FREDERICK DOUGLASS TO MARTIN R. DELANY

Rochester, [N.Y.] 19 Jan[uary] 1848.

MY DEAR DELANYDelany, Martin Robison

Born to a free mother and a slave father in Charlestown, in western Virginia, Martin Robison Delany (1812-85) was an editor, physician, and leading advocate of black emigration. In 1822 Delany's mother moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where his father later joined them, and the young Delany attended a local school. In 1831 he moved to Pittsburgh where he worked as a barber, attended a school run by a black Methodist minister, and studied medicine, upgrading his occupation from “cupper and leecher“ to physician. Between 1843 and 1847, Delany was editor of the Mystery, a black Pittsburgh newspaper. For the next two years he served as co-editor of Doug1ass’s North Star and lectured and traveled extensively to gain new subscriptions for that paper. In 1850-51 Delany attended Harvard Medical College but, owing to protests from white students, was denied admission to the final term needed to complete his medical degree. The following year he wrote The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered (Philadelphia, 1852), in which he argued that emigration was the only remedy for the oppressed state of black Americans. When many black abolitionists, including Douglass, rejected Delany's position, he organized a series of National Emigration Conventions that met in 1854, 1856, and 1858. These assemblies created a permanent National Board of Commissioners, of which Delany was president and chief propagandist. In 1856 Delany moved to Chatham, Canada West, and three years later explored the Niger river valley in Africa looking for possible emigration sites. His novel Blake was serialized in the Weekly Anglo-African from November 1861 through May 1862. During the Civil War, Delany served the North first as a recruiter and examining surgeon and eventually as a major of the 104th U.S. Colored Troops. From 1865 to 1868 Delany was a Freedmen's Bureau officer in South Carolina and later was active in that state's politics, running unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor on the Independent Republican ticket in 1874. Ullman, Martin R. Delany, 52-103, 115-21, 140-71, 211-46; Dorothy Sterling, The Making of an Afro-American: Martin Robison Delany, 1812—1885 (Garden City, N.Y., 1971); Thomas Holt, Black Over White: Negro Political Leadership in South Carolina during Reconstruction (Urbana, Ill., 1977), 74-75, 176-77; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 115-33, 171-83; Martin R. Delany, Blake; or, The Huts of America, ed. Floyd J. Miller (Boston, 1970), ix; DAB, 5: 219-20. .

Yours of 10 Jan.¹Delany’s 10 January 1848 letter to Douglass has not been located. enclosing 20 Dollars came safely to hand. It afforded both myself and Mr. Nell²William C. Nell. great pleasure to hear from you, and we mutually regret to learn the illniss of of your Dear Child,³Apparently one of Delany’s children was quite ill. In a letter dated 28 January 1848, Delany apologized for his tardiness in corresponding with Douglass and blamed it on “indisposition in my family.” The letter noted, “I am little prepared for writing, especially when fatigued, at the bedside of a tender and interesting child.” NS, 11 February 1848. and hope that ere this its healt has been restored. How strangely your old friends are behaving toward you. What can it mean? We shall publish in this weeks paper your

Validictory to the readers of the Mystery.⁴Delany’s final editorial as editor of the Mystery appeared in Douglass’s newspaper. NS, 21 January 1848. I have been very busy this week in lecturing and trying to obtain subscribers but have not done much. The work is uphill just now—but I hope there is a good time coming.⁵Composers such as Henry Russell and Stephen C. Foster adapted a poem by Charles Mackay titled “The Good Time Coming” to song in various arrangements. Popular in antislavery circles, the song was a standard in performances by the Hutchinson family. Charles Mackay, The Poetical Works of Charles Mackay (London, 1876), 209–10; William W. Austin, “Susanna,” “Jeanie, ” and “The Old Folks at Home”: The Songs of Stephen C. Foster from His Time to Ours (New York, 1975), 18–19, 34–35. I am now boarding with Mr. Joiner,⁶Charles Joiner was a black clothes cleaner who lived at 48 Atwater Street in Rochester, New York. Daily American Directory for the City of Rochester [for 1847–48] (Rochester, 1847), 229; Daily American Directory for the City of Rochester [for 1849–50] (Rochester, 1849), 255. whose family is well and disire love to you. Mr. Nell will finish this letter. I shall leave here thursday for Pen Yan,⁷Douglass traveled to Pen Yan, New York, where he spoke on 22 and 23 January 1848. NS, 21 January 1848; Yates County Whig, 1 February 1848. where, I hope to get some subscribers. Every thing will depend upon our getting subscribers. I am out on the Mexican war this week.⁸In a 21 January 1848 editorial, Douglass attacked U.S. involvement in the Mexican-American War. He remarked, “Mexico seems a doomed victim to Anglo Saxon cupidity and love of domination,” characterized the war as a “slaveholding crusade,” and condemned politicians of both parties for being afraid to voice opposition to the war. NS, 21 January 1848. My best love to your family.

Yours always.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 1, frame 648, FD Papers, DLC.