to hold American slaveholders, and in this they partly succeeded. But the question of slavery is too large a question to be finally disposed of, even by the Evangelical Alliance. We appealed from the judgment of the Alliance, to the judgment of the people of Great Britain, and with the happiest effect. This controversy with the Alliance might be made the subject of extended remark, but I must forbear, except to say, that this effort to shield the christian character of slaveholders greatly served to open a way to the British ear for anti-slavery discussion, and that it was well improved.
The fourth and last circumstance that assisted me in getting before the British public, was an attempt on the part of certain doctors of divinity to silence me on the platform of the World's Temperance Convention. Here I was brought into point blank collision with Rev. Dr. Cox, who made me the subject not only of bitter remark in the convention, but also of a long denunciatory letter published in the New York Evangelist†The New York Evangelist was a Presbyterian weekly devoted to missionary work, revivalism, and social reforms such as temperance and antislavery. It was published in New York City from 1830 to 1902. In the mid-1840s it was edited by two Presbyterian ministers, George B. Cheever and W. H. Bidwell. In a letter dated 6 August 1846, Samuel H. Cox called Douglass an "abolition agitator and ultraist" and claimed the speech that Douglass gave before the World Temperance Convention had been offensive to the American delegation to that gathering. According to Cox, Douglass "allowed himself to denounce America and all of its temperance societies together, as a grinding community of enemies of his people" because they did not necessarily endorse radical abolitionism. "Letter from Dr. Cox," New York Evangelist, 10 September 1846. and other American papers. I replied to the doctor as well as I could, and was successful in getting a respectful hearing before the British public, who are by nature and practice ardent lovers of fair†Textual note: The compositorial omission that turned Douglass's "fair play" into the contextually nonsensical "air play" was corrected in the 1855 printing. Emendation note: fair] A2-5; air play, especially in a conflict between the weak and the strong.
Thus did circumstances favor me, and favor the cause of which I strove to be the advocate. After such distinguished notice, the public in both countries was compelled to attach some importance to my labors. By the very ill usage I received at the hands of Dr. Cox and his party, by the mob on board the Cambria, by the attacks made upon me in the American newspapers, and by the aspersions cast upon me through the organs of the Free Church of Scotland, I became one of that class of men, who, for the moment, at
least, "have greatness forced upon them."†Twelfth Night, act 2, sc. 5, line 158. People became the more anxious to hear for themselves, and to judge for themselves, of the truth which I had to unfold. While, therefore, it is by no means easy for a stranger to get fairly before the British public, it was my lot to accomplish it in the easiest manner possible.
Having continued in Great Britain and Ireland nearly two years, and being about to return to America—not as I left it, a slave, but a freeman—leading friends of the cause of emancipation in that country intimated their intention to make me a testimonial, not only on grounds of personal regard to myself, but also to the cause to which they were so ardently devoted. How far any such thing could have succeeded, I do not know; but many reasons led me to prefer that my friends should simply give me the means of obtaining a printing press and printing materials, to enable me to start a paper, devoted to the interests of my enslaved and oppressed people. I told them that perhaps the greatest hindrance†hindrance] hinderance to the adoption of abolition principles by the people of the United States, was the low estimate, everywhere in that country, placed upon the negro, as a man; that because of his assumed natural inferiority, people reconciled themselves to his enslavement and oppression, as things inevitable, if not desirable. The grand thing to be done, therefore, was to change the estimation in which the colored people of the United States were held; to remove the prejudice which depreciated and depressed them; to prove them worthy of a higher consideration; to disprove their alleged inferiority, and demonstrate their capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and prejudice had assigned to them. I further stated, that, in my judgment, a tolerably, well conducted press, in the hands of persons of the despised race, by calling out the mental energies of the race itself; by making them acquainted with their own latent powers; by enkindling among them the hope that for them there is a future; by deve1oping their moral power; by combining and retlecting their talents—would prove a most powerful means of removing prejudice, and of awakening an interest in them. I further informed them—and at that time the statement was true—that there was not, in the United States, a single newspaper regularly published by the colored people;†Douglass was mistaken. In 1847 Martin Delany's weekly newspaper, the Mystery, was still being published in Pittsburgh. The Mystery first appeared in 1843 and was the first black newspaper to appear west of the Alleghenies. In January 1848 the African Methodist Episcopal Church bought the paper out, renamed it the Christian Recorder, and moved it to Philadelphia, where it operated as the official organ of the A.M.E. church until 1860. The Ram's Horn, published in New York City by Thomas Van Renssenlear, also was still in publication when Douglass began the North Star. It failed in July 1848. Hutton, Early Black Press, 16–17, 165–66; Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3:483, 4:128. that many attempts had been made to establish such papers; but that, up to that time, they had all failed. These views I laid before my friends. The result was, nearly two thousand five hundred dollars were speedily raised†Biographer William McFeely estimates that Douglass returned from Great Britain with more than four thousand dollars to begin the North Star. Douglass had gathered promises from friends overseas, including Isabel Jennings of Cork, Maria Webb of Dublin, the Richardson family in Newcastle-upon-Tyne, and the Reverend R. L. Carpenter of Halifax, that they would solicit subscriptions to the new paper from those who had heard Douglass speak. Mcfeely, Frederick Douglass, 150. toward starting my paper. For this prompt and generous assistance, rendered upon my bare suggestion, without any personal efforts on my part, I shall never cease to feel deeply grateful; and the thought of fulfilling the noble expectations of the dear friends
who gave me this evidence of their confidence, will never cease to be a motive for persevering exertion.
Proposing to leave England, and turning my face toward America, in the spring of 1847,†Douglass left Liverpool aboard the Cambria on 4 April 1847 and landed in Boston on 20 April 1847. Liverpool Mercury, 6 April 1847; Manchester Guardian, 7 April 1847; Lib., 23 April 1847. I was met, on the threshold, with something which painfully reminded me of the kind of life which awaited me in my native land. For the first time in the many months spent abroad, I was met with proscription on account of my color. A few weeks before departing from England, while in London, I was careful to purchase a ticket, and secure a Berth for returning home, in the Cambria—the steamer in which I left the United States—paying therefor the round sum of forty pounds and nineteen shillings sterling. This was first cabin fare. But on going aboard the Cambria, I found that the Liverpool agent had ordered my berth to be given to another, and had forbidden my entering the saloon! This contemptible conduct met with stern rebuke from the British press.†Douglass had been denied first-class passage aboard the Cambria during his initial voyage in 1845, and when he booked passage for his return in the spring of 1847, he voluntarily sought second-class accommodations as an economy measure. However, an agent of the Cunard Line informed him that second-class passage was no longer offered, so Douglass paid the flat rate of £40 19s. required of all passengers and received a ticket for a berth 72 aboard the Cambria. Douglass claimed that, when paying the fare, he specifically asked whether "my color would prove any barrier to my enjoying all the rights and privilege enjoyed by other passengers" and that the ticket agent responded, "No." When he boarded the ship on the morning of 3 April, Douglass learned that his berth had been assigned to another passenger. Captain Charles H. E. Judkins, who had befriended Douglass on the 1845 voyage, accompanied Douglass to the Cunard Line's Liverpool office, where officials informed him that the London agent had acted without authority in selling Douglass the original ticket. Douglass reluctantly made a bargain, agreeing to give up his berth, to dine alone, and to make no attempt to mix with the "saloon company." In return he was assigned the choice quarters recently occupied by the governor-general of Canada. Douglass charged that Charles McIver, the company's Liverpool agent, and Samuel Cunard in particular, proposed this arrangement, but McIver claimed that Douglass had agreed to the plan before coming to talk with him. McIver nevertheless noted that the Cunard Line was "not a reformatory society," and argued that Douglass's forced isolation was necessary in order to prevent a recurrence of the "serious disturbances" ignited by Douglass's speech on the Cambria in 1845. The voyage to Boston passed uneventfully. Douglass remained in the designated portion of the ship, contenting himself with visits from sympathetic passengers and willingly shunning "a band of wild, uproarious, gambling tipplers" who frequently gave vent to "foul-mouthed utterances" on the upper decks. Douglass's acquiescence to segregation in 1847 provoked more public discussion than had his stormy confrontations with proslavery Cambria passengers twenty months earlier. Garrison gave over eleven columns of the Liberator of 14 May 1847 to extracts from the British press condemning Douglass's treatment. Douglass to the editor, 3 April 1847, London Times, 6 April 1847; Charles McIver to the editor, 12 April 1847, London Times, 13 April 1847; William Bevan to the editor of the Liverpool Mercury, n.d., Lib., 14 May 1847; Douglass to Garrison, 21 April 1847; Douglass to [Anna] Richardson, 29 April 1847, both in Newcastle-upon-Tyne Christian, 3 518–22 (1 June 1847); Douglass to "My Dear Friend," 29 April 1847, British Friend, 5 116–17 (May 1847); London Times, 8 April 1847; Henry Fry, North American Steam Navigation, 56–57. For, upon the point of leaving England, I took occasion to expose the disgusting tyranny, in the columns of the London Times.†Douglass's letter to the editor of the London Times describing his problems securing a berth aboard the Cambria was intended to "lay these facts before" the British public so that it might "pronounce a just verdict on such proceedings." The letter first appeared in the London Times on 6 April 1847 and was widely reprinted in both Great Britain and the United States. "I have traveled in this country nineteen months, and have always enjoyed equal rights and privilege with other passengers," Douglass wrote, "and it was not until I turned my face towards America, that I met with anything like proscription on account of my colour." The Times responded favorably to Douglass's plea for justice. In additionto labeling the Cunard Line's actions "ignorant and contemptible," the editors agued, "Common decency should have taught the agents of the Cambria not to offend our notions of justice and common sense for the sake of truckling to an unworthy prejudice of our transatlantic neighbors." London Times, 6 April 1847; Bristol Mercury and Western Counties Advertiser, 10 April 1847; Bristol Gazette, 8 April 1847; London Patent, 8 April 1847; NASS, 13 May 1847. That journal, and other leading journals throughout the United Kingdom, held up the outrage to unmitigated condemnation. So good an opportunity for calling out a full expression of British sentiment on the subject, had not before occurred, and it was most fully embraced. The result was, that Mr. Cunard came out in a letter to the public journals,†Samuel Cunard (1787–1865) was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and began his career as a merchant involved in the whaling trade. In the early 1830s, spurred by the British government's call for an advance in shipping to expedite the movement of mail in the North Atlantic between England, Canada, and the United States, Cunard envisioned a line of the recently developed steam-driven ships to move between these points. Securing additional capital from two Scottish investors, Cunard established the British and North American Royal Mail Steam Packet Company and initiated the building of some of the world's largest steam-driven ships. The first voyage was successfully completed in June 1840. Over the ensuing years, Cunard had more than ten more ships built. In the 1840s the Cunard ships were an important means of transporting immigrants to North America and carrying American visitors to Europe. Hilda Kay Grant, Samuel Cunard, Pioneer of the Atlantic Steamship (London, 1967); T[homas] W[illiam] E[dgar] Roche, Samuel Cunard and the North Atlantic (London, 1971); Babcock, Spanning the Atlantic, 1–135; DNB, 5 300. assuring them of his regret at the outrage, and promising that the like should never occur again on board his steamers; and the like, we believe, have never since occurred on board the steam-ships of the Cunard line.
It is not very pleasant to be made the subject of such insults; but if all such necessarily resulted as this one did, I should be very happy to bear, patiently, many more than I have borne, of the same sort. Albeit, the lash of proscription, to a man accustomed to equal social position, even for a time, as I was, has a sting for the soul hardly less severe than that which bites the flesh and draws the blood from the back of the plantation slave. It was rather hard, after having enjoyed nearly two years of equal social privileges in England, often dining with gentlemen of great literary, social, political, and religious eminence—never, during the whole time, having met with a single word, look, or gesture, which gave me the slightest reason to think my color was an offense to anybody—now to be cooped up in the stern of the Cambria, and denied the right to enter the saloon, lest my dark presence should be deemed an offense to some of my democratic fellow-passengers. The reader will easily imagine what must have been my feelings.
CHAPTER XXV.
VARIOUS INCIDENTS.
NEWSPAPER ENTERPRISE—UNEXPECTED OPPOSITION—THE OBJECTIONS TO IT—THEIR PLAUSIBILITY ADMITTED—MOTIVES FOR COMING TO ROCHESTER—DISCIPLE OF MR. GARRISON—CHANGE OF OPINION—CAUSES LEADING TO IT—THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE CHANGE—PREJUDICE AGAINST COLOR—AMUSING CONDESCENSION—"JIM CROW CARS"—COLLISIONS WITH CONDUCTORS AND BRAKEMEN—TRAINS ORDERED NOT TO STOP AT LYNN—AMUSING DOMESTIC SCENE—SEPARATE TABLES FOR MASTER AND MAN—PREJUDICE UNNATURAL—ILLUSTRATIONS—THE AUTHOR IN HIGH COMPANY—ELEVATION OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOR—PLEDGE FOR THE FUTURE
I HAVE now given the reader an imperfect sketch of nine years' experience in freedom—three years as a common laborer on the wharves of New Bedford, four years as a lecturer in New England, and two years of semi-exile in Great Britain and Ireland. A single ray of light remains to be flung upon my life during the last eight years, and my story will be done.
A trial awaited me on my return from England to the United States, for which I was but very imperfectly prepared. My plans for my then future usefulness as an anti-slavery advocate were all settled. My friends in England had resolved to raise a given sum to purchase for me a press and printing materials; and I already saw myself wielding my pen, as well as my voice, in the great work of renovating the public mind, and building up a public sentiment which should, at least, send slavery and oppression to the grave, and restore to "liberty and the pursuit of happiness"†A paraphrase of the Declaration of Independence: "Certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." the people with whom I had suffered, both as a slave and as a freeman. Intimation had reached my friends in Boston of what I intended to do, before my arrival, and I was prepared to find them favorably disposed toward my much cherished enterprise. In this I was mistaken. I found them very earnestly opposed to the idea of my starting a paper, and for several reasons. First, the paper was not needed; secondly, it would interfere with my usefulness as a lecturer; thirdly, I was better fitted to speak than to write; fourthly, the paper could not succeed. This opposition, from a quarter so highly esteemed, and to which I had been accustomed to look for advice and direction, caused me not only to hesitate, but inclined me to abandon the enterprise. All previous attempts to establish such a journal having failed, I felt that probably I should but add another to the list of failures, and thus contribute another proof of the mental and moral deficiencies of my race. Very much that was said to me in respect to my imperfect literary acquirements. I felt to be most
painfully true. The unsuccessful projectors of all the previous colored newspapers were my superiors in point of education, and if they failed, how could I hope for success? Yet I did hope for success, and persisted in the undertaking. Some of my English friends greatly encouraged me to go forward,†Douglass's British colleagues were enthusiastic supporters of his plans to publish an antislavery newspaper. Fundraising campaigns in England collected $2,175, and solicitations from other areas of Britain brought the total contribution of his overseas friends to more than $4,000. One fundraising campaign specifically aimed to purchase a steam-powered printing press for the venture. Another hoped that their efforts would allow Douglass to "return home with a sum in his pocket which will secure to him and his family a comfortable and handsome support for the future." Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 80; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 150; NASS, 1 April, 10 June 1847. and I shall never cease to be grateful for their words of cheer and generous deeds.
I can easily pardon those who have denounced me as ambitious and presumptuous, in view of my persistence in this enterprise. I was but nine years from slavery. In point of mental experience, I was but nine years old. That one, in such circumstances, should aspire to establish a printing press, among an educated people, might well be considered, if not ambitious, quite silly. My American friends looked at me with astonishment! "A wood-sawyer" offering himself to the public as an editor! A slave, brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of liberty, justice, and humanity! The thing looked absurd. Nevertheless, I persevered. I felt that the want of education, great as it was, could he overcome by study, and that knowledge would come by experience; and further, (which was perhaps the most controlling consideration,) I thought that an intelligent public, knowing my early history, would easily pardon a large share of the deficiencies which I was sure that my paper would exhibit. The most distressing thing, however, was the offense which I was about to give my Boston friends, by what seemed to them a reckless disregard of their sage advice. I am not sure that 1 was not under the influence of something like a slavish adoration of my Boston friends, and I labored hard to convince them of the wisdom of my undertaking, but without success. Indeed, I never expect to succeed, although time has answered all their original objections. The paper has been successful. It is a large sheet, costing eighty dollars per week--has three thousand subscribers--has been published regularly nearly eight years—and bids fair to stand eight years longer. At any rate, the eight years to come are as full of promise as were the eight that are past.
It is not to he concealed, however, that the maintenance of such a journal, under the circumstances, has been a work of much difficulty; and could all the perplexity, anxiety, and trouble attending it, have been clearly foreseen, I might have shrunk from the undertaking. As it is, I rejoice in having engaged in the enterprise, and count it joy to have been able to suffer, in many ways, for its success, and for the success of the cause to which it has heen faithfully devoted. I look upon the time, money, and labor bestowed upon it, as being amply rewarded, in the development of my own mental
and moral energies, and in the corresponding development of my deeply injured and oppressed people.
From motives of peace, instead of issuing my paper in Boston, among my New England friends, I came to Rochester, Western New York,†Douglass and his family moved from Lynn, Massachusetts, to Rochester, New York, on 1 November 1847. Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 70. among strangers, where the circulation of my paper could not interfere with the local circulation of the Liberator and the Standard; for at that time I was, on the anti-slavery question, a faithful disciple of William Lloyd Garrison, and fully committed to his doctrine touching the pro-slavery character of the constitution of the United States, and the , of which he is the known and distinguished advocate. With Mr. Garrison. I held it to be the first duty of the non-slaveholding states to dissolve the union with the slaveholding states; and hence my cry, like his, was, "No union with slaveholders." With these views, I came into Western New York; and during the first four years of my labor here, I advocated them with pen and tongue, according to the best of my ability.
About four years ago, upon a reconsideration of the whole subject, I became convinced that there was no necessity for dissolving the "union between the northern and southern states;"†Through the late 1840s, Douglass's views on the Constitution coincided with the Garrisonian belief that the U.S. Constitution supported proslavery interests. In a March 1849 editorial in the North Star, Douglass outlined his position and concluded that the Constitution was "radically and essentially pro-slavery." Following his move to Rochester and close association with political abolitionists such as Gerrit Smith, Douglass reevaluated his position on the Constitution. Douglass came to believe that those sections that excluded the sanction of "property in man" offered evidence that the founding fathers had in fact viewed slavery as evil and even planned for its eventual abolition. He also observed that those clauses that the Garrisonians and slaveholders used to justify the proslavery nature of the document did not explicitly mention slavery. Coming to a more literal interpretation as held by political abolitionists, by 1851 Douglass began to interpret those clauses dealing with the basic freedoms as expressly antislavery statements. His political abolitionist colleagues praised the change and congratulated him "upon the change of sentiment" he now expressed. Gerrit Smith even remarked that "I have observed for years, that you were coming to this conclusion." Gerrit Smith to Douglass, ASB, 2 August 1851; Bob Markle to Douglass, NS, 28 August 1851; NS, 16 March 1849; FDP, 24 July 1851; Martin, Mind of Frederick Douglass, 31, 37–38. that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as an abolitionist; that to abstain from voting, was to refuse to exercise a legitimate and powerful means for abolishing slavery; and that the constitution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is, in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as the supreme law of the land.
Here was a radical change in my opinions, and in the action logically resulting from that change. To those with whom I had been in agreement and in sympathy, I was now in opposition. What they held to he a great and important truth, I now looked upon as a dangerous error. A very painful, and yet a very natural, thing now happened. Those who could not see any honest reasons for changing their views, as I had done, could not easily see any such reasons for my change, and the common punishment of apostates was mine.
The opinions first entertained were naturally derived and honestly entertained, and I trust that my present opinions have the same claims to respect. Brought directly, when I escaped from slavery, into contact with a class of abolitionists regarding the constitution as a slaveholding instrument, and finding their views supported by the united and entire history of every department of the government, it is not strange that I assumed the constitution to be just what their interpretation made it. I was bound, not
only by their superior knowledge, to take their opinions as the true ones, in respect to the subject, but also because I had no means of showing their unsoundness. But for the responsibility of conducting a public journal, and the necessity imposed upon me of meeting opposite views from abolitionists in this state, I should in all probability have remained as firm in my disunion views as any other disciple of William Lloyd Garrison.
My new circumstances compelled me 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. By such a course of thought and reading, I was conducted to the conclusion that the constitution of the United States—inaugurated "to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liherty"—could not well have been designed at the same time to maintain and perpetuate a system of rapine and murder like slavery; especially, as not one word can be found in the constitution to authorize such a belief. Then, again, if the declared purposes of an instrument are to govern the meaning of all its parts and details, as they clearly should, the constitution of our country is our warrant for the abolition of slavery in every state in the American Union. I mean, however, not to argue, but simply to state my views. It would require very many pages of a volume like this, to set forth the arguments demonstrating the unconstitutionality and the complete illegality of slavery in our land; and as my experience, and not my arguments, is within the scope and contemplation of this volume, I omit the latter and proceed with the former.
I will now ask the kind reader to go back a little in my story, while I
bring up a thread left behind for convenience sake, but which, small as it is,
cannot be properly omitted altogether; and that thread is American prejudice against color, and its varied illustrations in my own experience.
When I first went among the abolitionists of New England. and began
to travel, I found this prejudice very strong and very annoying. The abolitionists themselves were not entirely free from it, and I could see that
they were nobly struggling against it. In their eagerness, sometimes, to
show their contempt for the feeling, they proved that they had not entirely
recovered from it; often illustrating the saying, in their conduct, that a man
may "stand up so straight as to lean backward." When it was said to me.
"Mr. Douglass, I will walk to meeting with you; I am not afraid of a black
man." I could not help thinking—seeing nothing very frightful in my
appearance—"And why should you be?" The children at the north had all been educated to believe that if they were bad, the old black man—not the old —would get them; and it was evidence of some courage, for any so educated to get the better of their fears.
The custom of providing separate cars for the accommodation of colored travelers, was established on nearly all the railroads of New England, a dozen years ago. Regarding this custom as fostering the spirit of caste, I made it a rule to seat myself in the cars for the accommodation of passengers generally. Thus seated, I was sure to be called upon to betake myself to the "."†The term Jim Crow derives from the refrain of a popular nineteenth-century plantation song, "Wheel about and turn about and jump Jim Crow." The term refers to a stage presentation of a song and dance first performed by Thomas D. Rice and later used in minstrel shows. A "Jim Crow car" was a railroad car for the exclusive use of African Americans, and seems to have first been used in Massachusetts in 1841. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 1: 907. Refusing to obey, I was often dragged out of my seat, beaten, and severely bruised, by conductors and brakemen. Attempting to start from Lynn, one day, for Newburyport,† The city of Newburyport is located on the Merrimack River in Essex County in northeastern Massachusetts. In the nineteenth century it was a shipping, whaling, and shipbuilding center. Seltzer, Columbia Lippincott Gazetteer, 1307. on the Eastern railroad,†The Eastern Railroad extended from East Boston through the Massachusetts towns of Lynn, Salem, and Newburyport, connecting with the Portland, Saco, and Portsmouth Railroad at Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In 1842 the line merged with the larger Boston and Maine Railroad. George Pierce Baker, The Formation of the New England Railroad Systems: A Study of Railroad Combination in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, Mass., 1937), 147–49. I went, as my custom was, into one of the best railroad carriages on the road. The seats were very luxuriant and beautiful. I was soon waited upon by the conductor, and ordered out; whereupon I demanded the reason for my invidious removal. After a good deal of parleying, I was told that it was because I was black. This I denied, and appealed to the company to sustain my denial; but they were evidently unwilling to commit themselves, on a point so delicate, and requiring such nice powers of discrimination, for they remained as dumb as death. I was soon waited on by half a dozen fellows of the baser sort, (just such as would volunteer to take a hull-dog out of a meetinghouse in time of public worship,) and told that I must move out of that seat, and if I did not, they would drag me out. I refused to move, and they clutched me, head, neck, and shoulders. But, in anticipation of the stretching to which I was about to be subjected, I had interwoven myself among the seats. In dragging me out, on this occasion, it must have cost the company twenty-five or thirty dollars, for I tore up seats and all.†The incident Douglass describes was a combination of two events. The first took place on 8 September 1841 as he traveled to an antislavery meeting in Dover, New Hampshire, with John A. Collins, the general agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. According to one report, Douglass was forcibly moved to the segregated "Jim Crow" car, designated for African-American passengers. Later the same month Douglass challenged the segregated policy of the Eastern Railroad at Lynn, Massachusetts, and, when asked to move to the segregated car, he refused, holding tightly to the bench seat. The incident led to outrage among the citizens of Lynn and a call to boycott the Eastern Railroad. Dover (N.H.) Morning Star, 15 September 1841; Lynn Record, 29 September, 6, 27 October 1841; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 92–93. So great was the excitement in Lynn, on the subject, that the superintendent, Mr. Stephen A. Chase,† Stephen A. Chase was superintendent of the Eastern Railroad. Though a Quaker, he had a reputation for enforcing segregation policies on the railroad. Mabee, Black Freedom, 120. ordered the trains to run through Lynn without stopping, while I remained in that town; and this ridiculous farce was enacted. For several days the trains went dashing through Lynn without stopping. At the same time that they excluded a free colored man from their cars, this same company allowed slaves, in company with their masters and mistresses, to ride unmolested.
After many battles with the railroad conductors, and being roughly handled in not a few instances, proscription was at last abandoned; and the "Jim Crow car"—set up for the degradation of colored people—is nowhere found in New England.†Massachusetts became notorious for the segregation policies of its railroad lines, steamboats, and stagecoaches in the early nineteenth century. In the late 1830s and early 1840s black passengers staged numerous protests against separate accommodations, particularly on Massachusetts railroads. The protest Douglass waged in refusing to move to the segregated car was a common tactic used by blacks and their supporters. Another movement to end discrimination led blacks to attempt to secure court injunctions against individual companies that enforced segregation policies. When those efforts largely failed, abolitionists urged a boycott of segregated lines and instituted a flood of petitions to the state legislature. In 1842 this pressure paid off, and a joint committee of the Massachusetts legislature was appointed to look into the problem. Hearings determined that the policies of the railroads violated black rights and conflicted with the state constitution. The committee proposed a bill prohibiting discrimination in accommodation on public conveyances, and although it failed to become law, continued pressure from abolitionists and changing public opinion forced most companies to abandon segregation in the early 1840s. James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (New York, 1979), 67–70; Litwack, North of Slavery, 106–08. This result was not brought about without the intervention of the people, and the threatened enactment of a law
compelling railroad companies to respect the rights of travelers. Hon. Charles Francis Adams†Hon. Charles Francis Adams] The third son of John Quincy and Louisa Catherine Adams. Charles Francis Adams (1807–86) was born in Boston but spent much of his childhood in St. Petersburg, Russia, where his father was the U.S. ambassador. Adams graduated from Harvard College in 1825 and studied law in the office of Daniel Webster. Entering state politics, he served in the Massachusetts house (1841–43) and senate (1844–45). In 1845 Adams assumed the editorship of the Boston Whig, and three years later, as a result of his role in launching the Free Soil party, received its nomination as Martin Van Buren's vice-presidential running mate. Adams served a term in Congress (1859–61) as a Republican before accepting an appointment from President Abraham Lincoln as U.S. ambassador to the court of St. James. Returning from his diplomatic post in May 1868. Adams retired from public life to edit the papers of his father and grandfather. Martin Duberman, Charles Francis Adams, 1807–1886 (Stanford, Calif., 1968); NCAB, 8:351–53; DAB, 1:48–52. performed signal service in the Massachusetts legislature, in bringing about this reformation; and to him the colored citizens of that state are deeply indebted.
Although often annoyed, and sometimes outraged, by this prejudice against color, I am indebted to it for many passages of quiet amusement. A half-cured subject of it is sometimes driven into awkward straits, if he happens to get a genuine specimen of the race into his house.
In the summer of 1843, I was traveling and lecturing, in company with William A. White, Esq., through the state of Indiana. Anti-slavery friends were not very abundant in Indiana,†The antislavery movement developed slowly in Indiana. In 1838 a state antislavery society was organized in Wayne County, and several local societies formed as well. Indiana antislavery societies were linked with various church denominations, especially the Quakers. Support for the abolition movement led to divisions within many Indiana churches, including the Quakers, who split over the issue of memher involvement in antislavery societies that operated outside that religious group. Political abolitionism and support for the antiextension movement also evolved slowly in Indiana. In the state election of 1842 the Liberty party gained only nine hundred votes, but that figure rose steadily throughout the decade. The Indiana Freeman, an antislavery newspaper supporting the Liberty party, was published in Indianapolis in the 1840s, and the cause of antiextension gained broad support once the Free Soil party was formed. In the 1848 presidential election, the antiextension Free Soil party claimed eight thousand votes in the state. Emma Lou Thornbrough, Indiana in the Civil War Era, 1850–1880 (Indianapolis, 1965), 19–23; Etta Reeves French, "Stephen S. Harding: A Hoosier Abolitionist," Indiana Magazine of History, 27:220–22 (March 1931). at that time, and beds were not more plentiful than friends. We often slept out, in preference to sleeping in the houses, at some points. At the close of one of our meetings, we were invited home with a kindly-disposed old farmer, who, in the generous enthusiasm of the moment, seemed to have forgotten that he had but one spare bed, and that his guests were an ill-matched pair. All went on pretty well, till near bed time, when signs of uneasiness began to show themselves. among the unsophisticated sons and daughters. White is remarkably fine looking, and very evidently a born gentleman; the idea of putting us in the same bed was hardly to be tolerated; and yet, there we were, and but the one bed for us, and that, by the way, was in the same room occupied by the other members of the family. White, as well as I, perceived the difficulty, for yonder slept the old folks, there the sons, and a little farther along slept the daughters; and but one other bed remained. Who should have this bed, was the puzzling question. There was some whispering between the old folks, some confused looks among the young, as the time for going to bed approached. After witnessing the confusion as long as I liked, I relieved the kindly-disposed family by playfully saying, "Friend White, having got entirely rid of my prejudice against color, I think, as a proof of it, I must allow you to sleep with me to-night." White kept up the joke, by seeming to esteem himself the favored party, and thus the difficulty was removed. If we went to a hotel, and called for dinner, the landlord was sure to set one table for White and another for me, always taking him to be master, and me the servant. Large eyes were generally made when the order was given to remove the dishes from my table to that of White's. In those days, it was thought strange that a white man and a colored man could dine peaceably at the same table, and in some parts the strangeness of such a sight has not entirely subsided.
Some people will have it that there is a natural, an inherent, and an
invincible repugnance in the breast of the white race toward dark-colored people; and some very intelligent colored men think that their proscription is owing solely to the color which nature has given them. They hold that they are rated according to their color, and that it is impossible for white people ever to look upon dark races of men, or men belonging to the African race, with other than feelings of aversion. My experience, both serious and mirthful, combats this conclusion. Leaving out of sight, for a moment, grave facts, to this point, I will state one or two, which illustrate a very interesting feature of American character as well as American prejudice. Riding from Boston to Albany, a few years ago, I found myself in a large car, well filled with passengers. The seat next to me was about the only vacant one. At every stopping place we took in new passengers, all of whom, on reaching the seat next to me, cast a disdainful glance upon it, and passed to another car, leaving me in the full enjoyment of a whole form. For a time, I did not know but that my riding there was prejudicial to the interest of the railroad company. A circumstance occurred, however, which gave me an elevated position at once. Among the passengers on this train was Gov. George N. Briggs.†George Nixon Briggs (1796–1861), attorney and politician, was Massachusetts governor from 1851 to 1855. A prominent Whig, Briggs was known to be conservative on the slavery issue. He opposed the Mexican War as an attempt to extend slavery, but complied with the federal government's request to supply troops from Massachusetts. This action led some abolitionists, including Wendell Phillips, to condemn Briggs as a traitor to antislavery principles. Briggs was active in a number of reform-minded organizations, and at various times after 1846 he served as president of the American Baptist Missionary Union, the American Tract Society, and the American Temperance Union. After his retirement as governor in 1851, Briggs practiced law with his son, was a delegate to the 1853 Massachusetts constitutional convention, and was appointed a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. ANB, 3:539–41. I was not acquainted with him, and had no idea that I was known to him. Known to him, however, I was, for upon observing me, the governor left his place, and making his way toward me, respectfully asked the privilege of a seat by my side; and upon introducing himself, we entered into a conversation very pleasant and instructive to me. The despised seat now became honored. His excellency had removed all the prejudice against sitting by the side of a negro; and upon his leaving it, as he did, on reaching Pittsfield,†Pittsfield is a small town in Merrimack County, New Hampshire, located approximately twelve miles cast northeast of Concord, Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 3:2450. there were at least one dozen applicants for the place. The governor had, without changing my skin a single shade, made the place respectable which before was despicable.
A similar incident happened to me once on the Boston and New Bedford railroad,†This is probably the New Bedford Railroad. The first branch of this line opened in July 1840 and extended from New Bedford to Taunton, where it connected with another short branch between Taunton and Mansfield that was in operation as early as 1836. The Taunton Branch Railroad originally formed an independent branch of the Boston and Providence Railroad, giving it a connection to Boston. Baker, Formation of the New England Railroad Systems, 36–37. and the leading party to it has since been governor of the state of Massachusetts. I allude to Col. John Henry Clifford.†John Henry Clifford (1809–76) was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from Brown University in 1827. After reading law in the New Bedford, Massachusetts, office of Timothy Coffin, Clifford was admitted to the bar in 1830 and began practicing there. He soon established an extensive business. In 1835 he was elected to the state legislature and became closely associated with Governor Edward Everett. In 1839 the governor appointed him district attorney for southern Massachusetts, where he remained until elevated to attorney general in 1849. In 1853 and 1854 he served as governor from the Whig ticket, after which he returned to the post of attorney general. Clifford became a devoted Republican. He vigorously supported Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and was regularly consulted by President Ulysses S. Grant. From 1867 until his death he served as president of the Boston and Providence Railroad. ACAB, 1:657; NCAB, 1:116; DAB, 4:215–16. Lest the reader may fancy I am aiming to elevate myself, by claiming too much intimacy with great men, I must state that my only acquaintance with Col. Clifford was formed while I was his during the first winter of my escape from slavery. I owe it him to say, that in that relation I found him always kind and gentlemanly. But to the incident. I entered a car at Boston, for New Bedford, which, with the exception of a single seat, was full, and found I must occupy this, or stand up, during the journey. Having no mind to do this, I stepped up to the man having the next seat, and who had a few parcels on the seat, and gently asked leave to take a seat by his side. My fellow-
passenger gave me a look made up of reproach and indignation, and asked me why I should come to that particular seat. I assured him, in the gentlest manner, that of all others this was the seat for me. Finding that I was actually ahout to sit down, he sang out. "O! stop, stop! and let me get out!" Suiting the action to the word, up the agitated man got, and sauntered to the other end of the car, and was compelled to stand for most of the way thereafter. Half-way to New Bedford, or more, Col. Clifford, recognizing me, left his seat, and not having seen me before since I had ceased to wait on him, (in everything except hard arguments against his pro-slavery position,) apparently forgetful of his rank, manifested, in greeting me, something of the feeling of an old friend. This demonstration was not lost on the gentleman whose dignity I had, an hour before, most seriously offended. Col. Clifford was known to be ahout the most aristocratic gentleman in Bristol county;†Bristol County, located in southeast Massachusetts, was formed in 1685 and was known for whaling and shipping activities centered in the towns of Fall River, New Bedford, and Taunton. Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer of the World, 1:436. and it was evidently thought that I must be somebody, else I should not have been thus noticed, by a person so distinguished. Sure enough, after Col. Clifford left me, I found myself surrounded with friends; and among the number, my offended friend stood nearest, and with an apology for his rudeness, which I could not resist, although it was one of the lamest ever offered. With such facts as these before me—and I have many of them—-I am inclined to think that pride and fashion have much to do with the treatment commonly extended to colored people in the United States. I once heard a very plain man say, (and he was cross-eyed, and awkwardly flung together in other respects,) that he should be a handsome man when public opinion shall be changed.
Since I have been editing and publishing a journal devoted to the cause of liberty and progress, I have had my mind more directed to the condition and circumstanccs of the free colored people than when I was the agent of an abolition society. The result has been a corresponding change in the disposition of my time and lahors. I have felt it to he a part of my mission—under a gracious Providence—to impress my sable brothers in this country with the conviction that, notwithstanding the ten thousand discouragements and the powerful hindrances,†hindrances] hinderances which beset their existence in this country—notwithstanding the blood-written history of Africa, and her children, from whom we have descended, or the clouds and darkness, (whose stillness and gloom are made only more awful by wrathful thunder and lightning,) now overshadowing them—progress is yet possible, and bright skies shall yet shine upon their pathway; and that "Ethiopia shall yet reach forth her hand unto God."†A slight misquotation of Ps. 68:31: "Princes shall come out of Egypt; Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God."
Believing that one of the best means of emancipating the slaves of the
south is to improve and elevate the character of the free colored people of the north, I shall labor in the future, as I have labored in the past, to promote the moral, social, religious, and intellectual elevation of the free colored people; never forgetting my own humble origin, nor refusing, while Heaven lends me ability, to use my voice, my pen, or my vote, to advocate the great and primary work of the universal and unconditional emancipation of my entire race.
APPENDIX, CONTAINING EXTRACTS
FROM SPEECHES, ETC.*
RECEPTION SPEECH
AT FINSBURY CHAPEL, MOORFIELDS, ENGLAND, MAY 12, 1846.
MR. DOUGLASS rose amid loud cheers, and said: I feel exceedingly glad of the opportunity now afforded me of presenting the claims of my brethren in bonds in the United States, to so many in London and from various parts of Britain, who have assemhled here on the present occasion. I have nothing to commend me to your consideration in the way of learning, nothing in the way of education, to entitle me to your attention; and you are aware that slavery is a very bad school for rearing teachers of morality and religion. Twenty-one years of my life have been spent in slavery—personal slavery—surrounded by degrading influences, such as can exist nowhere beyond the pale of slavery; and it will not be strange, if under such circumstances, I should betray, in what I have to say to you, a deficiency of that refinement which is seldom or ever found, except among persons that have experienced superior advantages to those which I have enjoyed. But I will take it for granted that you know something about the degrading influences of slavery, and that you will not expect great things from me this evening, but simply such facts as I may be able to advance immediately in connection with my own experience of slavery.
Now, what is this system of slavery? This is the subject of my lecture this evening—what is the character of this institution? I am about to answer the inquiry, what is American slavery? I do this the more readily, since I have found persons in this country who have identified the term slavery with that which I think it is not, and in some instances, I have feared, in so doing, have rather (unwittingly, I know,) detracted much from the horror with which the term slavery is contemplated. It is common in this country to distinguish every bad thing by the name of slavery. Intemperance is slavery; to be deprived of the right to vote is slavery, says one; to have to work hard is slavery, says another; and I do not know but that if we should let them go on, they would say that to eat when we are hungry, to walk when we desire to have exercise, or to minister to our necessities, or have
*Mr. Douglass' published speeches alone, would fill two volumes of the size of this. Our space will only permit the insertion of the extracts which follow; and which, for originality of thought, beauty and force of expression, and for impassioned, indignatory eloquence, have seldom been equaled.
necessities at all, is slavery. I do not wish for a moment to detract from the horror with which the evil of intemperance is contemplated—not at all; nor do I wish to throw the slightest obstruction in the way of any political freedom that any class of persons in this country may desire to obtain. But I am here to say that I think the term slavery is sometimes abused by identifying it with that which it is not. Slavery in the United States is the granting of that power by which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of another. The condition of a slave is simply that of the brute beast. He is a piece of property—a marketable commodity, in the language of the law, to be bought or sold at the will and caprice of the master who claims him to be his property; he is spoken of, thought of, and treated as property. His own good, his conscience, his intellect, his affections, are all set aside by the master. The will and the wishes of the master are the law of the slave. He is as much a piece of property as a horse. If he is fed, he is fed because he is property. If he is clothed, it is with a view to the increase of his value as property. Whatever of comfort is necessary to him for his body or soul that is inconsistent with his being property, is carefully wrested from him, not only by public opinion, but by the law of the country. He is carefully deprived of everything that tends in the slightest degree to detract from his value as property. He is deprived of education. God has given him an intellect; the slaveholder declares it shall not he cultivated. If his moral perception leads him in a course contrary to his value as property, the slaveholder declares he shall not exercise it. The marriage institution cannot exist among slaves, and one-sixth of the population of democratic America is denied its privileges by the law of the land. What is to he thought of a nation boasting of its liberty, boasting of its humanity, boasting of its christianity, boasting of its love of justice and purity, and yet having within its own borders three millions of persons denied by law the right of marriage?—what must be the condition of that people? I need not lift up the veil by giving you any experience of my own. Every one that can put two ideas together, must see the most fearful results from such a state of things as I have just mentioned. If any of these three millions find for themselves companions, and prove themselves honest, upright, virtuous persons to each other, yet in these cases—few as I am bound to confess they are—the virtuous live in constant apprehension of being torn asunder by the merciless men-stealers that claim them as their property. This is American slavery: no marriage—no education—the light of the gospel shut out from the dark mind of the bondman—and be forbidden by law to learn to read. If a mother shall teach her children to read, the law in Louisiana proclaims that she may be hanged
by the neck. If the father attempt to give his son a knowledge of letters, he may be punished by the whip in one instance, and in another be killed, at the discretion of the court. Three millions of people shut out from the light of knowledge! It is easy for you to conceive the evil that must result from such a state of things.
I now come to the physical evils of slavery. I do not wish to dwell at length upon these, but it seems right to speak of them, not so much to influence your minds on this question, as to let the slaveholders of America know that the curtain which conceals their crimes is being lifted abroad; that we are opening the dark cell, and leading the people into the horrible recesses of what they are pleased to call their domestic institution. We want them to know that a knowledge of their whippings, their scourgings, their brandings, their chainings, is not confined to their plantations, but that some negro of theirs has broken loose from his chains—has burst through the dark incrustation of slavery, and is now exposing their deeds of deep damnation to the gaze of the christian people of England.
The slaveholders resort to all kinds of cruelty. If I were disposed, I have matter enough to interest you on this question for five or six evenings, but I will not dwell at length upon these cruelties. Suffice it to say, that all the peculiar modes of torture that were resorted to in the West India islands, are resorted to, I believe, even more frequently, in the United States of America. Starvation, the bloody whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, cat-hauling, the cat-o"-nine-tails, the dungeon, the blood-hound, are all in requisition to keep the slave in his condition as a slave in the United States. If any one has a doubt upon this point, I would ask him to read the chapter on slavery in Dickens's . If any man has a doubt upon it, I have here the "testimony of a thousand witnesses," which I can give at any length, all going to prove the truth of my statement. The blood-hound is regularly trained in the United States, and advertisements are to be found in the southern papers of the Union, from persons advertising themselves as blood-hound trainers, and offering to hunt down slaves at fifteen dollars a piece, recommending their hounds as the fleetest in the neighborhood, never known to fail. Advertisements are from time to time inserted, stating that slaves have escaped with iron collars about their necks, with bands of iron about their feet, marked with the lash, branded with red-hot irons, the initials of their master's name burned into their flesh; and the masters advertise the fact of their being thus branded with their own signature, thereby proving to the world, that, however damning it may appear to non-slaveholders, such practices arc not regarded discreditable among the slaveholders
themselves. Why, I believe if a man should brand his horse in this country—burn the initials of his name into any of his cattle, and publish the ferocious deed here—that the united execrations of christians in Britain would descend upon him. Yet, in the United States, human beings are thus branded. As Whittier says—
" ... Our countrymen in chains,
The whip on woman's shrinking flesh,
Our soil yet reddening with the stains
Caught from her scourgings warm and fresh."
The slave-dealer boldly publishes his infamous acts to the world. Of all things that have been said of slavery to which exception has been taken by slaveholders, this, the charge of cruelty, stands foremost, and yet there is no charge capable of clearer demonstration, than that of the most barbarous inhumanity on the part of the slaveholders toward their slaves. And all this is necessary; it is necessary to resort to these cruelties, in order to , and to . Why, my experience all goes to prove the truth of what you will call a marvelous proposition, that the better you treat a slave, the more you destroy his value , and enhance the probability of his eluding the grasp of the slaveholder; the more kindly you treat him, the more wretched you make him, while you keep him in the condition of a slave. My experience, I say, confirms the truth of this proposition. When I was treated exceedingly ill; when my back was being scourged daily; when I was whipped within an inch of my life— was all I cared for. "Spare my life," was my continual prayer. When I was looking for the blow about to be inflicted upon my head, I was not thinking of my liberty: it was my life. But, as soon as the blow was not to be feared, then came the longing for liberty. If a slave has a bad master, his ambition is to get a better; when he gets a better, he aspires to have the best: and when he gets the best, he aspires to be his own master. But the slave must be brutalized to keep him as a slave. The slaveholder feels this necessity. I admit this necessity. If it be right to hold slaves at all, it is right to hold them in the only way in which they can be held; and this can be done only by shutting out the light of education from their minds, and brutalizing their persons. The whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the blood-hound, the stocks, and all the other bloody paraphernalia of the slave system, are indispensably necessary to the relation of master and slave. The slave must be subjected to these, or he ceases to be a slave. Let him know that the whip is burned; that the fetters have been turned to some useful and profitable employment; that
the chain is no longer for his limbs; that the blood-hound is no longer to be put upon his track; that his master's authority over him is no longer to be enforced by taking his life-and immediately he walks out from the house of bondage and asserts his freedom as a man. The slaveholder finds it necessary to have these implements to keep the slave in bondage; finds it necessary to be able to say, "Unless you do so and so; unless you do as I bid you—will take away your life!"
Some of the most awful scenes of cruelty are constantly taking place in the middle states of the Union. We have in those states what are called the slave-breeding states. Allow me to speak plainly. Although it is harrowing to your feelings, it is necessary that the facts of the case should be stated. We have in the United States slave-breeding states. The very state from which the minister from our court to yours comes, is one of these states—Maryland, where men, women, and children are reared for the market, just as horses, sheep, and swine are raised for the market. Slave-rearing is there looked upon as a legitimate trade; the law sanctions it, public opinion upholds it, the church does not condemn it. It goes on in all its bloody horrors, sustained by the auctioneer's block. If you would see the cruelties of this system, hear the following narrative. Not long since the following scene occurred. A slave-woman and a slave-man had united themselves as man and wife in the absence of any law to protect them as man and wife. They had lived together by the permission, not by right, of their master, and they had reared a family. The master found it expedient, and for his interest, to sell them. He did not ask them their wishes in regard to the matter at all; they were not consulted. The man and woman were brought to the auctioneer's block, under the sound of the hammer. The cry was raised. "Here goes; who bids cash?" Think of it—a man and wife to be sold! The woman was placed on the auctioneer's block; her limbs, as is customary, were brutally exposed to the purchasers, who examined her with all the freedom with which they would examine a horse. There stood the husband, powerless; no right to his wife; the master's right preeminent. She was sold. He was next brought to the auctioneer's block. His eyes followed his wife in the distance; and he looked beseechingly, imploringly, to the man that had bought his wife, to buy him also. But he was at length bid off to another person. He was about to be separated forever from her he loved. No word of his, no work of his, could save him from this separation. He asked permission of his new master to go and take the hand of his wife at parting. It was denied him. In the agony of his soul he rushed from the man who had just bought him, that he might take a farewell of his wife; but his way was obstructed, he was struck
over the head with a loaded whip, and was held for a moment; but his agony was too great. When he was let go, he fell a corpse at the feet of his master. His heart was broken. Such scenes are the every-day fruits of American slavery. Some two years since, the Hon. Seth M. Gates, an anti-slavery gentleman of the state of New York, a representative in the congress of the United States, told me he saw with his own eyes the following circumstance. In the national District of Columbia, over which the star-spangled emblem is constantly waving, where orators are ever holding forth on the subject of American liberty, American democracy, American republicanism, there are two slave prisons. When going across a bridge, leading to one of these prisons, he saw a young woman run out, bare-footed and bareheaded, and with very little clothing on. She was running with all speed to the bridge he was approaching. His eye was fixed upon her, and he stopped to see what was the matter. He had not paused long before he saw three men run out after her. He now knew what the nature of the case was: a slave escaping from her chains—a young woman, a sister—escaping from the bondage in which she had been held. She made her way to the bridge, but had not reached it, ere from the Virginia side there came two slaveholders. As soon as they saw them, her pursuers called out, "Stop her!" True to their Virginian instincts, they came to the rescue of their brother kidnappers, across the bridge. The poor girl now saw that there was no chance for her. It was a trying time. She knew if she went back, she must he a slave forever—she must be dragged down to the scenes of pollution which the slaveholders continually provide for most of the poor, sinking, wretched young women, whom they call their property. She formed her resolution; and just as those who were about to take her, were going to put hands upon her, to drag her back, she leaped over the balustrades of the bridge, and down she went to rise no more. She chose death, rather than to go back into the hands of those christian slaveholders from whom she had escaped.
Can it be possible that such things as these exist in the United States? Are not these the exceptions? Are any such scenes as this genera1? Are not such deeds condemned by the law and denounced hy public opinion? Let me read to you a few of the laws of the slaveholding states of America. I think no better exposure of slavery can be made than is made hy the laws of the states in which slavery exists. I prefer reading the laws to making any statement in confirmation of what I have said myself; for the slaveholders cannot object to this testimony, since it is the calm, the cool, the deliberate enactment of their wisest heads, of their most clear-sighted, their own constituted representatives. "If more than seven slaves together are
found in any road without a white person, twenty lashes a piece; for visiting a plantation without a written pass, ten lashes; for letting loose a boat from where it is made fast, thirty-nine lashes for the first offense; and for the second, shall have cut off from his head one ear; for keeping or carrying a club, thirty-nine lashes; for having any article for sale, without a ticket from his master, ten lashes; for traveling in any other than the most usual and accustomed road, when going alone to any place, forty lashes; for traveling in the night without a pass, forty lashes." I am afraid you do not understand the awful character of these lashes. You must bring it before your mind. A human being in a perfect state of nudity, tied hand and foot to a stake, and a strong man standing behind with a heavy whip, knotted at the end, each blow cutting into the flesh, and leaving the warm blood dripping to the feet; and for these trifles. "For being found in another person's negro-quarters, forty lashes; for hunting with dogs in the woods, thirty lashes; for heing on horseback without the written permission of his master, twenty-five lashes; for riding or going abroad in the night, or riding horses in the day time, without leave, a slave may he whipped, cropped, or branded in the check with the letter R, or otherwise punished, such punishment not extending to life, or so as to render him unfit for labor." The laws referred to, may he found by consulting Brevard's Digest; Haywood's Manual; Virginia Revised Code; Prince's Digest; Missouri Laws; Mississippi Revised Code. A man, for going to visit his brethren, without the permission of his master—and in many instances he may not have that permission; his master, from caprice or other reasons, may not be willing to allow it—may he caught on his way, dragged to a post, the branding-iron heated, and the name of his master or the letter R branded into his cheek or on his forehead. They treat slaves thus, on the principle that they must punish for light offenses, in order to prevent the commission of larger ones. I wish you to mark that in the single state of Virginia there are seventy-one crimes for which a colored man may be executed; while there are only three of these crimes, which, when committed by a white man, will subject him to that punishment. There are many of these crimes which if the white man did not commit, he would be regarded as a scoundrel and a coward. In the state of Maryland, there is a law to this effect: that if a slave shall strike his master, he may he hanged, his head severed from his body, his body quartered, and his head and quarters set up in the most prominent places in the neighborhood. If a colored woman, in the defense of her own virtue, in defense of her own person, should shield herself from the brutal attacks of her tyrannical master, or make the slightest resistance, she may be killed
on the spot. No law whatever will bring the guilty man to justice for the crime.
But you will ask me, can these things be possible in a land professing christianity? Yes, they are so; and this is not the worst. No; a darker feature is yet to be presented than the mere existence of these facts. I have to inform you that the religion of the southern states, at this time, is the great supporter, the great sanctioner of the bloody atrocities to which I have referred. While America is printing tracts and bibles; sending missionaries abroad to convert the heathen; expending her money in various ways for the promotion of the gospel in foreign lands—the slave not only lies forgotten, uncared for, but is trampled under foot by the very churches of the land. What have we in America? Why, we have slavery made part of the religion of the land. Yes, the pulpit there stands up as the great defender of this cursed , as it is called. Ministers of religion come forward and torture the hallowed pages of inspired wisdom to sanction the bloody deed. They stand forth as the foremost, the strongest defenders of this "institution." As a proof of this, I need not do more than state the general fact, that slavery has existed under the droppings of the sanctuary of the south for the last two hundred years, and there has not been any war between the and the of the south. Whips, chains, gags, and thumb-screws have all lain under the droppings of the sanctuary, and instead of rusting from off the limbs of the bondman, those droppings have served to preserve them in all their strength. Instead of preaching the gospel against this tyranny, rebuke, and wrong, ministers of religion have sought, by all and every means, to throw in the back-ground whatever in the bible could he construed into opposition to slavery, and to bring forward that which they could torture into its support. This I conceive to be the darkest feature of slavery, and the most difficult to attack, because it is identified with religion, and exposes those who denounce it to the charge of infidelity. Yes, those with whom I have been laboring, namely, the old organization anti-slavery society of America, have been again and again stigmatized as infidels, and for what reason? Why, solely in consequence of the faithfulness of their attacks upon the slaveholding religion of the southern states, and the northern religion that sympathizes with it. I have found it difficult to speak on this matter without persons coming forward and saying, "Douglass. are you not afraid of injuring the cause of Christ? You do not desire to do so, we know; but are you not undermining religion?" This has been said to me again and again, even since I came to this country, but I cannot be induced to leave off these exposures. I love the religion of our blessed Savior. I love that religion that
comes from above, in the "wisdom of God, which is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy." I love that religion that sends its votaries to bind up the wounds of him that has fallen among thieves. I love that religion that makes it the duty of its disciples to visit the fatherless and the widow in their affliction. I love that religion that is based upon the glorious principle, of love to God and love to man; which makes its followers do unto others as they themselves would be done by. If you demand liberty to yourself, it says, grant it to your neighbors. If you claim a right to think for yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the same right. If you claim to act for yourself, it says, allow your neighbors the same right. It is because I love this religion that I hate the slaveholding, the woman-whipping, the mind-darkening, the soul-destroying religion that exists in the southern states of America. It is because I regard the one as good, and pure, and holy, that I cannot but regard the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. Loving the one I must hate the other; holding to the one I must reject the other.
I may be asked, why I am so anxious to bring this subject before the British public—why I do not confine my efforts to the United States? My answer is, first, that slavery is the common enemy of mankind, and all mankind should be made acquainted with its abominable character. My next answer is, that the slave is a man, and, as such, is entitled to your sympathy as a brother. All the feelings, all the susceptibilities, all the capacities, which you have, he has. He is a part of the human family. He has been the prey—the common prey—of christendom for the last three hundred years, and it is but right, it is but just, it is but proper, that his wrongs should be known throughout the world. I have another reason for bringing this matter before the British public, and it is this; slavery is a system of wrong, so blinding to all around, so hardening to the heart, so corrupting to the morals, so deleterious to religion, so sapping to all the principles of justice in its immediate vicinity, that the community surrounding it lack the moral stamina necessary to its removal. It is a system of such gigantic evil, so strong, so overwhelming in its power, that no one nation is equal to its removal. It requires the humanity of christianity, the morality of the world to remove it. Hence, I call upon the people of Britain to look at this matter, and to exert the influence I am about to show they possess, for the removal of slavery from America. I can appeal to them, as strongly by their regard for the slaveholder as for the slave, to labor in this cause. I am here, because you have an influence on America that no other nation can have. You have heen drawn together by the power of steam to a marvelous extent; the
distance between London and Boston is now reduced to some twelve or fourteen days, so that the denunciations against slavery, uttered in London this week, may be heard in a fortnight in the streets of Boston, and reverberating amidst the hills of Massachusetts. There is nothing said here against slavery that will not be recorded in the United States. I am here, also, because the slaveholders do not want me to be here; they would rather that I were not here. I have adopted a maxim laid down by Napoleon, never to occupy ground which the enemy would like me to occupy. The slaveholders would much rather have me, if I will denounce slavery, denounce it in the northern states, where their friends and supporters are, who will stand by and mob me for denouncing it. They feel something as the man felt, when he uttered his prayer, in which he made out a most horrible case for himself, and one of his neighbors touched him and said, "My friend, I always had the opinion of you that you have now expressed for yourself—that you are a very great sinner." Coming from himself, it was all very well, but coming from a stranger it was rather cutting. The slaveholders felt that when slavery was denounced among themselves, it was not so bad; but let one of the slaves get loose, let him summon the people of Britain, and make known to them the conduct of the slaveholders toward their slaves, and it cuts them to the quick, and produces a sensation such as would be produced by nothing else. The power I exert now is something like the power that is exerted by the man at the end of the lever; my influence now is just in proportion to the distance that I am from the United States. My exposure of slavery abroad will tell more upon the hearts and consciences of slaveholders, than if I was attacking them in America: for almost every paper that I now receive from the United States, comes teeming with statements about this fugitive negro, calling him a "glib-tongued scoundrel," and saying that he is running out against the institutions and people of America. I deny the charge that I am saying a word against the institutions of America, or the people, as such. What I have to say is against slavery and slaveholders. I feel at liberty to speak on this subject. I have on my back the marks of the lash; I have four sisters and one brother now under the galling chain. I feel it my duty to cry aloud and spare not. I am not averse to having the good opinion of my fellow-creatures. I am not averse to being kindly regarded by all men; but I am bound, even at the hazard of making a large class of religionists in this country hate me, oppose me, and malign me as they have done—I am bound by the prayers, and tears, and entreaties of three millions of kneeling bondsmen, to have no compromise with men who are in any shape or form connected with the slaveholders of America. I expose slavery in this
country, because to expose it is to kill it. Slavery is one of those monsters of darkness to whom the light of truth is death. Expose slavery, and it dies. Light is to slavery what the heat of the sun is to the root of a tree; it must die under it. All the slaveholder asks of me is silence. He does not ask me to go abroad and preach of slavery; he does not ask any one to do that. He would not say that slavery is a good thing, but the best under the circumstances. The slaveholders want total darkness on the subject. They want the hatchway shut down, that the monster may crawl in his den of darkness, crushing human hopes and happiness, destroying the bondman at will, and having no one to reprove or rebuke him. Slavery shrinks from the light; it hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest its deeds should be reproved. To tear off the mask from this abominable system, to expose it to the light of heaven, aye, to the heat of the sun, that it may burn and wither it out of existence, is my object in coming to this country. I want the slaveholder surrounded, as by a wall of anti-slavery fire, so that he may see the condemnation of himself and his system glaring down in letters of light. I want him to feel thal he has no sympathy in England, Scotland, or Ireland; that he has none in Canada, none in Mexico, none among the poor wild Indians; that the voice of the civilized, aye, and savage world is against him. I would have condemnation blaze down upon him in every direction, till, stunned and overwhelmed with shame and confusion, he is compelled to let go the grasp he holds upon the persons of his victims, and restore them to their long-lost rights.
DR. CAMPBELL'S REPLY.
From Rev. Dr. Campbell's brilliant reply we extract the following:
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, the "beast of burden," the portion of "goods and chattels," the representative of three millions of men has been raised up! Shall I say the ? If there is a man on earth, he is a man. My blood boiled within me when I heard his address tonight, and thought that he had left behind him three millions of such men.
We must see more of this man; we must have more of this man. One would have taken a voyage round the globe some forty years back—especially since the introduction of steam—to have heard such an exposure of slavery from the lips of a slave. It will be an era in the individual history of the present assembly. Our children—our boys and girls—I have to-night seen the delightful sympa1hy of their hearts evinced by their heaving breasts, while their eyes sparkled wi1h wonder and admiration, that this
black man—this slave—had so much logic, so much wit, so much fancy, so much eloquence. He was something more than a man, according to their little notions. Then, I say, we must hear him again. We have got a purpose to accomplish. He has appealed to the pulpit of England. The English pulpit is with him. He has appealed to the press of England; the press of England is conducted by English hearts, and that press will do him justice. About ten days hence, and his second master, who may well prize "such a piece of goods," will have the pleasure of reading his burning words. and his first master will bless himself that he has got quit of him. We have to create public opinion, or rather, not to create it, for it is created already: but we have to foster it; and when to-night I heard those magnificent words—the words of Curran, by which my heart, from boyhood, has ofttimes been deeply moved—I rejoice to think that they embody an instinct of an Englishman's nature. I heard, with inexpressible delight, how they told on this mighty mass of the citizens of the metropolis.
Britain has now no slaves; we can therefore talk to the other nations now, as we could not have talked a dozen years ago. I want the whole of the London ministry to meet Douglass. For as his appeal is to England, and throughout England, I should rejoice in the idea of churchmen and dissenters merging all sectional distinctions in this cause. Let us have a public breakfast. Let the ministers meet him; let them hear him; let them grasp his hand; and let him enlist their sympathies on behalf of the slave. Let him inspire them with abhorrence of the man-stealer—the slaveholder. No slaveholding American shall ever cross my door. No slaveholding or slavery-supporting minister shall ever pollute my pulpit. While I have a tongue to speak, or a hand to write, I will, to the utmost of my power, oppose these slaveholding men. We must have Douglass amongst us to aid in fostering public opinion.
The great conflict with slavery must now take place in America; and while they are adding other slave states to the Union, our business is to step forward and help the abolitionists there. It is a pleasing circumstance that such a body of men has risen in America, and whilst we hurl our thunders against her slavers, let us make a distinction between those who advocate slavery and those who oppose it. George Thompson has been there. This man, Frederick Douglass, has been there, and has been compelled to flee. I wish, when he first set foot on our shores, he had made a solemn vow, and said, "Now that I am free, and in the sanctuary of freedom. I will never return till I have seen the emancipation of my country completed." He wants to surround these men, the slaveholders, as by a wall of fire; and he himself
may do much toward kindling it. Let him travel over the island—east, west, north, and south—everywhere diffusing knowledge and awakening principle, till the whole nation become a body of petitioners to America. He will, he must, do it. He must for a season make England his home. He must send for his wife. He must send for his children. I want to see the sons and daughters of such a sire. We, too, must do something for him and them worthy of the English name. I do not like the idea of a man of such mental dimensions, such moral courage, and all but incomparable talent, having his own small wants, and the wants of a distant wife and children, supplied by the poor profits of his publication, the sketch of his life. Let the pamphlet be bought by tens of thousands. But we will do something more for him, shall we not?
It only remains that we pass a resolution of thanks to Frederick Douglass, the slave that was, the man that is! He that was covered with chains, and that is now being covered with glory, and whom we will send back a gentleman.
LEITER TO HIS OLD MASTER.*
.
SIR—The long and intimate, though by no means friendly, relation which unhappily subsisted between you and myself, leads me to hope that you will easily account for the great liberty which I now take in addressing you in this open and public manner. The same fact may possibly remove any disagreeable surprise which you may experience on again finding your name coupled with mine, in any other way than in an advertisement, accurately describing my person, and offering a large sum for my arrest. In thus dragging you again before the public, I am aware that I shall subject myself to no inconsiderable amount of censure. I shall probably be charged with an unwarrantable, if not a wanton and reckless disregard of the rights and proprieties of private life. There are those north as well as south who entertain a much higher respect for rights which are merely conventional, than they do for rights which are personal and essential. Not a few there are in our country, who, while they have no scruples against robbing the laborer of the hard earned results of his patient industry, will be shocked by the extremely indelicate manner of bringing your name before the public. Believing this
*It is not often that chattels address their owners. The following letter is unique; and probably the only specimen of the kind extant. It was written while in England.
to be the case, and wishing to meet every reasonable or plausible objection to my conduct, I will frankly state the ground upon which I justify myself in this instance, as well as on former occasions when I have thought proper to mention your name in public. All will agree that a man guilty of theft, robbery, or murder, has forfeited the right to concealment and private life; that the community have a right to subject such persons to the most complete exposure. However much they may desire retirement, and aim to conceal themselves and their movements from the popular gaze, the public have a right to ferret them out, and bring their conduct before the proper tribunals of the country for investigation. Sir, you will undoubtedly make the proper application of these generally admitted principles, and will easily see the light in which you are regarded by me; I will not therefore manifest ill temper, by calling you hard names. I know you to be a man of some intelligence, and can readily determine the precise estimate which I entertain of your character. I may therefore indulge in language which may seem to others indirect and ambiguous, and yet be quite well understood by yourself.
I have selected this day on which to address you, because it is the anniversary of my emancipation; and knowing no better way, I am led to this as the best mode of celebrating that truly important event. Just ten years ago this beautiful September morning, yon bright sun beheld me a slave—a poor degraded chattel—trembling at the sound of your voice, lamenting that I was a man, and wishing myself a brute. The hopes which I had treasured up for weeks of a safe and successful escape from your grasp, were powerfully confronted at this last hour by dark clouds of doubt and fear, making my person shake and my bosom to heave with the heavy contest between hope and fear. I have no words to describe to you the deep agony of soul which I experienced on that never-to-be-forgotten morning—for I left by daylight, I was making a leap in the dark. The probabilities, so far as I could by reason determine them, were stoutly against the undertaking. The preliminaries and precautions I had adopted previously, all worked badly. I was like one going to war without weapons—ten chances of defeat to one of victory. One in whom I had confided, and one who had promised me assistance, appalled by fear at the trial hour, deserted me, thus leaving the responsibility of success or failure solely with myself. You, sir, can never know my feelings. As I look back to them, I can scarcely realize that I have passed through a scene so trying. Trying, however, as they were, and gloomy as was the prospect, thanks be to the Most High, who is ever the God of the oppressed, at the moment which was to determine my whole
earthly career, His grace was sufficient; my mind was made up. I embraced the golden opportunity, took the morning tide at the flood, and a free man, young, active, and strong, is the result.
I have often thought I should like to explain to you the grounds upon which I have justified myself in running away from you. I am almost ashamed to do so now, for by this time you may have discovered them yourself. I will, however, glance at them. When yet but a child about six years old, I imbibed the determination to run away. The very first mental effort that I now remember on my part, was an attempt to solve the mystery—why am I a slave? and with this question my youthful mind was troubled for many days, pressing upon me more heavily at times than others. When I saw the slave-driver whip a slave-woman, cut the blood out of her neck, and heard her piteous cries, I went away into the corner of the fence, wept and pondered over the mystery. I had, through some medium, I know not what, got some idea of God, the Creator of all mankind, the black and the white, and that he had made the blacks to serve the whites as slaves. How he could do this and be , I could not tell. I was not satisfied with this theory, which made God responsible for slavery, for it pained me greatly, and I have wept over it long and often. At one time, your first wife, Mrs. Lucretia, heard me sighing and saw me shedding tears, and asked of me the matter, but I was afraid to tell her. I was puzzled with this question, till one night while sitting in the kitchen, I heard some of the old slaves talking of their parents having been stolen from Africa by white men, and were sold here as slaves. The whole mystery was solved at once. Very soon after this, my Aunt Jinny and Uncle Noah ran away, and the great noise made about it by your father-in-law, made me for the first time acquainted with the fact, that there were free states as well as slave states. From that time, I resolved that I would some day run away. The morality of the act I dispose of as follows: I am myself; you are yourself; we are two distinct persons, equal persons. What you are, I am. You are a man, and so am I. God created both, and made us separate beings. I am not by nature bond to you, or you to me. Nature does not make your existence depend upon me, or mine to depend upon yours. I cannot walk upon your legs, or you upon mine. I cannot breathe for you, or you for me; I must breathe for myself, and you for yourself. We are distinct persons, and are each equally provided with faculties necessary to our individual existence. In leaving you, I took nothing but what belonged to me, and in no way lessened your means for obtaining an living. Your faculties remained yours, and mine became useful to their rightful owner. I therefore see no wrong in any part of the transaction. It is true, I
went off secretly; but that was more your fault than mine. Had I let you into the secret, you would have defeated the enterprise entirely; but for this, I should have been really glad to have made you acquainted with my intentions to leave.
You may perhaps want to know how I like my present condition. I am free to say, I greatly prefer it to that which I occupied in Maryland. I am, however, by no means prejudiced against the state as such. Its geography, climate, fertility, and products, are such as to make it a very desirable abode for any man; and but for the existence of slavery there, it is not impossible that I might again take up my abode in that state. It is not that I love Maryland less, but freedom more. You will be surprised to learn that people at the north labor under the strange delusion that if the slaves were emancipated at the south, they would flock to the north. So far from this being the case, in that event, you would see many old and familiar faces back again to the south. The fact is, there are few here who would not return to the south in the event of emancipation. We want to live in the land of our birth, and to lay our bones by the side of our fathers; and nothing short of an intense love of personal freedom keeps us from the south. For the sake of this, most of us would live on a crust of bread and a cup of cold water.
Since I left you, I have had a rich experience. I have occupied stations which I never dreamed of when a slave. Three out of the ten years since I left you, I spent as a common laborer on the wharves of New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was there I earned my first free dollar. It was mine. I could spend it as I pleased. I could buy hams or herring with it, without asking any odds of anybody. That was a precious dollar to me. You remember when I used to make seven, or eight, or even nine dollars a week in Baltimore, you would take every cent of it from me every Saturday night, saying that I belonged to you, and my earnings also. I never liked this conduct on your part—to say the best. I thought it a little mean. I would not have served you so. But let that pass. I was a little awkward about counting money in New England fashion when I first landed in New Bedford. I came near betraying myself several times. I caught myself saying phip, for fourpence; and at one time a man actually charged me with being a runaway, whereupon I was silly enough to become one by running away from him, for I was greatly afraid he might adopt measures to get me again into slavery, a condition I then dreaded more than death.
I soon learned, however, to count money, as well as to make it, and got on swimmingly, I married soon after leaving you; in fact, I was engaged to be married before I left you; and instead of finding my companion a burden,
she was truly a helpmate. She went to live at service, and I to work on the wharf, and though we toiled hard the first winter, we never lived more happily. After remaining in New Bedford for three years, I met with William Lloyd Garrison, a person of whom you have possibly heard, as he is pretty generally known among slaveholders. He put it into my head that I might make myself serviceable to the cause of the slave, by devoting a portion of my time to telling my own sorrows, and those of other slaves, which had come under my observation. This was the commencement of a higher state of existence than any to which I had ever aspired. I was thrown into society the most pure, enlightened, and benevolent, that the country affords. Among these I have never forgotten you, but have invariably made you the topic of conversation—thus giving you all the notoriety I could do. I need not tell you that the opinion formed of you in these circles is far from being favorable. They have little respect for your honesty, and less for your religion.
But I was going on to relate to you something of my interesting experience. I had not long enjoyed the excellent society to which I have referred, before the light of its excellence exerted a beneficial influence on my mind and heart. Much of my early dislike of white persons was removed, and their manners, habits, and customs, so entirely unlike what I had been used to in the kitchen-quarters on the plantations of the south, fairly charmed me, and gave me a strong disrelish for the coarse and degrading customs of my former condition. I therefore made an effort so to improve my mind and deportment, as to be somewhat fitted to the station to which I seemed almost providentially called. The transition from degradation to respectability was indeed great, and to get from one to the other without carrying some marks of one's former condition, is truly a difficult matter. I would not have you think that I am now entirely clear of all plantation peculiarities, but my friends here, while they entertain the strongest dislike to them, regard me with that charity to which my past life somewhat entitles me, so that my condition in this respect is exceedingly pleasant. So far as my domestic affairs are concerned, I can boast of as comfortable a dwelling as your own. I have an industrious and neat companion, and four dear children—the oldest a girl of nine years, and three fine boys, the oldest eight, the next six, and the youngest four years old. The three oldest are now going regularly to school—two can read and write, and the other can spell, with tolerable correctness, words of two syllables. Dear fellows! they are all in comfortable beds, and are sound asleep, perfectly secure under my own roof. There are no slaveholders here to rend my heart by snatching them from my arms, or
blast a mother's dearest hopes by tearing them from her bosom. These dear children are ours—not to work up into rice, sugar, and tobacco, but to watch over, regard, and protect, and to rear them up in the nurture and admonition of the gospel—to train them up in the paths of wisdom and virtue, and, as far as we can, to make them useful to the world and to themselves. Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. I meant to have said more with respect to my own prosperity and happiness, but thoughts and feelings which this recital has quickened, unfits me to proceed further in that direction. The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me; the wails of millions pierce my heart and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip; the death-like gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman; the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market. Say not that this is a picture of fancy. You well know that I wear stripes on my back, inflicted by your direction; and that you, while we were brothers in the same church, caused this right hand, with which I am now penning this letter, to be closely tied to my left, and my person dragged, at the pistol's mouth, fifteen miles, from the Bay Side to Easton, to be sold like a beast in the market, for the alleged crime of intending to escape from your possession. All this, and more, you remember, and know to be perfectly true, not only of yourself, but of nearly all of the slaveholders around you.
At this moment, you are probably the guilty holder of at least three of my own dear sisters, and my only brother, in bondage. These you regard as your property. They are recorded on your ledger, or perhaps have heen sold to human flesh-mongers, with a view to filling your own ever-hungry purse. Sir, I desire to know how and where these dear sisters are. Have you sold them? or are they still in your possession? What has become of them? are they living or dead? And my dear old grandmother, whom you turned out like an old horse to die in the woods—is she still alive? Write and let me know all about them. If my grandmother be still alive, she is of no service to you, for by this time she must be nearly eighty years old—too old to he cared for by one to whom she has ceased to be of service; send her to me at Rochester, or bring her to Philadelphia, and it shall be the crowning happiness of my life to take care of her in her old age. Oh! she was to me a mother and a father, so far as hard toil for my comfort could make her such. Send me my grandmother! that I may watch over and take care of her in her old age. And my sisters—let me know all about them. I would write to them,
and learn all I want to know of them, without disturbing you in any way, but that, through your unrighteous conduct, they have been entirely deprived of the power to read and write. You have kept them in utter ignorance, and have therefore robbed them of the sweet enjoyments of writing or receiving letters from absent friends and relatives. Your wickedness and cruelty, committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul, a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator.
The responsibility which you have assumed in this regard is truly awful, and how you could stagger under it these many years is marvelous. Your mind must have become darkened, your heart hardened, your conscience scared and petrified, or you would have long since thrown off the accursed load, and sought relief at the hands of a sin-forgiving God. How, let me ask, would you look upon me, were I, some dark night, in company with a band of hardened villains, to enter the precincts of your elegant dwelling, and seize the person of your own lovely daughter, Amanda. and carry her off from your family, friends, and all the loved ones of her youth—make her my slave—compel her to work, and I take her wages—place her name on my ledger as property—disregard her personal rights—fetter the powers of her immortal soul by denying her the right and privilege of learning to read and write—feed her coarsely—clothe her scantily, and whip her on the naked back occasionally; more, and still more horrible, leave her unprotected—a degraded victim to the brutal lust of fiendish overseers, who would pollute, blight, and blast her fair soul—rob her of all dignity—destroy her virtue, and annihilate in her person all the graces that adorn the character of virtuous womanhood? I ask, how would you regard me, if such were my conduct? Oh! the vocabulary of the damned would not afford a word sufficiently infernal to express your idea of my God-provoking wickedness. Yet, sir, your treatment of my beloved sisters is in all essential points precisely like the case I have now supposed. Damning as would be such a deed on my part, it would be no more so than that which you have committed against me and my sisters.
I will now bring this letter to a close; you shall hear from me again unless you let me hear from you. I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail the system of slavery—as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening the horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy—and as a means of bringing this
guilty nation, with yourself, to repentance. In doing this, I entertain no malice toward you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed. I should esteem it a privilege to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.
I am your fellow-man, but not your slave.
THE NATURE OF SLAVERY.
MORE than twenty years of my life were consumed in a state of slavery. My childhood was environed by the baneful peculiarities of the slave system. I grew up to manhood in the presence of this hydra-headed monster—not as a master—not as an idle spectator—not as the guest of the slaveholderbut as A SLAVE, eating the bread and drinking the cup of slavery with the most degraded of my brother-bondmen, and sharing with them all the painful conditions of their wretched lot. In consideration of these facts, I feel that I have a right to speak, and to speak . Yet, my friends. I feel bound to speak truly.
Goading as have been the cruelties to which I have been subjected—bitter as have been the trials through which I have passed—exasperating as have been, and still are, the indignities offered to my manhood—I find in them no excuse for the slightest departure from truth in dealing with any branch of this subject.
First of all, I will state, as well as I can, the legal and social relation of master and slave. A master is one—to speak in the vocabulary of the southern states—who claims and exercises a right of property in the person of a fellow-man. This he does with the force of the law and the sanction of southern religion. The law gives the master absolute power over the slave. He may work him, flog him, hire him out, sell him, and, in certain contingencies, him, with perfect impunity. The slave is a human being, divested of all rights—reduced to the level of a brute—a mere "chattel" in the eye of the law—placed beyond the circle of human brotherhood—cut off from his kind—his name, which the "recording angel" may have enrolled in heaven, among the blest, is impiously inserted in a , with horses, sheep, and swine. In law, the slave has no wife, no children, no country, and no home. He can own nothing, possess nothing, acquire
nothing, but what must belong to another. To eat the fruit of his own toil, to clothe his person with the work of his own hands, is considered stealing. He toils that another may reap the fruit; he is industrious that another may live in idleness; he eats unbolted meal that another may eat the bread of fine flour; he labors in chains at home, under a burning sun and biting lash, that another may ride in ease and splendor abroad; he lives in ignorance that another may be educated; he is abused that another may be exalted; he rests his toil-worn limbs on the cold, damp ground that another may repose on the softest pillow; he is clad in coarse and tattered raiment that another may he arrayed in purple and fine linen; he is sheltered only by the wretched hovel that a master may dwell in a magnificent mansion; and to this condition he is bound down as by an arm of iron.
From this monstrous relation there springs an unceasing stream of most revolting cruelties. The very accompaniments of the slave system stamp it as the offspring of hell itself. To ensure good behavior, the slaveholder relies on the whip; to induce proper humility, he relies on the whip; to rebuke what he is pleased to term insolence, he relies on the whip; to supply the place of wages as an incentive to toil, he relies on the whip; to bind down the spirit of the slave, to imbrute and destroy his manhood, he relies on the whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, the pillory, the bowie-knife, the pistol, and the blood-hound. These are the necessary and unvarying accompaniments of the system. Wherever slavery is found, these horrid instruments are also found. Whether on the coast of Africa, among the savage tribes, or in South Carolina, among the refined and civilized, slavery is the same, and its accompaniments one and the same. It makes no difference whether the slaveholder worships the God of the christians, or is a follower of Mahomet, he is the minister of the same cruelty, and the author of the same misery. is always ; always the same foul, haggard, and damning scourge, whether found in the eastern or in the western hemisphere.
There is a still deeper shade to be given to this picture. The physical cruelties are indeed sufficiently harassing and revolting; but they are as a few grains of sand on the sea shore, or a few drops of water in the great ocean, compared with the stupendous wrongs which it inflicts upon the mental, moral, and religious nature of its hapless victims. It is only when we contemplate the slave as a moral and intellectual being, that we can adequately comprehend the unparalleled enormity of slavery, and the intense criminality of the slaveholder. I have said that the slave was a man. "'What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason! How infinite in faculties! In form and
moving how express and admirable! In action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a God! the beauty of the world! the paragon of animals!"
The slave is a man, "the image of God," but "a little lower than the angels;" possessing a soul, eternal and indestructible; capable of endless happiness, or immeasurable woe; a creature of hopes and fears, of affections and passions, of joys and sorrows, and he is endowed with those mysterious powers by which man soars above the things of time and sense, and grasps, with undying tenacity, the elevating and sublimely glorious idea of a God. It is a being that is smitten and blasted. The first work of slavery is to mar and deface those characteristics of its victims which distinguish from , and from . Its first aim is to destroy all sense of high moral and religious responsibility. It reduces man to a mere machine. It cuts him off from his Maker, it hides from him the laws of God, and leaves him to grope his way from time to eternity in the dark, under the arbitrary and despotic control of a frail, depraved, and sinful fellow-man. As the serpent-charmer of India is compelled to extract the deadly teeth of his venomous prey before he is able to handle him with impunity, so the slaveholder must strike down the conscience of the slave before he can obtain the entire mastery over his victim.
It is, then, the first business of the enslaver of men to blunt, deaden, and destroy the central principle of human responsibility. Conscience is, to the individual soul, and to society, what the law of gravitation is to the universe. It holds society together; it is the basis of all trust and confidence; it is the pillar of all moral rectitude. Without it, suspicion would take the place of trust; vice would be more than a match for virtue; men would prey upon each other, like the wild beasts of the desert; and earth would become a .
Nor is slavery more adverse to the conscience than it is to the mind. This is shown by the fact, that in every state of the American Union where slavery exists, except the state of Kentucky, there are laws absolutely prohibitory of education among the slaves. The crime of teaching a slave to read is punishable with severe fines and imprisonment, and, in some instances, with .
Nor are the laws respecting this matter a dead letter. Cases may occur in which they are disregarded, and a few instances may be found where slaves may have learned to read; but such are isolated cases, and only prove the rule. The great mass of slaveholders look upon education among the slaves as utterly subversive of the slave system. I well remember when my mistress first announced to my master that she had discovered that I could read. His face colored at once with surprise and chagrin. He said that "I was
ruined, and my value as a slave destroyed; that a slave should know nothing but to obey his master; that to give a negro an inch would lead him to take an ell; that having learned how to read, I would soon want to know how to write; and that by-and-by I would be running away." I think my audience will bear witness to the correctness of this philosophy, and to the literal fulfillment of this prophecy.
It is perfectly well understood at the south, that to educate a slave is to make him discontented with slavery, and to invest him with a power which shall open to him the treasures of freedom; and since the object of the slaveholder is to maintain complete authority over his slave, his constant vigilance is exercised to prevent everything which militates against, or endangers, the stability of his authority. Education being among the menacing influences, and, perhaps, the most dangerous, is, therefore, the most cautiously guarded against.
It is true that we do not often hear of the enforcement of the law, punishing as a crime the teaching of slaves to read, but this is not because of a want of disposition to enforce it. The true reason or explanation of the matter is this: there is the greatest unanimity of opinion among the white population in the south in favor of the policy of keeping the slave in ignorance. There is, perhaps, another reason why the law against education is so seldom violated. The slave is too poor to be able to offer a temptation sufficiently strong to induce a white man to violate it; and it is not to be supposed that in a community where the moral and religious sentiment is in favor of slavery, many martyrs will he found sacrificing their liberty and lives by violating those prohibitory enactments.
As a general rule. then. darkness reigns overthe abodes of the enslaved, and "how great is that darkness!"
We are sometimes told of the contentment of the slaves, and are entertained with vivid pictures of their happiness. We are told that they often dance and sing; that their masters frequently give them wherewith to make merry; in fine, that they have little of which to complain. I admit that the slave does sometimes sing, dance, and appear to be merry. But what does this prove? It only proves to my mind, that though slavery is armed with a thousand stings, it is not able entirely to kill the elastic spirit of the bondman. That spirit will rise and walk abroad, despite of whips and chains, and extract from the cup of nature occasional drops of joy and gladness. No thanks to the slaveholder, nor to slavery, that the vivacious captive may sometimes dance in his chains; his very mirth in such circumstances stands before God as an accusing angel against his enslaver.
It is often said, by the opponents of the anti-slavery cause, that the condition of the people of Ireland is more deplorable than that of the American slaves. Far be it from me to underrate the sufferings of the Irish people. They have been long oppressed; and the same heart that prompts me to plead the cause of the American bondman, makes it impossible for me not to sympathize with the oppressed of all lands. Yet I must say that there is no analogy between the two cases. The Irishman is poor, but he is not a slave. He may be in rags, but he is not a slave. He is still the master of his own body, and can say with the poet. "The hand of Douglass is his own." "The world is all before him, where to choose;" and poor as may be my opinion of the British parliament, I cannot believe that it will ever sink to such a depth of infamy as to pass a law for the recapture of fugitive Irishmen! The shame and scandal of kidnapping will long remain wholly monopolized hy the American congress. The Irishman has not only the liberty to emigrate from his country, but he has liberty at home. He can write, and speak, and cooperate for the attainment of his rights and the redress of his wrongs.
The multitude can assemble upon all the green hills and fertile plains of the Emerald Isle; they can pour out their grievances, and proclaim their wants without molestation; and the press, that "swift-winged messenger," can bear the tidings of their doings to the extreme hounds of the civilized world. They have their "Conciliation Hall," on the banks of the Liffey, their reform clubs, and their newspapers; they pass resolutions, send forth addresses, and enjoy the right of petition. But how is it with the American slave? Where may he assemble? Where is his Conciliation Hall? Where are his newspapers? Where is his right of petition? Where is his freedom of speech? his liberty of the press? and his right of locomotion? He is said to be happy; happy men can speak. But ask the slave what is his condition—what his state of mind—what he thinks of enslavementt; and you had as well address your inquiries to the . There comes no voice from the enslaved. We are left to gather his feelings by imagining what ours would be, were our souls in his soul's stead.
If there were no other fact descriptive of slavery, than that the slave is dumb, this alone would be sufficient to mark the slave system as a grand aggregation of human horrors.
Most who are present, will have observed that leading men in this country have been putting forth their skill to secure quiet to the nation. A system of measures to promote this object was adopted a few months ago in congress. The result of those measures is known. Instead of quiet, they have produced alarm; instead of peace, they have brought us war; and so it must ever be.
While this nation is guilty of the enslavement of three millions of innocent men and women, it is as idle to think of having a sound and lasting peace, as it is to think there is no God to take cognizance of the affairs of men. There can be no peace to the wicked while slavery continues in the land. It will he condemned; and while it is condemned there will be agitation. Nature must cease to be nature; men must become monsters; humanity must be transformed; christianity must be exterminated; all ideas of justice and the laws of eternal goodness must be utterly blotted out from the human soul,—ere a system so foul and infernal can escape condemnation, or this guilty republic can have a sound, enduring peace.
INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY.
THE relation of master and slave has been called patriarchal, and only second in benignity and tenderness to that of the parent and child. This representation is doubtless believed by many northern people; and this may account, in part, for the lack of interest which we find among persons whom we are bound to believe to he honest and humane. What, then, are the facts? Here I will not quote my own experience in slavery; for this you might call one-sided testimony. I will not cite the declarations of abolitionists; for these you might pronounce exaggerations. I will not rely upon advertisements cut from newspapers; for these you might call isolated cases But I will refer you to the laws adopted by the legislatures of the slave states. I give you such evidence, because it cannot be invalidated nor denied. I hold in my hand sundry extracts from the slave codes of our country, from which 1 will quote.* * *
Now, if the foregoing be an indication of kindness, what is If this be parental affection, A more atrocious and blood-thirsty string of laws could not well be conceived of. And yet I am bound to say that they fall short of indicating the horrible cruelties constantly practiced in the slave states.
I admit that there are individual slaveholders less cruel and barbarous than is allowed by law; but these form the exception. The majority of slaveholders find it necessary, to insure obedience, at times, to avail themselves of the utmost extent of the law, and many go beyond it. If kindness were the rule, we should not see advertisements filling the columns of almost every southern newspaper, offering large rewards for fugitive slaves, and describing
them as being branded with irons, loaded with chains, and scarred by the whip. One of the most telling testimonies against the pretended kindness of slaveholders, is the fact that uncounted numbers of fugitives are now inhabiting the Dismal Swamp, preferring the untamed wilderness to their cultivated homes—choosing rather to encounter hunger and thirst, and to roam with the wild beasts of the forest, running the hazard of being hunted and shot down, than to submit to the authority of masters.
I tell you, my friends, humanity is never driven to such an unnatural course of life, without great wrong. The slave finds more of the milk of human kindness in the bosom of the savage Indian, than in the heart of his master. He leaves the man of the bible, and takes refuge with the man of the . He rushes from the praying slaveholder into the paws of the bear. He quits the homes of men for the haunts of wolves. He prefers to encounter a life of trial, however bitter, or death, however terrible, to dragging out his existence under the dominion of these masters.
The apologists for slavery often speak of the abuses of slavery; and they tell us that they are as much opposed to those abuses as we are; and that they would go as far to correct those abuses and to ameliorate the condition of the slave as anybody. The answer to that view is, that slavery is itself an abuse; that it lives by abuse; and dies by the absence of abuse. Grant that slavery is right; grant that the relation of master and slave may innocently exist; and there is not a single outrage which was ever committed against the slave but what finds an apology in the very necessity of the case. As was said by a slaveholder, (the Rev. A . G. Few,) to the Methodist conference, "If the relation be right, the means to maintain it are also right:" for without those means slavery could not exist. Remove the dreadful scourge—the plaited thong—the galling fetter—the accursed chain—and let the slaveholder rely solely upon moral and religious power, by which to secure obedience to his orders, and how long do you suppose a slave would remain on his plantation? The case only needs to be stated; it carries its own refutation with it.
Absolute and arbitrary power can never be maintained by one man over the body and soul of another man, without brutal chastisement and enormous cruelty.
To talk of s entering into a relation in which one party is robbed of wife, of children, of his hard earnings, of home, of friends, of society, of knowledge, and of all that makes this life desirable, is most absurd, wicked, and preposterous.
I have shown that slavery is wicked—wicked, in that it violates the
great law of liberty, written on every human heart-wicked, in that it violates the first command of the decalogue—wicked, in that it fosters the most disgusting licentiousness—wicked, in that it mars and defaces the image of God by cruel and barbarous inflictions—wicked, in that it contravenes the laws of eternal justice, and tramples in the dust all the humane and heavenly precepts of the New Testament.
The evils resulting from this huge system of iniquity are not confined to the states south of Mason and Dixon's line. Its noxious influence can easily be traced throughout our northern borders. It comes even as far north as the state of New York. Traces of it may be seen even in Rochester; and travelers have told me it casts its gloomy shadows across the lake, approaching the very shores of Queen Victoria's dominions.
The presence of slavery may be explained by—as it is the explanation of—the mobocratic violence which lately disgraced New York, and which still more recently disgraced the city of Boston. These violent demonstrations, these outrageous invasions of human rights, faintly indicate the presence and power of slavery here. It is a significant fact, that while meetings for almost any purpose under heaven may be held unmolested in the city of Boston, that in the same city, a meeting cannot be peaceably held for the purpose of preaching the doctrine of the American Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal." The pestiferous breath of slavery taints the whole moral atmosphere of the north, and enervates the moral energies of the whole people.
The moment a foreigner ventures upon our soil, and utters a natural repugnance to oppression, that moment he is made to feel that there is little sympathy in this land for him. If he were greeted with smiles before, he meets with frowns now; and it shall go well with him if he be not subjected to that peculiarly fitting method of showing fealty to slavery, the assaults of a mob.
Now, will any man tell me that such a state of things is natural, and that such conduct on the part of the people of the north, springs from a consciousness of rectitude? No! every fibre of the human heart unites in detestation of tyranny, and it is only when the human mind has become familiarized with slavery, is accustomed to its injustice, and corrupted by its selfishness, that it fails to record its abhorrence of slavery, and does not exult in the triumphs of liberty.
The northern people have been long connected with slavery; they have been linked to a decaying corpse, which has destroyed the moral health. The union of the government; the union of the north and south, in the
political parties; the union in the religious organizations of the land, have all served to deaden the moral sense of the northern people, and to impregnate them with sentiments and ideas forever in conflict with what as a nation we call . Rightly viewed, this is an alarming fact, and ought to rally all that is pure, just, and holy in one determined effort to crush the monster of corruption, and to scatter "its guilty profits" to the winds. In a high moral sense, as well as in a national sense, the whole American people are responsible for slavery, and must share, in its guilt and shame, with the most obdurate men-stealers of the south.
While slavery exists, and the union of these states endures, every American citizen must bear the chagrin of hearing his country branded before the world as a nation of liars and hypocrites; and behold his cherished national flag pointed at with the utmost scorn and derision. Even now an American is pointed out in the crowd, as coming from a land where men gain their fortunes by "the blood of souls," from a land of slave markets, of blood-hounds, and slave-hunters; and, in some circles, such a man is shunned altogether, as a moral pest. Is it not time, then, for every American to awake, and inquire into his duty with respect to this subject'?
Wendell Phillips—the eloquent New England orator—on his return from Europe, in 1842. said, "As I stood upon the shores of Genoa, and saw floating on the placid waters of the Mediterranean, the beautiful American war ship Ohio, with her masts tapering proportionately aloft, and an eastern sun reflecting her noble form upon the sparkling waters, attracting the gaze of the multitude, my first impulse was of pride, to think myself an American; but when I thought that the first time that gallant ship would gird on her gorgeous apparel, and wake from beneath her sides her dormant thunders. it would be in defense of the African slave trade, I blushed in utter for my country."
Let me say again, it is a blot upon the American name, and the only national reproach which need make an American hang his head in shame, in the presence of monarchical governments.
With this gigantic evil in the land, we are constantly told to look if we say ought against crowned heads, we are pointed to our enslaved millions; if we talk of sending missionaries and bibles abroad, we are pointed to three millions now lying in worse than heathen darkness; if we express a word of sympathy for Kossuth and his Hungarian fugitive brethren, we are pointed to that horrible and hell-black enactment. "the fugitive slave bill."
Slavery blunts the edge of all our rebukes of tyranny abroad—the criticisms that we make upon other nations, only call forth ridicule, contempt, and scorn. In a word, we are made a reproach and a by-word to a mocking earth, and we must continue to be so made, so long as slavery continues to pollute our soil.
We have heard much of late of the virtue of patriotism, the love of country, &c., and this sentiment, so natural and so strong, has been impiously appealed to, by all the powers of human selfishness, to cherish the viper which is stinging our national life away. In its name, we have been called upon to deepen our infamy before the world, to rivet the fetter more firmly on the limbs of the enslaved, and to become utterly insensible to the voice of human woe that is wafted to us on every southern gale. We have been called upon, in its name, to desecrate our whole land by the footprints of slave-hunters, and even to engage ourselves in the horrible business of kidnapping.
I, too, would invoke the spirit of patriotism; not in a narrow and restricted sense, but, I trust, with a broad and manly signification; not to cover up our national sins, but to inspire us with sincere repentance; not to hide our shame from the world's gaze, but utterly to abolish the cause of that shame; not to explain away our gross inconsistencies as a nation, but to remove the hateful, jarring, and incongruous elements from the land; not to sustain an egregious wrong, but to unite all our energies in the grand effort to remedy that wrong.
I would invoke the spirit of patriotism, in the name of the law of the living God, natural and revealed, and in the full belief that "righteousness exalteth a nation, while sin is a reproach to any people." "He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly; he that despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from the holding of bribes, he shall dwell on high, his place of defense shall be the munitions of rocks, bread shall be given him, his water shall he sure."
We have not only heard much lately of patriotism, and of its aid being invoked on the side of slavery and injustice, but the very prosperity of this people has been called in to deafen them to the voice of duty, and to lead them onward in the pathway of sin. Thus has the blessing of God been converted into a curse. In the spirit of genuine patriotism, I warn the American people, by all that is just and honorable, to BEWARE!
I warn them that, strong, proud, and prosperous though we be, there is a power ahove us that can "bring down high looks; at the breath of whose mouth our wealth may take wings; and before whom every knee shall
bow;" and who can tell how soon the avenging angel may pass over our land, and the sable bondmen now in chains, may become the instruments of our nation's chastisement! Without appealing to any higher feeling, I would warn the American people, and the American government, to be wise in their day and generation. I exhort them to remember the history of other nations; and I remind them that America cannot always sit "as a queen," in peace and repose; that prouder and stronger governments than this have been shattered by the bolts of a just God; that the time may come when those they now despise and hate, may be needed; when those whom they now compel by oppression to be enemies, may be wanted as friends. What has been, may be again. There is a point beyond which human endurance cannot go. The crushed worm may yet turn under the heel of the oppressor. I warn them, then, with all solemnity, and in the name of retributive justice, for in an evil hour, those sable arms that have, for the last two centuries, been engaged in cultivating and adorning the fair fields of our country, may yet become the instruments of terror, desolation, and death, throughout our borders.
It was the sage of the Old Dominion that said—while speaking of the possibility of a conflict between the slaves and the slaveholders—-"God has no attribute that could take sides with the oppressor in such a contest. I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, and that his justice cannot sleep forever." Such is the warning voice of Thomas Jefferson; and every day's experience since its utterance until now, confirms its wisdom, and commends its truth.
WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?
FELLOW-CITIZENS—Pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the blessings, resulting from your independence to us?
Would to God, both for your sakes and ours, that an affirmative answer could be truthfully returned to these questions! Then would my task be light, and my burden easy and delightful. For who is there so cold that a
nation's sympathy could not warm him? Who so obdurate and dead to the claims of gratitude, that would not thankfully acknowledge such priceless benefits? Who so stolid and selfish, that would not give his voice to swell the hallelujahs of a nation's jubilee, when the chains of servitude had been torn from his limbs? I am not that man. In a case like that, the dumb might eloquently speak, and the "lame man leap as an hart."
But, such is not the state of the case. I say it with a sad sense of the disparity between us. I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth of July is , not . You may rejoice. must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, towering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin! I can to-day take up the plaintive lament of a peeled and woe-smitten people.
"By the rivers of Babylon. there we sat down. Yea! we wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For there, they that carried us away captive, required of us a song; and they who wasted us required of us mirth, saying, Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How can we sing the Lord's song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth."
Fellow-citizens, above your national, tumultuous joy, I hear the mournful wail of millions, whose chains, heavy and grievous yesterday, are today rendered more intolerable by the jubilant shouts that reach them. If I do forget, if I do not faithfully remember those bleeding children of sorrow this day, "may my right hand forget her cunning, and may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth!" To forget them, to pass lightly over their wrongs, and to chime in with the popular theme, would be treason most scandalous and shocking, and would make me a reproach before God and the world. My subject, then, fellow-citizens, is AMERICAN SLAVERY. I shall see this day and its popular characteristics from the slave's point of view.
Standing there, identified with the American bondman, making his wrongs mine, I do not hesitate to declare, with all my soul, that the character and conduct of this nation never looked blacker to me than on this Fourth of July. Whether we tum to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false to the future. Standing with God and the crushed and bleeding slave on this occasion, I will, in the name of humanity which is outraged, in the name of liberty which is fettered, in the name of the constitution and the bible, which are disregarded and trampled upon, dare to call in question and to denounce, with all the emphasis I can command. everything that serves to perpetuate slavery--the great sin and shame of America'!—I will not equivocate; I will not excuse;" I will use the severest language I can command; and yet not one word shall escape me that any man, whose judgment is not blinded by prejudice, or who is not at heart a slaveholder, shall not confess to be right and just.
But I fancy I hear some one of my audience say, it is just in this circumstance that you and your brother abolitionists fail to make a favorable impression on the public mind. Would you argue more, and denounce less, would you persuade more and rebuke less, your cause would be much more likely to succeed. But, I submit, where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. What point in the anti-slavery creed would you have me argue? On what branch of the subject do the people of this country need light? Must I undertake to prove that the slave is a man? That point is conceded already. Nobody doubts it. The slaveholders themselves acknowledge it in the enactment of laws for their government. They acknowledge it when they punish disobedience on the part of the slave. There arc seventy-two crimes in the state of Virginia, which, if committed by a black man, (no matter how ignorant he be,) subject him to the punishment of death; while only two of these same crimes will subject a white man to the like punishment. What is this but the acknowledgment that the slave is a moral, intellectual, and responsible being. The manhood of the slave is conceded. It is admitted in the fact that southern statute books are covered with enactments forbidding, under severe fines and penalties, the teaching of the slave to read or write. When you can point to any such laws, in reference to the beasts of the field, then I may consent to argue the manhood of the slave. When the dogs in your streets, when the fowls of the air, when the cattle on your hills, when the fish of the sea, and the reptiles that crawl, shall be unable to distinguish the slave from a brute, then will I argue with you that the slave is a man!
For the present, it is enough to affirm the equal manhood of the negro race. Is it not astonishing that, while we are plowing, planting, and reaping, using all kinds of mechanical tools, erecting houses, constructing bridges, building ships, working in metals of brass, iron, copper, silver, and gold; that, while we arc reading, writing, and cyphering, acting as clerks, merchants. and secretaries, having among us lawyers, doctors, ministers, poets, authors, editors, orators. and teachers; that, while we are engaged in all manner of enterprises common to other men—digging gold in California, capturing the whale in the Pacific, feeding sheep and cattle on the hill-side, living, moving, acting, thinking, planning, living in families as husbands, wives, and children, and, above all, confessing and worshiping the christian 's God, and looking hopefully for life and immortality beyond the grave—we are called upon to prove that we are men!
Would you have me argue that man is entitled to liberty? that he is the rightful owner of his own body? You have already declared it. Must I argue the wrongfulness of slavery? Is that a question for republicans? Is it to be settled by the rules of logic and argumentation, as a matter beset with great difficulty, involving a doubtful application of the principle of justice, hard to be understood? How should I look to-day in the presence of Americans, dividing and subdividing a discourse, to show that men have a natural right to freedom, speaking of it relatively and positively, negatively and affirmatively?To do so, would be to make myself ridiculous. and to offer an insult to your understanding. There is not a man beneath the canopy of heaven that does not know that slavery is wrong .
What! am I to argue that it is wrong to make men brutes, to rob them of their liberty, to work them without wages, to keep them ignorant of their relations to their fellow-men, to beat them with sticks, to flay their flesh with the lash, to load their limbs with irons, to hunt them with dogs, to sell them at auction, to sunder their families, to knock out their teeth, to burn their flesh, to starve them into obedience and submission to their masters? Must I argue that a system, thus marked with blood and stained with pollution, is wrong! No; I will not. I have better employment for my time and strength than such arguments would imply.
What, then, remains to he argued? Is it that slavery is not divine; that God did not establish it; that our doctors of divinity are mistaken? There is blasphemy in the thought. That which is inhuman cannot be divine. Who can reason on such a proposition! They that can, may; I cannot. The time for such argument is past.
At a time like this, scorching irony, not convincing argument, is needed.
Oh! had I the ability, and could I reach the nation's ear, I would to-day pour out a fiery stream of biting ridicule, blasting reproach, withering sarcasm, and stem rebuke. For it is not light that is needed, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake. The feeling of the nation must be quickened; the conscience of the nation must be roused; the propriety of the nation must be startled; the hypocrisy of the nation must be exposed; and its crimes against God and man must be proclaimed and denounced.
What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour.
Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the old world, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the every-day practices of this nation, and you will say with me. that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE.
TAKE the American slave trade, which, we are told by the papers, is especially prosperous just now. Ex-senator Benton tells us that the price of men was never higher than now. He mentions the fact to show that slavery is in no danger. This trade is one of the peculiarities of American institutions. It is carried on in all the large towns and cities in one-half of this confederacy: and millions are pocketed every year by dealers in this horrid traffic. In several states this trade is a chief source of wealth . It is called (in contradistinction to the foreign slave trade) "." It is, probably,
called so, too, in order to divert from it the horror with which the foreign slave trade is contemplated. That trade has long since been denounced by this government as piracy. It has been denounced with burning words, from the high places of the nation, as an execrable traffic. To arrest it, to put an end to it, this nation keeps a squadron, at immense cost, on the coast of Africa. Everywhere in this country, it is safe to speak of this foreign slave trade as a most inhuman traffic, opposed alike to the laws of God and of man. The duty to extirpate and destroy it is admitted even by our . In order to put an end to it, some of these last have consented that their colored brethren (nominally free) should leave this country, and estahlish themselves on the western coast of Africa. It is, however, a notable fact, that, while so much execration is poured out by Americans, upon those engaged in the foreign slave trade, the men engaged in the slave trade between the states pass without condemnation, and their business is deemed honorable.
Behold the practical operation of this internal slave trade—the American slave trade sustained hy American politics and American religion! Here you will see men and women reared like swine for the market. You know what is a swine-drover? I will show you a man-drover. They inhabit all our southern states. They perambulate the country, and crowd the highways of the nation with droves of human stock. You will see one of these human-flesh-jobbers, armed with pistol, whip, and bowie-knife, driving a company of a hundred men, women, and children, from the Potomac to the slave market at New Orleans. These wretched people are to be sold singly, or in lots, to suit purchasers. They are food for the cotton-field and the deadly sugar-mill. Mark the sad procession as it moves wearily along, and the inhuman wretch who drives them. Hear his savage yells and his bloodchilling oaths, as he hurries on his affrighted captives. There, see the old man, with locks thinned and gray. Cast one glance, if you please, upon that young mother, whose shoulders are bare to the scorching sun, her briny tears falling on the brow of the habe in her arms. See, too, that girl of thirteen, weeping, yes, weeping, as she thinks of the mother from whom she has been torn. The drove moves tardily. Heat and sorrow have nearly consumed their strength. Suddenly you hear a quick snap, like the discharge of a rifle; the fetters clank, and the chain rattles simultaneously; your ears are saluted with a scream that seems to have torn its way to the center of your soul. The crack you heard was the sound of the slave whip; the scream you heard was from the woman you saw with the babe. Her speed had faltered under the weight of her child and her chains; that gash on her shoulder tells
her to move on. Follow this drove to New Orleans. Attend the auction; see men examined like horses; see the forms of women rudely and brutally exposed to the shocking gaze of American slave-buyers. See this drove sold and separated forever; and never forget the deep, sad sobs that arose from that scattered multitude. Tell me, citizens, where, under the sun, can you witness a spectacle more fiendish and shocking. Yet this is but a glance at the American slave trade, as it exists at this moment, in the ruling part of the United States.
I was born amid such sights and scenes. To me the American slave trade is a terrible reality. When a child, my soul was often pierced with a sense of its horrors. I lived on Philpot street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and have watched from the wharves the slave ships in the basin, anchored from the shore, with their cargoes of human flesh, waiting for favorablc winds to waft them down the Chesapeake. There was, at that time, a grand slave man kept at the head of Pratt street, by Austin Woldfolk. His agents were sent into every town and county in Maryland, announcing their arrival through the papers, and on flaming hand-bills, headed, "cash for negroes." These men were generally well dressed, and very captivating in their manners; ever ready to drink, to treat, and to gamble. The fate of many a slave has depended upon the turn of a single card; and many a child has been snatched from the arms of its mother by bargains arranged in a state of brutal drunkenness.
The flesh-mongers gather up their victims by dozens, and drive them, chained, to the general depot at Baltimore. When a sufficient number have been collected here, a ship is chartered, for the purpose of conveying the forlorn crew to Mobile or to New Orleans. From the slave-prison to the ship, they are usually driven in the darkness of night; for since the antislavery agitation a cenain caution is observed.
In the deep, still darkness of midnight, I have been often aroused by the dead, heavy footsteps and the piteous cries of the chained gangs that passed our door. The anguish of my boyish heart was intense; and I was often consoled, when speaking to my mistress in the morning, to hear her say that the custom was very wicked; that she hated to hear the rattle of the chains, and the heart-rending cries. I was glad to find one who sympathized with me in my horror.
Fellow-citizens, this murderous traffic is to-day in active operation in this boasted republic. In the solitude of my spirit, I see clouds of dust raised on the highways of the south; I see the bleeding footsteps; I hear the doleful wail of fettered humanity, on the way to the slave markets. where the victims are to be sold like horses, sheep, and swine, knocked off to the highest
bidder. There I see the tenderest ties ruthlessly broken, to gratify the Just, caprice, and rapacity of the buyers and sellers of men. My soul sickens at
the sight.
"Is this the land your fathers loved?
The freedom which they toiled to win?
Is this the earth whereon they moved?
Are these the graves they slumber in?"
But a still more inhuman, disgraceful, and scandalous state of things remains to be presented. By an act of the American congress, not yet two years old, slavery has been nationalized in its most horrible and revolting form. By that act, Mason and Dixon's line has been obliterated; New York has become as Virginia; and the power to hold, hunt, and sell men, women, and children as slaves, remains no longer a mere state institution, but is now an institution of the whole United States. The power is co-extensive with the star-spangled banner and American christianity. Where these go, may also go the merciless slave-hunter. Where these are, man is not sacred. He is a bird for the sportsman's gun. By that most foul and fiendish of all human decrees, the liberty and person of every man are put in peril. Your broad republican domain is a hunting-ground for . Not for thieves and robbers, enemies of society, merely, but for men guilty of no crime. Your law-makers have commanded all good citizens to engage in this hellish sport. Your president, your secretary of state, your lords, nobles. and ecclesiastics, enforce as a duty you owe to your free and glorious country and to your God, that you do this accursed thing. Not fewer than forty Americans have within the past two years been hunted down, and without a moment's warning, hurried away in chains, and consigned to slavery and excruciating torture. Some of these have had wives and children dependent on them for bread; but of this no account was made. The right of the hunter to his prey, stands superior to the right of marriage, and to all rights in this republic, the rights of God included! For black men there are neither law, justice, humanity, nor religion. The fugitive slave law makes MERCY TO THEM A CRIME; and bribes the judge who tries them. An American judge GETS TEN DOLLARS FOR EVERY VICTIM HE CONSIGNS to slavery, and five, when he fails to do so. The oath of any two villains is sufficient, under this hell-black enactment, to send the most pious and exemplary black man into the remorseless jaws of slavery! His own testimony is nothing. He can bring no witnesses for himself. The minister of American justice is bound by the law to hear but one side; and that side is the side of the oppressor. Let
this damning fact be perpetually told. Let it be thundered around the world, that, in tyrant-killing, king-hating, people-loving, democratic, christian America, the seats of justice are filled with judges, who hold their office under an open and palpable , and are bound, in deciding in the case of a man's liberty,
In glaring violation of justice, in shameless disregard of the forms of administering law, in cunning arrangement to entrap the defenseless, and in diabolical intent, this fugitive slave law stands alone in the annals of tyrannical legislation. I doubt if there be another nation on the globe having the brass and the baseness to put such a law on the statute-hook. If any man in this assembly thinks differently from me in this matter, and feels able to disprove my statements, I will gladly confront him at any suitable time and
place he may select.
THE SLAVERY PARTY
SIR, it is evident that there is in this country a purely slavery party—a party which exists for no other earthly purpose but to promote the interests of slavery. The presence of this party is felt everywhere in the republic. It is known by no particular name, and has assumed no definite shape; but its branches reach far and wide in the church and in the state. This shapeless and nameless party is not intangible in other and more important respects. That party, sir, has determined upon a fixed, definite, and comprehensive policy toward the whole colored population of the United States. What that policy is, it becomes us as abolitionists, and especially does it become the colored people themselves, to consider and to understand fully. We ought to know who our enemies are, where they are, and what are their objects and measures. Well, sir, here is my version of it—not original with me—but mine because I hold it to be true.
I understand this policy to comprehend five cardinal objects. They are these: 1st. The complete suppression of all anti-slavery discussion. 2d. The expatriation of the entire free people of color from the United States. 3d. The unending perpetuation of slavery in this republic. 4th. The nationalization of slavery to the extent of making slavery respected in every state of the Union. 5th. The extension of slavery over Mexico and the entire South American states.
Sir, these objects are forcibly presented to us in the stern logic of passing events; in the facts which are and have been passing around us during the last three years. The country has been and is now dividing on these grand issues. In their magnitude, these issues cast all others into the shade, depriving them of all life and vitality. Old party ties are broken. Like is finding its like on either side of these great issues, and the great battle is at hand. For the present, the best representative of the slavery party in politics is the democratic party. Its great head for the present is President Pierce, whose boast it was, before his election, that his whole life had been consistent with the interests of slavery, that he is above reproach on that score. In his inaugural address, he reassures the south on this point. Well, the head of the slave power being in power, it is natural that the pro-slavery elements should cluster around the administration, and this is rapidly being done. A fraternization is going on. The stringent protectionists and the free-traders strike hands. The supporters of Fillmore are becoming the supporters of Pierce. The silver-gray whig shakes hands with the hunker democrat; the former only differing from the latter in name. They are of one heart, one mind, and the union is natural and perhaps inevitable. Both hate negroes; both hate progress; both hate the "higher law;" both hate William H. Seward; both hate the free democratic party; and upon this hateful basis they are forming a union of hatred. "Pilate and Herod are thus made friends." Even the central organ of the whig party is extending its beggar hand for a morsel from the table of slavery democracy, and when spurned from the feast by the more deserving, it pockets the insult; when kicked on one side it turns the other, and perseveres in its importunities. The fact is, that paper comprehends the demands of the times; it understands the age and its issues; it wisely sees that slavery and freedom are the great antagonistic forces in the country, and it goes to its own side. Silver grays and hunkers all understand this. They are, therefore, rapidly sinking all other questions to nothing, compared with the increasing demands of slavery. They are collecting, arranging, and consolidating their forces for the accomplishment of their appointed work.
The keystone to the arch of this grand union of the slavery party of the United States, is the compromise of 1850. In that compromise we have all the objects of our slaveholding policy specified. It is, sir, favorable to this view of the designs of the slave power, that both the whig and the democratic party bent lower, sunk deeper, and strained harder, in their conventions, preparatory to the late presidential election, to meet the demands of the slavery party than at any previous time in their history. Never did parties
come before the northern people with propositions of such undisguised contempt for the moral sentiment and the religious ideas of that people. They virtually asked them to unite in a war upon free speech, and upon conscience, and to drive the Almighty presence from the councils of the nation. Resting their platforms upon the fugitive slave bill, they boldly asked the people for political power to execute the horrible and hell-black provisions of that bill. The history of that election reveals, with great clearness, the extent to which slavery has shot its leprous distillment through the life-blood of the nation. The party most thoroughly opposed to the cause of justice and humanity, triumphed; while the party suspected of a leaning toward liberty, was overwhelmingly defeated, some say annihilated.
But here is a still more important fact, illustrating the designs of the slave power. It is a fact full of meaning, that no sooner did the democratic slavery party come into power, than a system of legislation was presented to the legislatures of the northern states, designed to put the states in harmony with the fugitive slave law, and the malignant bearing of the national government toward the colored inhabitants of the country. This whole movement on the part of the states, bears the evidence of having one origin, emanating from one head, and urged forward by one power. It was simultaneous, uniform, and general, and looked to one end. It was intended to put thorns under feet already bleeding; to crush a people already bowed down; to enslave a people already but half free; in a word, it was intended to discourage, dishearten, and drive the free colored people out of the country. In looking at the recent black law of Illinois, one is struck dumb with its enormity. It would seem that the men who enacted that law, had not only banished from their minds all sense of justice, but all sense of shame. It coolly proposes to sell the bodies and souls of the black to increase the intelligence and refinement of the whites; to rob every black stranger who ventures among them, to increase their literary fund.
While this is going on in the states, a pro-slavery, political board of health is established at Washington. Senators Hale, Chase, and Sumner are robbed of a part of their senatorial dignity and consequence as representing sovereign states, because they have refused to be inoculated with the slavery virus. Among the services which a senator is expected by his state to perform, are many that can only be done efficiently on committees; and. in saying to these honorable senators, you shall not serve on the committees of this body, the slavery party took the responsibility of robbing and insulting the states that sent them. It is an attempt at Washington to decide for the states who shall be sent to the senate. Sir, it strikes me that this aggression
on the part of the slave power did not meet at the hands of the proscribed senators the rebuke which we had a right to expect would be administered. It seems to me that an opportunity was lost, that the great principle of senatorial equality was left undefended, at a time when its vindication was sternly demanded. But it is not to the purpose of my present statement to criticise the conduct of our friends. I am persuaded that much ought to be left to the discretion of anti-slavery men in congress, and charges of recreancy should never be made but on the most sufficient grounds. For, of all the places in the world where an anti-slavery man needs the confidence and encouragement of friends, I take Washington to be that place.
Let me now call attention to the social influences which are operating and cooperating with the slavery party of the country, designed to contribute to one or all of the grand objects aimed at by that party. We see here the black man attacked in his vital interests; prejudice and hate are excited against him; enmity is stirred up between him and other laborers. The Irish people, warm-hearted, generous, and sympathizing with the oppressed everywhere, when they stand upon their own green island, are instantly taught, on arriving in this christian country, to hate and despise the colored people. They are taught to believe that we eat the bread which of right belongs to them. The cruel lie is told the Irish, that our adversity is essential to their prosperity. Sir, the Irish-American will find out his mistake one day. He will find that in assuming our avocation he also has assumed our degradation. But for the present we are sufferers. The old employments by which we have heretofore gained our livelihood, are gradually, and it may be inevitably, passing into other hands. Every hour sees us elbowed out of some employment to make room perhaps for some newly-arrived emigrants, whose hunger and color are thought to give them a title to especial favor. White men are becoming house-servants, cooks, and stewards, common laborers, and flunkeys to our gentry, and, for aught I see, they adjust themselves to their stations with all becoming obsequiousness. This fact proves that if we cannot rise to the whites, the whites can fall to us. Now, sir, look once more. While the colored people are thus elbowed out of employment; while the enmity of emigrants is being excited against us; while state after state enacts laws against us; while we are hunted down, like wild game, and oppressed with a general feeling of insecurity—the American colonization society—that old offender against the best interests and slanderer of the colored people—awakens to new life, and vigorously presses its scheme upon the consideration of the people and the government. New papers are started—some for the north and some for the south—and each in its tone
adapting itself to its latitude. Government, state and national, is called upon for appropriations to enable the society to send us out of the country by steam! They want steamers to carry letters and negroes to Africa. Evidently, this society looks upon our "extremity as its opportunity," and we may expect that it will use the occasion well. They do not deplore, but glory, in our misfortunes.
But, sir, I must hasten. I have thus briefly given my view of one aspect of the present condition and future prospects of the colored people of the United States. And what I have said is far from encouraging to my afflicted people. I have seen the cloud gather upon the sable brows of some who hear me. I confess the case looks black enough. Sir, I am not a hopeful man. I think I am apt even to undercalculate the benefits of the future. Yet, sir, in this seemingly desperate case, I do not despair for my people. There is a bright side to almost every picture of this kind; and ours is no exception to the general rule. If the influences against us are strong, those for us are also strong. To the inquiry, will our enemies prevail in the execution of their designs. In my God and in my soul, I believe they . Let us look at the first object sought for by the slavery party of the country, viz: the suppression of anti-slavery discussion. They desire to suppress discussion on this subject, with a view to the peace of the slaveholder and the security of slavery. Now, sir, neither the principle nor the subordinate objects here declared, can be at all gained by the slave power, and for this reason: It involves the proposition to padlock the lips of the whites, in order to secure the fetters on the limbs of the blacks. The right of speech, precious and priceless, , be surrendered to slavery. Its suppression is asked for, as I have said, to give peace and security to slaveholders. Sir, that thing cannot be done. God has interposed an insuperable obstacle to any such result. "There can be , saith my God, to the wicked." Suppose it were possible to put down this discussion, what would it avail the guilty slaveholder, pillowed as he is upon the heaving bosoms of ruined souls? He could not have a peaceful spirit. If every anti-slavery tongue in the nation were silent—every anti-slavery organization dissolved—every anti-slavery press demolished—every anti-slavery periodical, paper, book, pamphlet, or what not, were searched out, gathered together, deliberately burned to ashes, and their ashes given to the four winds of heaven, still, still the slaveholder could have "" In every pulsation of his heart, in every throb of his life, in every glance of his eye, in the breeze that soothes, and in the thunder that startles, would be waked up an accuser, whose cause is, "Thou art, verily, guilty concerning thy brother."
THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT.
A GRAND movement on the part of mankind, in any direction, or for any purpose, moral or political, is an interesting fact, fit and proper to be studied. It is such, not only for those who eagerly participate in it, but also for those who stand aloof from it—even for those by whom it is opposed. I take the anti-slavery movement to be such an one, and a movement as sublime and glorious in its character, as it is holy and beneficent in the ends it aims to accomplish. At this moment, I deem it safe to say, it is properly engrossing more minds in this country than any other subject now before the American people. The late John C. Calhoun—one of the mightiest men that ever stood up in the American senate—did not deem it beneath him; and he probably studied it as deeply, though not as honestly, as Gerrit Smith, or William Lloyd Garrison. He evinced the greatest familiarity with the subject; and the greatest efforts of his last years in the senate had direct reference to this movement. His eagle eye watched every new development connected with it: and he was ever prompt to inform the south of every important step in its progress. He never allowed himself to make light of it; but always spoke of it and treated it as a matter of grave import; and in this he showed himself a master of the mental, moral, and religious constitution of human society. Daniel Webster, too, in the better days of his life, before he gave his assent to the fugitive slave bill, and trampled upon all his earlier and better convictions—when his eye was yet single—he clearly comprehended the nature of the elements involved in this movement; and in his own majestic eloquence, warned the south, and the country, to have a care how they attempted to put it down. He is an illustration that it is easier to give, than to take, good advice. To these two men—the greatest men to whom the nation has yet given birth—may be traced the two great facts of the present--the south triumphant, and the north humbled. Their names may stand thus,—Calhoun and domination—Webster and degradation. Yet again. If to the enemies of liberty this subject is one of engrossing interest, vastly more so should it be such to freedom's friends. The latter, it leads to the gates of all valuable knowledge—philanthropic, ethical, and religious; for it brings them to the study of man, wonderfully and fearfully made—the proper study of man through all time--the open book, in which are the records of time and eternity.
Of the existence and power of the anti-slavery movement, as a fact, you need no evidence. The nation has seen its face, and felt the controlling pressure of its hand. You have seen it moving in all directions, and in all weathers, and in all places, appearing most where desired least, and pressing hardest where most resisted. No place is exempt. The quiet prayer meeting, and the stormy halls of national debate, share its presence alike. It is a common intruder, and of course has the name of being ungentlemanly. Brethren who had long sung, in the most affectionate fervor, and with the greatest sense of security,
'Together let us sweetly live—together let us die."
have been suddenly and violently separated by it, and ranged in hostile attitude toward each other. The Methodist, one of the most powerful religious organizations of this country, has been rent asunder, and its strongest bolts of denominational brotherhood started at a single surge. It has changed the tone of the northern pulpit, and modified that of the press. A celebrated divine, who, four years ago. was for flinging his own mother, or brother, into the remorseless jaws of the monster slavery, lest he should swallow up the Union, now recognizes anti-slavery as a characteristic of future civilization. Signs and wonders follow this movement; and the fact just stated is one of them. Party ties are loosened by it; and men are compelled to take sides for or against it, whether they will or not. Come from where he may, or come for what he may, he is compelled to show his hand. What is this mighty force? What is its history? and what is its destiny? Is it ancient or modern, transient or permanent? Has it turned aside, like a stranger and a sojourner, to tarry for a night? or has it come to rest with us forever? Excellent chances are here for speculation; and some of them are quite profound. We might, for instance, proceed to inquire not only into the philosophy of the anti-slavery movement, but into the philosophy of the law, in obedience to which that movement started into existence. We might demand to know what is that law or power which, at different times. disposes the minds of men to this or that particular object—now for peace, and now for war—now for freedom, and now for slavery; but this profound question I leave to the abolitionists of the superior class to answer. The speculations which must precede such answer, would afford, perhaps, about the same satisfaction as the learned theories which have rained down upon the world, from time to time, as to the origin of evil. I shall, therefore, avoid water in which I cannot swim, and deal with anti-slavery as a fact, like any other fact in the history of mankind, capable of being
described and understood, both as to its internal forces, and its external
phases and relations.
[After an eloquent, a full, and highly interesting exposition of the nature, character, and history of the anti-slavery movement, from the insertion of which want of space precludes us, he concluded in the following happy manner.]
Present organizations may perish, but the cause will go on. That cause has a life, distinct and independent of the organizations patched up from time to time to carry it forward. Looked at, apart from the bones and sinews and body, it is a thing immortal. It is the very essence of justice, liberty, and love. The moral life of human society, it cannot die while conscience, honor, and humanity remain. If but one be filled with it, the cause lives. Its incarnation in any one individual man, leaves the whole world a priesthood, occupying the highest moral eminence—even that of disinterested benevolence. Whoso has ascended this height, and has the grace to stand there, has the world at his feet, and is the world's teacher, as of divine right. He may set in judgment on the age, upon the civilization of the age, and upon the religion of the age; for he has a test, a sure and certain test, by which to try all institutions, and to measure all men. I say, he may do this, but this is not the chief business for which he is qualified. The great work to which he is called is not that of judgment. Like the Prince of Peace, he may say, if I judge, I judge righteous judgment; still mainly, like him, he may say, this is not his work. The man who has thoroughly embraced the principles of justice, love, and liberty, like the true preacher of christianity, is less anxious to reproach the world of its sins, than to win it to repentance. His great work on earth is to exemplify, and to illustrate, and to ingraft those principles upon the living and practical understandings of all men within the reach of his influence. This is his work; long or short his years, many or few his adherents, powerful or weak his instrumentalities, through good report, or through bad report, this is his work. It is to snatch from the bosom of nature the latent facts of each individual man 's experience, and with steady hand to hold them up fresh and glowing, enforcing, with all his power, their acknowledgment and practical adoption. If there be but one such man in the land, no matter what becomes of abolition societies and parties, there will be an anti-slavery cause, and an anti-slavery movement. Fortunately for that cause, and fortunately for him by whom it is espoused, it requires no extraordinary amount of talent to preach it or to receive it when preached. The grand secret of its power is, that each of its principles is easily rendered
appreciable to the faculty of reason in man, and that the most unenlightened conscience has no difficulty in deciding on which side to register its testimony. It can call its preachers from among the fishermen, and raise them to power. In every human breast, it has an advocate which can be silent only when the heart is dead. It comes home to every man's understanding, and appeals directly to every man's conscience. A man that does not recognize and approve for himself the rights and privileges contended for, in behalf of the American slave, has not yet been found. In whatever else men may differ, they are alike in the apprehension of their natural and personal rights. The difference between abolitionists and those by whom they are opposed, is not as to principles. All are agreed in respect to these. The manner of applying them is the point of difference.
The slaveholder himself, the daily robber of his equal brother, discourses eloquently as to the excellency of justice, and the man who employs a brutal driver to flay the flesh of his negroes, is not offended when kindness and humanity are commended. Every time the abolitionist speaks of justice, the anti-abolitionist assents—says, yes, I wish the world were filled with a disposition to render to every man what is rightfully due him; I should then get what is due me. That's right; let us have justice. By all means, let us have justice. Every time the abolitionist speaks in honor of human liberty, he touches a chord in the heart of the anti-abolitionist, which responds in harmonious vibrations. Liberty—yes, that is very evidently my right, and let him beware who attempts to invade or abridge that right. Every time he speaks of love, of human brotherhood, and the reciprocal duties of man and man, the anti-abolitionist assents—says, yes, all right—all true—we cannot have such ideas too often, or too fully expressed. So he says, and so he feels, and only shows thereby that he is a man as well as an anti-abolitionist. You have only to keep out of sight the manner of applying your principles, to get them endorsed every time. Contemplating himself, he sees truth with absolute clearness and distinctness. He only blunders when asked to lose sight of himself. In his own cause he can beat a Boston lawyer, but he is dumb when asked to plead the cause of others. He knows very well whatsoever he would have done unto himself, but is quite in doubt as to having the same thing done unto others. It is just here, that lions spring up in the path of duty, and the battle once fought in heaven is refought on the earth. So it is, so hath it ever been, and so must it ever be, when the claims of justice and mercy make their demand at the door of human selfishness. Nevertheless, there is that within which ever pleads for the right and the just.
In conclusion, I have taken a sober view of the present anti-slavery movement. I am sober, but not hopeless. There is no denying, for it is everywhere admitted, that the anti-slavery question is the great moral and social question now before the American people. A state of things has gradually been developed, by which that question has become the first thing in order. It must be met. Herein is my hope. The great idea of impartial liberty is now fairly before the American people. Anti-slavery is no longer a thing to be prevented. The time for prevention is past. This is great gain. When the movement was younger and weaker—when it wrought in a Boston garret to human apprehension, it might have been silently put out of the way. Things are different now. It has grown too large—its friends are too numerous—its facilities too abundant—its ramifications too extended—its power too omnipotent, to be snuffed out by the contingencies of infancy. A thousand strong men might be struck down, and its ranks still be invincible. One flash from the heart-supplied intellect of Harriet Beecher Stowe could light a million camp fires in front of the embattled host of slavery, which not all the waters of the Mississippi, mingled as they are with blood, could extinguish. The present will he looked to by after coming generations, as the age of anti-slavery literature—when supply on the gallop could not keep pace with the ever-growing demand--when a picture of a negro on the cover was a help to the sale of a book—when conservative lyceums and other American literary associations began first to select their orators for distinguished occasions from the ranks of the previously despised abolitionists. If the anti-slavey movement shall fail now, it will not be from outward opposition, but from inward decay. Its auxiliaries are everywhere. Scholars, authors, orators, poets, and statesmen give it their aid. The most brilliant of American poets volunteer in its service. Whittier speaks in burning verse to more than thirty thousand, in the National Era. Your own Longfellow whispers, in every hour of trial and disappointment, "labor and wait." James Russell Lowell is reminding us that "men are more than institutions." Pierpont cheers the heart of the pilgrim in search of liberty, by singing the praises of "the north star." Bryant, too, is with us; and though chained to the car of party, and dragged on amidst a whirl of political excitement, he snatches a moment for letting drop a smiling verse of sympathy for the man in chains. The poets are with us. It would seem almost absurd to say it, considering the use that has been made of them, that we have allies in the Ethiopian songs; those songs that constitute our national music, and without which we have no national music. They are heart songs, and the finest feelings of human nature are expressed in them. "Lucy Neal." "Old
Kentucky Home," and "'Uncle Ned," can make the heart sad as well as merry, and can call forth a tear as well as a smile. They awaken the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root, grow, and flourish. In addition to authors, poets, and scholars at home, the moral sense of the civilized world is with us. England. France, and Germany, the three great lights of modem civilization, are with us, and every American traveler learns to regret the existence of slavery in his country. The growth of intelligence, the influence of commerce, steam, wind, and lightning are our allies. It would be easy to amplify this summary, and to swell the vast conglomeration of our material forces; but there is a deeper and truer method of measuring the power of our cause, and of comprehending its vitality. This is to be found in its accordance with the best elements of human nature. It is beyond the power of slavery to annihilate affinities recognized and established by the Almighty. The slave is bound to mankind by the powerful and inextricable net-work of human brotherhood. His voice is the voice of a man, and his cry is the cry of a man in distress, and man must cease to be man before he can become insensible to that cry. It is the righteousness of the cause—the humanity of the cause—which constitutes its potency. As one genuine bank-bill is worth more than a thousand counterfeits, so is one man, with right on his side, worth more than a thousand in the wrong. '"One may chase a thousand, and put ten thousand to flight." It is, therefore, upon the goodness of our cause, more than upon all other auxiIiaries, that we depend for its final triumph.
Another source of congratulation is the fact that, amid all the efforts made by the church, the government, and the people at large, to stay the onward progress of this movement, its course has been onward, steady, straight, unshaken, and unchecked from the beginning. Slavery has gained victories large and numerous; but never as against this movement—against a temporizing policy, and against northern timidity, the slave power has been victorious; but against the spread and prevalence in the country, of a spirit of resistance to its aggression, and of sentiments favorahle to its entire overthrow, it has yet accomplished nothing. Every measure, yet devised and executed, having for its object the suppression of anti-slavery, has been as idle and fruitless as pouring oil to extinguish fire. A general rejoicing took place on the passage of "the compromise measures" of 1850. Those measures were called peace measures, and were afterward termed by both the great parties of the country, as well as by leading statesmen, a final settlement of the whole question of slavery; but experience has laughed to scorn the wisdom of pro-slavery statesmen; and their final settlement of
agitation seems to be the final revival, on a broader and grander scale than ever before, of the question which they vainly attempted to suppress forever. The fugitive slave bill has especially been of positive service to the anti-slavery movement. It has illustrated before all the people the horrible character of slavery toward the slave, in hunting him down in a free state, and tearing him away from wife and children, thus setting its claims higher than marriage or parental claims. It has revealed the arrogant and overbearing spirit of the slave states toward the free states; despising their principles—shocking their feelings of humanity, not only by bringing before them the abominations of slavery, but by attempting to make them parties to the crime. It has called into exercise among the colored people, the hunted ones, a spirit of manly resistance well calculated to surround them with a bulwark of sympathy and respect hitherto unknown. For men are always disposed to respect and defend rights, when the victims of oppression stand up manfully for themselves.
There is another element of power added to the anti-slavery movement, of great importance; it is the conviction, becoming every day more general and universal, that slavery must he abolished at the south, or it will demoralize and destroy liberty at the north. It is the nature of slavery to beget a state of things all around it favorable to its own continuance. This fact, connected with the system of bondage, is heginning to he more fully realized. The slave-holder is not satisfied to associate with men in the church or in the state, unless he can thereby stain them with the blood of his slaves. To be a slave-holder is to be a propagandist from necessity; for slavery can only live by keeping down the under-growth morality which nature supplies. Every new-born white babe comes armed from the Eternal presence, to make war on slavery. The heart of pity, which would melt in due time over the brutal chastisements it sees inflicted on the helpless, must be hardened. And this work goes on every day in the year, and every hour in the day.
What is done at home is being done also abroad here in the north. And even now the question may be asked, have we at this moment a single free state in the Union? The alarm at this point will become more general. The slave power must go on in its career of exactions. Give, give, will be its cry, till the timidity which concedes shall give place to courage, which shall resist. Such is the voice of experience, such has been the past, such is the present, and such will he that future, which, so sure as man is man, will come. Herc I leave the subject; and I leave off where I began, consoling myself and congratulating the friends of freedom upon the fact that the anti-slavery
cause is not a new thing under the sun; not some moral delusion which a few years' experience may dispel. It has appeared among men in all ages, and summoned its advocates from all ranks. Its foundations arc laid in the deepest and holiest convictions, and from whatever soul the demon, selfishness, is expelled, there will this cause take up its abode. Old as the everlasting hills; immovable as the throne of God; and certain as the purposes of eternal power, against all hindrances. and against all delays, and despite all the mutations of human instrumentalities, it is the faith of my soul, that this anti-slavery cause will triumph.