LIFE AND TIMES

OF

FREDERICK DOUGLASS,

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

HIS EARLY LIFE AS ASLAVE, HIS ESCAPE FROM BONDAGE,
AND HIS COMPLETE HISTORY

TO THE

PRESENT TIME

INCLUDING HIS CONNECTION WITH THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT; HIS LABORS IN GREAT
BRITAIN AS WELL AS HIS OWN COUNTRY; HIS EXPERIENCE IN THE CONDUCT OF AN INFLUENTIAL NEWSPAPER; HIS CONNECTION WITH THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD; HIS RELATIONS WITH JOHN BROWN AND THE HARPER'S FERRY RAID; HIS RECRUITING THE 54th AND 55th MASS. COLORED REGIMENTS; HIS INTERVIEWS WITH PRESIDENTS LINCOLN AND JOHNSON; HIS APPOINTMENT BY GEN. GRANT TO ACCOMPANY THE SANTO DOMINGO COMMISSION; ALSO TO A SEAT IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA; HIS APPOINTMENT AS UNITED STATES MARSHAL BY PRESIDENT R. B. HAYES; ALSO HIS APPOINTMENT BY PRESIDENT J. A. GARFIELD TO BE RECORDER OF DEEDS IN WASHINGTON; WITH MANY OTHER INTERESTING AND IMPORTANT EVENTS OF HIS MOST EVENTFUL LIFE;

WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

BY MR. GEORGE L. RUFFIN,^†Historical annotation: George L. Ruffin] George Lewis Ruffin (1834-86), a lawyer and judge, was born in Richmond, Virginia, to free blacks. In 1853 his family moved to Boston, where he attended Chapman Hall School, became involved in the Republican party, and met Josephine St. Pierre, whom he married in 1858. Soon after their wedding, the couple left for Liverpool, England, hoping to escape the pervasive racial discrimination in America, but after six months they returned to Boston, where Ruffin took up barbering. During the Civil War, he participated in the Home Guard and the Sanitary Commission. In 1869 Ruffin graduated from Harvard Law School, becoming the first black to earn an L.L.B. degree from that institution. After joining the bar, Ruffin became involved in politics and was elected to the Massachusetts state legislature and the Boston Common Council. In addition to running a thriving law firm, Ruffin was appointed as a municipal judge in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and as Boston's consul resident for the Dominican Republic in 1883. J. Clay Smith, Jr., "In Freedom's Birthplace: The Making of George Lewis Ruffin, The First Black Law Graduate of Harvard University," Howard Law Journal, 39:201-35 (Fall 1995); Rayford W. Logan and Michael R. Winston, eds., Dictionary of American Negro Biography (New York, 1982), 535.
OF BOSTON.

HARTFORD, CONN.:
PARK PUBLISHING CO.
1881.

Title page. 1881 edition. Frederick Douglass Papers Editorial Office. Indianapolis

COPYRIGHTED BY
PARK PUBLISHING CO.,
1881.

Copyright page, 1881 edition. Frederick Douglass Papers Editorial Office, Indianapolis

INTRODUCTION.

Just what this country has in store to benefit or to startle the world in the future, no tongue can tell. We know full well the wonderful things which have occurred or have been accomplished here in the past, but the still more wonderful things which we may well say will happen in the centuries of development which lie before us, is vain conjecture, it lies in the domain of speculation.

America will be the field for the demonstration of truths not now accepted and the establishment of a new and higher civilization. Horace Walpole's prophecy^†Fourth earl of Oxford, historian Horace Walpole (1717-97) laments what he perceives to be Europe's inevitable cultural decline. He shares his vision of future sites of renewed creativity and intellectual advance on the American continents in his letter of 24 November 1774 to Sir Horace Mann. Ruffin utilizes these sentiments in order to place Douglass's achievements as both former slave and American at the vanguard of this shift: "The next Augustan age will dawn on the other side of the Atlantic. There will be, perhaps a Thucydides at Boston, a Xenophon at New York, and in time a Virgil at Mexico and a Newton at Peru Horace Walpole's Correspondence, with Sir Horace Mann, ed. W. S. Lewis et al., 48 vols. (New Haven, Conn., 1937-83), 8:59-64; John Cannon et al., eds., The Blackwell Dictionary of Historians (New York, 1988), 439-40; The Dictionary of National Biography, 22 vols. (London, 1921-22), 20:627-33. will be verified when there shall be a Xenophon^†Xenophon (c. 428-c. 354 BCE), Greek historian and orator, was a contemporary of Socrates. whom he met while fighting in the Peloponnesian War. Xenophon produced fifteen works, including Hellenica, a contemporary history of Greece from 411 to 362 BCE. He probably intended to complete Thucydides's history of the Peloponnesian War but later extended his history to include the Spartan defeat at Mantineia. Xenophon also composed works of political science, adventure, andinstruction. Michael Grant, Greek and Roman Historians: Information and Misinformation (London, 1995), 9-10; Kelly Boyd, ed., Encyclopedia of Historians and Historical Writing, 2 vols. (Chicago, 1999), 2:1343-44; Cannon, Blackwell Dictionary of Historians. 459-60. at New York and a Thucydides^†Thucydides (c. 460/455-c. 400 BCE), Greek historian and Athenian general, wrote The Peloponnesian War, a contemporary history covering all but the last seven years of the war in which he participated. Because of his interest in numbers, chronology, and causation, he is considered the first "scientific historian." Thucydides's history is often studied for its literary value as well as for its historical accounts. Grant, Greek and Roman Historians, 7-9; Boyd, Encyclopedia of Historians, 2:1193; Cannon, Blackwell Dictionary of Historians, 412-13. at Boston. Up to this time the most remarkable contribution this country has given to the world is the Author and subject of this book, now being introduced to the public—Frederick Douglass. The contribution comes naturally and legitimately and to some not unexpectedly, nevertheless it is altogether unique and must be regarded as truly remarkable. Our Pantheon^†A group of illustrious persons, but originally a term used for a temple to officially recognized gods. contains many that are illustrious and worthy, but Douglass is unlike all others, he is sui generis^†Of one's own class; singular.. For every other great character we can bring forward, Europe can produce another equally as great; when we bring forward Douglass, he cannot be matched.

Douglass was born a slave, he won his liberty; he is of negro extraction^†Douglass's mother was Maryland slave Harriet Bailey (1792-1825 ). The identity of his father is not certain, but since his skin color was considerably lighter than that of his siblings, Douglass concluded that it was a white man. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 5, 8., and consequently was despised and outraged; he has by his own energy and force of character commanded the respect of the Nation; he was ignorant, he has, against law and by stealth and entirely unaided, educated himself; he was poor, he has by honest toil and industry become rich and independent, so to speak; he, a chattel slave of a hated and cruelly wronged race, in the teeth of American prejudice and in face of nearly every kind of hindrance and draw-back, has come to be one of the foremost orators of the age, with a reputation established on both sides of the Atlantic; a writer of power and elegance of expression; a thinker whose views are potent in controlling and shaping public opinion; a high officer in the National Government^†At the time that George Ruffin composed this introductionm Douglass had held the following federal posts: assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission (1871); marshal of the District of Columbia (1877-81); recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia (1881-86). McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 276-77, 289, 291-92, 306, 335.; a cultivated gentleman whose virtues as a husband, father,^†Douglass married Anna Murray (c. 1813-82) in September 1838. The couple had five children: Rosetta Douglass Sprague (1839-1906); Lewis Henry Douglass (1840-1908); Frederick Douglass, Jr. (1842-92); Charles Remond Douglass (1844-1920); and Annie Douglass (1849-60). McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 73, 81, 97, 103, 161, 207, 365. and citizen are the highest honor a man can have.

Frederick Douglass stands upon a pedestal; he has reached this lofty height through years of toil and strife, but it has been the strife of moral ideas; strife in the battle for human rights. No bitter memories come from this strife; no feelings of remorse can rise to cast their gloomy shadows over

his soul; Douglass has now reached and passed the meridian of life,^†At the time that Ruffin composed this introduction, Douglass was approximately sixty-three years of age. 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," Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folders 9, 165, Dodge Collection, MdAA. Further evidence for the year 1818 is presented in Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 31-34, 218. his co-laborers in the strife have now nearly all passed away. GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. has gone, Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. has gone,^†Editorial Emendation: Gerritt GiddingsGiddings, Joshua Reed

Joshua Reed Giddings (1795-1864), antislavery congressman from Ohio, was first elected to the House of Representatives as a Whig in 1838. He vigorously opposed the "gag rule," the annexation of Texas, and the Mexican-American War. In 1842, while negotiations were underway with Great Britain over the Creole affair, Giddings introduced unpopular resolutions supporting the right of mutiny for slaves aboard the British ship. Widely opposed, Giddings immediately resigned his seat, appealed to his constituents, and won reelection by an overwhelming margin. In 1848 Giddings left the Whig party to join the Free Soilers and then allied himself with the Republicans after the Kansas-Nebraska Act. Passed over for renomination in 1858 on account of his antislavery radicalism and declining health, Giddings was a delegate to the 1860 Republican convention, at which he and his allies forced the adoption of a plank endorsing the principles of the Declaration of Independence. In the last three years of his life, Giddings served as the consul general to Canada. James Brewer Stewart, Joshua R. Giddings and the Tactics of Radical Politics (Cleveland, 1970); Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography, 6 vols. (New York, 1888-89), 4:478; DAB, 7:260-61; Biographical Directory of the United States Congress, 1774-Present (online). and SumnerSumner, Charles

Best remembered as the victim of a vicious attack by a congressional colleague, Charles Sumner (1811-74), U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1851-74), was dedicated to the cause of emancipation. Born in Boston, Sumner attended and then taught at Harvard College. He engaged in a semi-successful law practice until his outspoken opposition to the United States war against Mexico thrust him into politics. He was a founder of the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts, and a coalition of Free Soilers and Democrats elected him to the U.S. Senate in 1850. Immediately embroiling himself in the heated topic of slavery, Sumner became an outspoken advocate of emancipation and repeatedly refuted compromises proposed by Henry Clay and others. After one particularly scathing speech in the Senate against slavery, Sumner was brutally beaten with a cane by a Southern representative, which necessitated years of recovery before Sumner was able to reenter the Senate. Sumner’s lasting legacy was to turn popular sentiment in the North toward emancipation, and after the Civil War, he continued to fight for the individual freedoms of blacks until his sudden death in 1874. Frederick J. Blue, Charles Sumner and the Conscience of the North (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1994); David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1960); DAB, 18:208-14. have gone,—nearly all the early abolitionists are gone to their reward. The culmination of his life work has been reached; the object dear to his heart—the Emancipation of the slaves^†After many drafts and revisions, President Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation on 1 January 1863. In it Lincoln declared all the slaves in the Confederate states to be free, thereby deliberately granting all slaveholding Border States immunity. To address northerners' fears that the emancipation would cause a large-scale slave rebellion, Lincoln included pleas to ex-slaves to behave peaceably unless justifiably provoked. As an act of war, the legality of this proclamation was questionable. especially after the war's end. Thus beginning in 1864 the Senate debated the first draft of a constitutional amendment that would outlaw slavery. The first attempt at passage was defeated by the Democrats in the House of Representatives, and the issue languished until Congress reconvened in 1865. Lincoln's proactive approach to the bill's passage, coupled with the nation's growing weariness of the war, paid off in January 1865, when the bill passed Congress. A sufficient number of states had ratified the amendment by December of the same year, ending all constitutional questions regarding emancipation. Michael Vorenberg, Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment (Cambridge, Eng., 2001), 26-60, 89-114, 176-210.—has been accomplished, through the blessings of God; he stands facing the goal, already reached by his co-laborers, with a halo of peace about him, and nothing but serenity and gratitude must fill his breast. To those, who in the past—in ante-bellum days—in any degree shared with Douglass his hopes and feelings on the slavery question, this serenity of mind, this gratitude, can be understood and felt. All Americans, no matter what may have been their views on slavery, now that freedom has come and slavery is ended, must have a restful feeling and be glad that the source of bitterness and trouble is removed. The man who is sorry because of the abolition of slavery, has outlived his day and generation; he should have insisted upon being buried with the "lost cause" at Appomattox.^†On 9 April 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union army forces commanded by General Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox, Virginia. Soon after the South's defeat in the Civil War, the "Lost Cause philosophy" surfaced. The notion of the "Lost Cause" effectively rewrote the war's purpose and outcome. As a result, the South's intent became a noble struggle for states' rights rather than a defense of slavery, and southerners argued that they were not defeated in the war but were simply outnumbered by the North. Heartily endorsed in the South, this revision of history, though inaccurate, was accepted well into the twentieth century and even influenced northern states' interpretation of the Civil War. Thus, the war was romanticized and glorified, while the memory of the cruelty of slavery that it abolished was diminished. Grady McWhiney, Braxton Bragg and Confederate Defeat (New York, 1969), vii-xi; Blight, Race and Reunion, 37-38, 258-60, 452-53; Dwight T. Pitcaithley, 'The American Civil War and the Preservation of Memory," Cultural Resource Management, 25:5- 9 (2002).

We rejoice that Douglass has attained unto this exalted position—this pedestal. It has been honorably reached; it is a just recognition of talent and effort; it is another proof that success attends high and noble aim. With this example, the black boy as well as the white boy can take hope and courage in the race of life.

Douglass' life has been a romance—and a fragrance—to the age. There has been just enough mystery about his origin and escape from slavery to throw a charm about them. The odd proceedings in the purchase of his freedom after his escape from slavery;^†Douglass's manumission was undertaken by friends and admirers whom he met during his first antislavery tour of the British Isles. In August 1846 Anna Richardson, a Quaker abolitionist from Newcastle-upon-Tyne, England, 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 together with her sister-in-law, Ellen Richardson, took steps to raise the purchase money and made arrangements with American abolitionists, in particular Ellis Gray Loring of Boston, 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 December 1846, Hugh Auld filed Douglass's manumission papers in Baltimore County. Exactly one week afterward the transaction was consummated, with 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 these papers were placed in Douglass's hands shortly thereafter. Douglass to the Editor, Belfast Protestant Journal, in Lib., 28 August 1846; Talbot County Records, V.60, 35-36, 30 November 1846, MdTCH (a copy is found on reel 1, frames 637-39, FD Papers, DLC); 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; NASS, 11 November 1847; NS, 3 December 1847; Glasgow Christian News, 23 December 1847. his movements in connection with the John Brown raid at Harper's Ferry and his subsequent flight across the ocean^†Douglass departed for England from Quebec City on 19 November 1859 under the threat of prosecution for "murder, robbery, and inciting to servile insurrection in the State of Virginia" in connection with John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry. Douglass was lecturing in Philadelphia when the news reached him of Brown's first attack on 16 October 1859. Fearing that letters found on Brown might be used to incriminate him, Douglass fled from Pennsylvania, making a circuitous and unobtrusive trip back to Rochester, New York. If not for the action of John W. Hurn, an admiring telegraph operator who delayed transmission of the order for Douglass's arrest by three crucial hours, Douglass might not have evaded the sheriff in Philadelphia. In early November, Governor Henry A. Wise of Virginia requested federal help in apprehending Douglass, and federal officials did indeed visit Rochester, reportedly to seize Douglass. By that time, however, Douglass had fled to Canada and was making final preparations to sail to Great Britain. Although he was criticized by some blacks for displaying cowardice, Douglass replied that he could expect no justice from a slaveholding judge and jury and that "there is no more dishonor in trying to keep out of the way of such a court, than there would be in keeping out of the way of a company of hungry wolves." Douglass to Amy Post, 27 [October] 1859, Amy Post Papers, NRU; Douglass to John W. Hurn, 12 June 1882, Frederick Douglass Mss., LNArc; DM, 2:162-63 (November 1859); Benjamin Quarles, Allies for Freedom: Blacks and John Brown (New York, 1974), 114-15; idem, Frederick Douglass (Washington, D.C., 1948), 178-85. are romantic as anything which took place among the crags and cliffs, the Roderick Dhus and Douglases^†Editorial Emendation: Douglasses of "The Lady^†Editorial Emendation: the~ of the Lake";^†Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), Scottish poet and novelist, was one of the most prominent British authors of the early nineteenth century. Scott published The Lady of the Lake in Edinburgh in 1810. Roderick Dhu, Ellen Douglas, and her father, Lord James of Douglas--a medieval Scottish chieftain--are the principal characters. Walter Scott, The Complete Poetical Works of Scott (Boston, 1900), 152-208; John Lauber, Sir Walter Scott, rev. ed. (Boston, 1989, 1-6; Frank N. Magill, Critical Survey of Poetry: English Language Series, rev. ed., 8 vols. (Pasadena, Calif., 1992), 6:2903-12; Margaret Drabble, ed., The Oxford Companion to English Literature, 5th rev. ed. (New York, 1998), 542, 875-76. while the pure life he has led and his spotless character are sweet by contrast with the lives of mere politicians and time serving statesmen. It is well to contemplate one like him, who has had "hair breadth escapes."^†The expression is from Othello, sc. 3, line 421. Ruffin might also be alluding to the title of William Troy's Hair-breadth Escapes from Slavery to Freedom (Manchester, Eng., 1861). John Bartlett, Familiar Quotations: A Collection of Passages, Phrases and Proverbs Traced to Their Sources in Ancient and Modern Literature, 17th ed. (Boston, 2002), 212. It is inspiring to know that the day of self-sacrifice and self-development are not passed.

To say that his life has been eventful, is hardly the word. From the time when he first saw the light on the Tuckahoe plantation^†Douglass's grandmother Betsey Bailey raised him on their master Aaron Anthony's farm, located on the banks of Tuckahoe Creek near Hillsborough, Talbot County, Maryland. Tuckahoe Creek is a tributary of the Choptank River that forms part of the eastern boundary of Talbot County. Tuckahoe is an Algonquin term for root or mushroom. Dickson J. Preston and Norman Harrington, Talbot County: A History (Centreville, Md., 1983), 140, 191, 256; Paul Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland (Indianapolis, 1931), 104-05; McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 3, 9-10. up to the time he was called to fill a high official position, his life has been crowded with events which in some sense may be called miracles, and now since his autobiography has come to be written, we must understand the hour of retrospect has come—for casting up and balancing accounts as to work done or left undone.

It is more than forty years now that he has been before the world as a writer and speaker^†Douglass launched his career as an itinerant abolitionist lecturer in 1841. By the following year antislavery newspapers were publishing his letters and accounts of his abolitionist activities. It was the publication of his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845 that made him an internationally-known celebrity. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 86-92, 116-18. —busy, active, wonderful years to him—and we are called upon to pass judgment upon his labors. What can we say? Can he claim the well done good and faithful? The record shows this, and we must state it, generally speaking, his life has been devoted to his race and the cause of his race. The freedom and elevation of his people has been his life work, and it has been done well and faithfully. That is the record, and that is sufficient. No higher eulogium can be pronounced than that LongfellowLongfellow, Henry Wadsworth

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82) was one of the more prominent New England authors of the nineteenth century. Born in Portland, Maine, Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College along with Nathaniel Hawthorne. He studied languages in Europe, accepted a professorship in modern languages at Bowdoin College (1829-35), and later relocated permanently to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he accepted the Smith professorship of French and Spanish at Harvard College. Early in his career, Longfellow published translations of foreign works, and by 1833 he had received considerable publishing success with his own prose and poetry. He was catapulted to literary stardom with the appearance of his prose romance Hyperion in 1839. In 1842 he published Poems on Slavery, a volume of poetry that made an important contribution to the antislavery movement. Over a long and highly productive career, Longfellow authored countless collections of poetry and prose. He is best remembered for his epic-style poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855), in which he portrayed Native Americans with dignity and respect; and The Courtship of Miles Standish (1858), treating the life and adventures of the Pilgrim leader. Cecil B. Williams, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (New York, 1964), 139-40; Newton Arvin, Longfellow: His Life and Work (Boston, 1963), 77-78; James D. Hart, The Oxford Companion to American Literature, 6th ed. (New York, 1995), 387-88; ACAB, 4:10-15; DAB, 11:382-87; John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York, 1999), 13:886-89. ^†Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-82) was one of the more prominent New England authors of the nineteenth century. Born in Portland, Maine, Longfellow graduated from Bowdoin College along with Nathaniel Hawthorne. He studied languages in Europe, accepted a professorship in modern languages at Bowdoin College (1829-35), and later relocated permanently to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he accepted the Smith professorship of French and Spanish at Harvard College. Early in his career, Longfellow published translations of foreign works, and by 1833 he had received considerable publishing success with his own prose and poetry. He was catapulted to literary stardom with the appearance of his prose romance Hyperion in 1839. In 1842 he published Poems on Slavery, a volume of poetry that made an important contribution to the antislavery movement. Over a long and highly productive career, Longfellow authored countless collections of poetry and prose. He is best remembered for his epic-style poem The Song of Hiawatha (1855), in which he portrayed Native Americans with dignity and respect; and The Courtship ol Miles Standish (1858), treating the life and adventures of the Pilgrim leader. Cecil B. Williams, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (New York, 1964), 139-40; Newton Arvin, Longfellow: His Life and Work (Boston, 1963), 77-78; James D. Hart, The Oxford Companion to American Literature, 6th ed. (New York, 1995), 387-88; ACAB, 4:10-15; DAB, 11:382-87; John A. Garraty and Mark C. Carnes, eds., American National Biography, 24 vols. (New York, 1999), 13:886-89. says of the Village Blacksmith:^†"The Village Blacksmith" appears in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's Ballads and Other Poems (1841). The eight-stanza poem describes a village blacksmith and his simple yet exemplary life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Complete Poetical Works of Longfellow; ed. H[orace] E. Scudder (Boston, 1922), 14-15; Hart, Oxford Companion to American Literature, 693.

"Something attempted, something done, Has earned a night's repose."^†The final two lines of the seventh stanza of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's "The Village Blacksmith." Longfellow, Complete Poetical Works, 15.

Douglass found his people enslaved and oppressed. He has given the
best years of his life to the improvement of their condition, and, now that he
looks back upon his labors, may he not say he has "attempted'' and "done"
something? and may he not claim the "repose" which ought to come in the
evening of a well spent life?

The first twenty-three years of Douglass' life were twenty-three years of
slavery, obscurity, and degradation, yet doubtless in time to come these years
will be regarded by the student of history the most interesting portion of his
life; to those who in the future would know the inside history of American
slavery, this part of his life will be specially instructive. Plantation life at
Tuckahoe as related by him is not fiction, it is fact; it is not the historian's
dissertation on slavery, it is slavery itself, the slave's life, acts, and thoughts,
and the life, acts, and thoughts of those around him. It is MacaulayMacaulay, Thomas Babington

Baron Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59), British writer, parliamentarian, and bureaucrat in India, found great popularity as a historian during the nineteenth century. In the 1820s his essays, primarily book reviews, began appearing in the Whig Edinburgh Review, and the success of these works led Macaulay to devote much of his life to writing the five-volume History of England from the Accession of James II (1848-61). The endeavor required years of labor but garnered him even greater acclaim, and he became a best-selling author in the United States as well as in the British Empire. Critics point to the whiggish slant in Macaulay's interpretation, but nearly all admit his talent for narrative and the fundamental accuracy of his work. Boyd, Encyclopedia of Historians, 2:746-47; Cannon, Blackwell Dictionary of Historians, 259-60; DNB, 12:410-18. ^†Editorial Emendation: Macauley (I think) who says that a copy of a daily newspaper (if there were such)^†Editorial Emendation: [?] published at Rome would give more information and be of more value than any history we have.^†Ruffin seems to have erred in this attribution to Thomas Babington Macaulay (1800-59), English historian, poet, and Whig member of Parliament, DNB, 12:410-18. So, too, this photographic view of slave life as given to us in the autobiography of an ex-slave will give to the reader a clearer insight of the system of slavery than can be gained from the examination of general history.

Col. Lloyd's plantation,^†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 mines, he became the wealthiest of a long line of Lloyds that reached back to colonial Maryland. In terms of slaves alone, his 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, Edward V 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, of which he was president until 1831. Edward V married Sally Scott Murray on 30 November 1797 and had six children with her. 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, father of Edward Lloyd V, owned 11,884 acres in the region. The mansion house 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. 1810 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 342; Oswald Tilghman, comp., History of Talbot County, Maryland, 16611861, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1915), 1:184-210; 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; Preston, Young Fredrick Douglass, 26, 30, 37-40, 48-54, 57, 74, 82, 199; BDUSC (online). where Douglass belonged, was very much like other plantations of the south. Here was the great house and the cabins, the old Aunties and patriarchal Uncles,^†Slaves commonly used the terms "aunt" and "uncle" when referring to elder slaves, whether or not they were actual blood relatives. It is believed that this custom became prevalent during the early 1800s. Slave children were taught to use these titles out of deference and respect for their elders. Adults used these terms as a means of establishing familial connections where they no longer existed as a result of forced separations and to continue their traditional African family structures and customs. Slave owners reserved the terms "aunt" and "uncle" for older slaves whom they respected and preferred. The use of kinship language reinforced the hierarchy of the slave community. Owners who used the terminology probably hoped that they would be inserted into the list of people whom young slaves learned to treat with respect. Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (New York, 1976), 216-27; Marie Jenkins Schwartz, Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South (Cambridge, Mass., 2000), 168; Ira Berlin, Generations of Captivity: A History of African-American Slaves (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 226-27. little picanninies^†Used as a racial designation, the term "picanniny" usually referred to young black children. The term signified that the children were unkempt, immodest, and wild. Most picanniny cartoons show them as having grotesque facial features, such as bulging eyes, unruly hair, and large mouths. Because of this exaggeration, the picanniny image was used for comedic effect in everything from post cards to early motion pictures. Donald Bogle, Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mammies, and Bucks: Interpretive History of Blacks in American Films, 4th ed. (New York, 2002), 7-9. and picanninies not so little, of every shade of complexion, from ebony black to whiteness of the master race;^†Sexual relationships between enslaved men and women and slave owners were not uncommon in the South and often produced offspring of mixed race. Estimates based on 1850 and 1860 census slave schedules suggest that individuals of mixed race, or "mullatoes," made up at least 4.5 to 7.7 percent of the slave population in 1850 and 10 percent in 1860. Some historians believe the numbers may have been as high as 13 to 15 percent of the slave population. Although relationships did exist between slave mistresses and their male slaves, sexual unions between male slaveholders and female slaves were more common. A pregnancy resulting from such a relationship led to tension between slaves and slaveholders, and the birth of a light-skinned child raised troublesome questions in the slave quarters as well as in the big house. Plantation mistresses. who often acted as midwives to their slaves, could be particularly upset by the birth of mixed-race children, often knowing that their husbands or sons were likely to have fathered them. In most plantation communities, the birth of a light-skinned baby was not celebrated by the slaves. In fact, identifying the white fathers of mixed-race children could lead to punishment, and some enslaved women avoided confirming paternity in hopes of shielding their children from reprisal. As in Douglass's case, many mixed-race children never knew their fathers' identities. Ann Patton Malone, Sweet Chariot: Slave Family and Household Structure in Nineteenth-Century Louisiana (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1992), 218-24; Schwartz, Born in Bondage, 44-45; Berlin, Generations of Captivity, 182-83. mules, overseers,^†On the larger slave plantations, the job of overseer was a midlevel managerial position typically occupied by men under forty. They were expected to remain at their posts supervising slave activity and were discouraged from developing familial relationships. The tenure of an overseer was generally short. Both owners and slaves viewed them with disdain. Planters often sought to replace them with candidates who increased profitability, while most overseers were looking for a short-term financial gain in order to launch their own farms. The overseer's primary duties were to implement the owner's policies, discipline slaves, and to ensure steady crop production. The overseer was compensated financially and was supplied lodging, provisions, and sometimes one or more servants. Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York, 1974), 13-20; Randall M. Miller and John David Smith, eds., Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery (Westport, Conn., 1997), 553-55. and broken down fences. Here was the negro Doctor learned in the science of roots and herbs;^†Rather than subject themselves to nineteenth-century "scientific" medical treatments, slaves would often self-medicate with their own treatments handed down over generations. This practice was a source of tension, since slave owners placed little confidence in using native plants and herbs to treat illnesses, while slaves had more faith in their local conjuror's ability to heal than the plantation doctor. Local slave healers employed a mixture of homeopathy, traditional Western medicine, and claims that they possessed magical powers. However, when a slave became severely ill, most owners would demand treatment from a white doctor to prevent epidemics (and to protect their investments). For minor illnesses, though, blacks were generally allowed some control over their own medical care. Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 312-17. also the black conjurer with his divination.^†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 as a remedy for an ailment or as protection from an enemy. It was not unusual for healing and harming aspects to be present in a single process, and 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 economic success, or thwarting enemies. Slave conjurers were regarded as powerful and often dangerous members of the slave community. Thriving on the fear they could elicit among other blacks, conjurers could work good or harm through their actions. Although the negative applications of their "charms" were their most dramatic practices, conjurers possessed knowledge of folk medicine that allowed them to perform a vital role as medical practitioners in the slave community. Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South (New York, 1978), 80-86, 275-88; Sharla M. Fett, Working Cures: Healing, Health, and Power on Southern Slave Plantations (Chapel Hill, N.C., 2002), 38-40, 95-100; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 217-18, 223-24, 227. Here was slave-breeding and slave-selling, whipping, torturing, and beating to death.^†Shortly after the cotton gin's invention in 1794, cotton supplanted tobacco as the primary cash crop of the United States. This shift caused many slaveholders to relocate their plantations, paid employees, and slaves from the Upper South to the Lower South where the climate and soil were more conducive to growing cotton. Analyzing journals, diaries, accounts, and receipts from small farms in the Upper South, some historians have concluded that slave-selling and the separation of families were frequent, though often covert. Other historians analyzing similar data taken from major plantations claim that more often entire plantations were moved; in these cases, slave-selling was rare and the separation of families rarer. Demoralizing slaves through forced breeding and torture would have proven counterproductive to the goal of plantation profit. Analysis of smaller farms' records suggests that because slave marriage required only approval by the master and a male slave's selection of a mate, slave owners did employ an informal, quasi-consensual breeding practice. High mortality among slaves was most often a result of neglect; inadequate clothing, housing, sanitation, and provision of food, rather than more sensational abuse like whipping and murder. Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the Cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (1974; Lanham, Md., 1984), 38-107; William A. Dunaway, The African-American Family in Slavery and Emancipation (Cambridge, Mass., 2003), 18-114. All this came under the observation of Douglass

and is a part of the education he received while under the yoke of bondage.
He was there in the midst of this confusion, ignorance, and brutality. Little
did the overseer on this plantation think that he had in his gang^†Ruffin uses the term "gang" loosely, referring to all the slaves held on the Lloyd plantation. At that time, Douglass was too young to participate in gang labor; in fact his life with Edward Covey in 1834 was his only experience of a situation comparable to the gang system. Instituted in the early 1800s and employed primarily on large plantations, the gang system developed unevenly, eventually becoming a popular form of organized slave labor because of its efficiency and its structured supervision. The gangs usually consisted of a group of slaves who worked together doing assigned daily tasks. Typically, two supervisors monitored their work, beginning with the driver--another slave who had earned the owner's trust. The driver reported to the white overseer who was in charge of the gang's progress, and it was he who dealt directly with the plantation owner. The gang system encouraged competition among slaves and focused on securing more "product" from each slave rather than more hours of work. Robert William Fogel, Without Consent or Contract: The Rise and Fall of American Slavery (New York, 1989), 25-28; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 283-84. a man of superior order and undaunted spirit, whose mind, far above the minds of the grovelling creatures about him, was at that very time plotting schemes for his liberty; nor did the thought ever enter the mind of Col. Lloyd, the rich slave-holder, that he had upon his estate one who was destined to assail the system of slavery with more power and effect than any other person.

Douglass' fame will rest mainly, no doubt, upon his oratory. His powers in this direction are very great and in some respects unparalleled by our living speakers. His oratory is his own and apparently formed after the model of no single person. It is not after the Edmund BurkeBurke, Edmund

Whig member of Parliament and political philosopher, Edmund Burke (1729-97) has been considered the father of modem conservatism. He was an outspoken advocate of greater freedoms in Ireland, America, and India, yet he was critical of movements that upset the established order, such as the French Revolution. His oratory reflected his immense knowledge of literature and government, and he would often give speeches that were three hours long. Burke's stylized delivery was not meant for the masses, and even his colleagues would tire of his lengthy and detailed oratory. Never considered an easy man to get along with, Burke's temper increased in his later years to the point that he would become violent during his speeches, even throwing items at colleagues during his rants. His great intellect garnered him enough respect to be tolerated despite his outbursts. Edmund Burke, Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches, ed. Peter J. Stanlis (Garden City, N.Y., 1963), 1-37; DNB, 3:345-65. style, which has been so closely followed by EverettEverett, Edward

Edward Everett (1794-1865), one of antebellum America's foremost orators, was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard University. At age nineteen he was installed as pastor of the Brattle Street Church, Boston's most prestigious Unitarian congregation. In 1815 Everett accepted an appointment to teach Greek literature at Harvard and journeyed to Europe to prepare for his new duties, becoming the first American to be awarded a doctorate from the University of Goettingen. He returned to the United States in 1819, taught at Harvard, edited the North American Review, and, from 1825 to 1835, served in Congress, where he opposed Andrew Jackson on the national bank issue and conciliated proslavery southerners. In 1835 a coalition of Whigs and Anti-Masons secured him the governorship of Massachusetts, a post he held until 1839. During the next decade Everett served as minister to Great Britain (1841-45) and president of Harvard (1846-49). As secretary of state during the last four months of the Fillmore administration, he defended the right of the United States to intervene in Cuban affairs. Election to the U.S. Senate followed in 1853, but Everett's failure, on account of illness, to cast a vote on the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854 generated so much protest from Massachusetts antislavery groups that he resigned. After several years on the lecture circuit, Everett ran for vice president on the Constitutional Union ticket in 1860. During the Civil War he supported Lincoln and frequently lectured on behalf of the war effort. At Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on 19 November 1863, his two-hour speech preceded Lincoln's briefer address. Paul Revere Frothingham, Edward Everett: Orator and Statesman (Boston, 1925); DAB, 6:223-26. , SumnerSumner, Charles

Best remembered as the victim of a vicious attack by a congressional colleague, Charles Sumner (1811-74), U.S. senator from Massachusetts (1851-74), was dedicated to the cause of emancipation. Born in Boston, Sumner attended and then taught at Harvard College. He engaged in a semi-successful law practice until his outspoken opposition to the United States war against Mexico thrust him into politics. He was a founder of the Free Soil Party in Massachusetts, and a coalition of Free Soilers and Democrats elected him to the U.S. Senate in 1850. Immediately embroiling himself in the heated topic of slavery, Sumner became an outspoken advocate of emancipation and repeatedly refuted compromises proposed by Henry Clay and others. After one particularly scathing speech in the Senate against slavery, Sumner was brutally beaten with a cane by a Southern representative, which necessitated years of recovery before Sumner was able to reenter the Senate. Sumner’s lasting legacy was to turn popular sentiment in the North toward emancipation, and after the Civil War, he continued to fight for the individual freedoms of blacks until his sudden death in 1874. Frederick J. Blue, Charles Sumner and the Conscience of the North (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1994); David Donald, Charles Sumner and the Coming of the Civil War (New York, 1960); DAB, 18:208-14. , and others, and which has resulted in giving us splendid and highly embellished essays rather than natural and not overwrought speeches. If his oratory must be classified, it should be placed somewhere between the FoxFox, Charles James

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 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. George Otto Trevelyan, The Early History of Charles James Fox (1880; New York, 1971); Loren Reid, Charles James Fox: A Man for the People (Columbia, Mo., 1969); Edward Lascelles, The Life of Charles James Fox (New York, 1970); Magnus Magnusson, ed., Cambridge Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 535-36; DNB, 7:535-52. and Henry ClayClay, Henry

Henry Clay (1777-1852), a native Virginian, entered politics during the 1790s in his adopted state of Kentucky and rose quickly to national prominence. As a congressman, senator, secretary of state, founder of the Whig party, and regular presidential candidate, Clay espoused broadly nationalistic programs designed to avoid sectional antagonism caused by the issue of slavery. He figured prominently in the debates that led to the passage of the Missouri Compromise, and he was a leading architect of the Compromise of 1850. His support of the American Colonization Society earned him the lasting hostility of Garrisonian abolitionists. In Congress, Clay vigorously opposed abolitionist petitions against slavery in the District of Columbia. Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay: Statesman for the Union (New York, 1991); Richard H. Sewell, Ballots for Freedom: Antislavery Politics in the United States, 1837-1860 (New York, 1976), 109; DAB, 4:73-79. schools. Like Clay, Douglass' greatest effect is upon his immediate hearers, those who see him and feel his presence, and like Clay a good part of his oratorical fame will be tradition. The most striking feature of Douglass' oratory is his fire, not the quick and flashy kind, but the steady and intense kind. Years ago on the anti-slavery platform, in some sudden and unbidden outburst of passion and indignation he has been known to awe-inspire his listeners as though Ætna^†Mount Aetna in Sicily was believed to have been named for the nymph Aetna, daughter of Uranus and Gaea. According to Simonides (c. 556-468 BCE), she mediated between Hephaestus and Demeter in a dispute over the possession of Sicily. Both Greek and Latin literature indicates that the mountain itself was the location of Hephaestus's forge, where he and the Cyclops made thunderbolts for Zeus. Sir William Smith, Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, 3 vols. (London, 1849), 1:54. were there.

If oratory consists of the power to move men by spoken words, Douglass
is a complete orator. He can make men laugh or cry, at his will. He has power
of statement, logic, withering denunciation, pathos, humor, and inimitable
wit. Daniel WebsterWebster, Daniel

Daniel Webster (1782–1852) was a lawyer and statesman known for his stirring oratory. As a lawyer, he successfully argued many cases before the Supreme Court, such as the 1816 Dartmouth College case and the 1819 McCulloch v. Maryland case, earning a reputation as a strong nationalist. During the War of 1812 Webster represented New Hampshire in Congress (1812–46). Then, in 1827, he was elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts, where he remained in service through most of his life. He continued to take strong nationalist positions in political debates, attacking Andrew Jackson’s 1832 veto of the Second Bank of the United States and opposing Nullification in 1832–33. Webster accepted appointment as secretary of state under William Henry Harrison and was the sole cabinet member from Harrison’s presidency to retain his office during John Tyler’s administration. In 1842 he negotiated the Webster-Ashburton Treaty with Great Britain, establishing the modern boundary between the United States and Canada, but resigned his post a year later and returned to the Senate in 1845. In 1848 Webster made an unsuccessful bid for the Whig presidential nomination, losing to war hero Zachary Taylor. In 1850 Webster once again left the Senate to act as secretary of state under Millard Fillmore, a move that placed him in a good position to bid for the presidency; but he lost the 1852 Whig nomination to Winfield Scott. Though not an abolitionist, he opposed the extension of slavery in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, the Mexican-American War, and the enforcement of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law. Robert V. Remini, Daniel Webster: The Man and His Time (New York, 1997), 15–21; ANB, 22:865–68; DAB, 11:585–92. with his immense intellectuality had no humor, not a particle. It does not appear that he could even see the point of a joke. Douglass is brim full of humor at times, of the dryest kind. It is of a quiet kind. You can see it coming a long way off in a peculiar twitch of his mouth; it increases and broadens gradually until it becomes irresistible and all-pervading with his audience.

Douglass' rank as a writer is high, and justly so. His writings, if anything, are more meritorious than his speaking. For many years he was the editor of newspapers,^†Although he had the help of many different assistants over the years, Douglass was the principal editorial voice of the North Star (1847-51), Frederick Douglass' Paper (1851-60), and Douglass' Monthly (1859-63), all based in Rochester, New York. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 147-59, 167, 169, 182, 230. doing all of the editorial work. He has contributed largely to magazines. He is a forcible and thoughtful writer. His style is pure and graceful, and he has great felicity of expression. His written productions in finish compare favorably with the written productions of our most cultivated writers. His style comes partly, no doubt, from his long and constant

practice, but the true source is his clear mind, which is well stored by a close
acquaintance with the best authors. His range of reading has been wide and
extensive. He has been a hard student. In every sense of the word he is a
self-made man. By dint of hard study he has educated himself, and to-day it
may be said he has a well-trained intellect. He has surmounted the disadvan
tage of not having an university education, by application and well-directed
effort. He seems to have realized the fact that to one who is anxious to
become educated and is really in earnest, it is not positively necessary to go
to college, and that information may be had outside of college walks; books
may be obtained and read elsewhere, they are not chained to desks in college
libraries as they were in early times at Oxford;^†Books were an expensive commodity in the Middle Ages; thus, university libraries tended to have small collections reserved for the use of graduate students. Libraries at Oxford and other universities divided their collections into two sections, one for lending and a chained (reference) area exclusively for study. In chained libraries, the best copies of important works were secured with chains to rods above the shelves. A student could pull a book down and lay it flat on the desk below but could take it no further. This system prevented theft, assuring that a text would be available when a scholar required it. Alan B. Cobban, English University Life in the Middle Ages (Columbus, Ohio, 1999), 51-52, 88-90; Fred Lerner, The Story of Libraries from the Invention of Writing to the Computer Age (New York, 1998), 85, plate 7; Burnett Hillman Streeter, The Chained Library: A Survey of Four Centuries in the Evolution of the English Library (London, 1931), 127-260. Professors' lectures may be
bought already printed; learned doctors may be listened to in the Lyceum;^†The lyceum movement in the United States began in the 1820s as an attempt by the northeastern white Protestant middle class to build communal culture through public debate and lecture. Lyceums, organized by local associations, emphasized mutual instruction and social inclusiveness. Many individual lyceums, however, excluded blacks or admitted them without granting them the privileges white members enjoyed. By the 1840s, the lyceum's educational mission evolved,embracing not only scientific and literary topics but also inspirational lectures meant to spur moral and social reform. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, commercial entertainment rather than education became the primary focus of the movement. Combining education with entertainment, Douglass's lyceum oratory attempted to forge a new American public sensibility, one that supported integration, equal rights, and educational reform for the African American community. Angela G. Ray, The Lyceum and Public Culture in the Nineteenth-Century United States (East Lansing, Mich., 2005), 1-119.
and the printing press has made it easy and cheap to get information on every
subject and topic that is discussed and taught in the University. Douglass
never made the great mistake (a common one) of considering that his educa
tion was finished. He has continued to study, he studies now, and is a grow
ing man, and at this present moment he is a stronger man intellectually than
ever before.

Soon after Douglass' escape from Maryland^†Douglass successfully fled slavery in Baltimore, Maryland, on 3 September 1838, briefly seeking refuge first in New York City, and soon thereafter in New Bedford, Massachusetts. McFeely, Frederick Douglass, 71-74. to the Northern States, he
commenced his public career. It was at New Bedford^†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 its 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" (I Spread the Light) was placed on its seal. Kathryn Grover, The Fugitive's Gibraltar: Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts (Amherst, Mass., 2001), 18-36; Saul Cohen, ed., The Columbia Gazeteer of the World, 3 vols. (New York, 1998), 2:2153-54; James M. Lindgren, "'Let Us Idealize Old Types of Manhood': The New Bedford Whaling Museum, 1903-1941," NEQ, 72:163-206 (June 1999). as a local Methodist
preacher^†In New Bedford, Douglass became a leading member of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church. In fact Douglass spoke from the pulpit even before offering his first antislavery oratory in 1841. In My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass describes his association with the church, which he joined after moving his family to New Bedford, noting that he was "soon made a class leader and a local preacher." Although his second autobiography offers some details, his full involvement with the New Bedford church is not widely known. In his 1887 memoir, African Methodist Episcopal Zion church minister Thomas James recalled Douglass's activism in the New Bedford church in 1840. James took over the pastorate of the New Bedford African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church that year, and notes that he granted Douglass a license to preach. More details are provided by Douglass in an 1894 letter to James W. Hood. Hood was researching a book about the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion church in America and solicited Douglass for his experiences with the New Bedford church. In his reply, Douglass describes his activities with the African Methodist Episcopal Zion denomination as beginning in 1838, soon alter his arrival in New Bedford. He wrote, "As early as 1839, I obtained a license from the Quarterly Conference as a local preacher, and often occupied the pulpit by request of the preacher in charge." Douglass credits his church activism as an important catalyst for his career as an antislavery activist, noting: "I look back to the days I spent in little Zion, New Bedford, in the several capacities of sexton, steward, class leader, clerk, and local preacher, as among the happiest days of my life." James W. Hood, One Hundred Years of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church (New York, 1895), 541-42; Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 2:203; Blight, Frederick Douglass' Civil War, 6-10; William L. Andrews, "Frederick Douglass, Preacher," American Literature, 54:592-97 (December 1982). and by taking part in small public meetings held by colored people, wherein anti-slavery and other matters were discussed. There he laid the foundation of the splendid career which is now about drawing to a close. In these meetings Douglass gave evidence that he possessed uncommon powers, and it was plainly to be seen that he needed only a field and opportunity to display them. That field and opportunity soon came, as it always does to possessors of genius. He became a member and agent of the American Anti-Slavery society.^†Inspired by the success of the British emancipation movement, a group of sixty-two American abolitionists, including 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 when many abolitionists had quit in protest at 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 (DeKalb, Ill., 1974). 52-53, 113-26; James Brewer Stewart, Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York, 1976), 51-52, 92-96. Then commenced his great crusade against slavery in behalf
of his oppressed brethren at the South.

He waged violent and unceasing war against slavery. He went through every town and hamlet in the Free States, raising his voice against the iniquitous system.

Just escaped from the prison-house himself, to tear down the walls of the
same and to let the oppressed go free, was the mission which engaged the
powers of his soul and body. North, East, and West, all through the land went
this escaped slave delivering his warning message against the doomed cities
of the South. The ocean did not stop nor hinder him. Across the Atlantic he
went, through England, Ireland, and Scotland.^†In 1845 Douglass embarked upon an antislavery tour of the British Isles, landing in Liverpool, England, on 28 August. After numerous successful speaking engagements, meeting some of the greatest abolitionists and politicians in Great Britain, and having his freedom purchased by British acquaintances, Douglass returned to the United States. His ship made landfall on 20 April 1847. Lib., 26 September 1845, 23, 30 April 1847; Alan J. Rice and Martin Crawford, eds., Liberating Sojourn: Frederick Douglass and Transatlantic Reform (Athens, Ga., 1999), 1-11. Wherever people could be found to listen to his story, he pleaded the cause of his enslaved and down-

trodden brethren with vehemence and great power. From 1840 to 1861, the
time of the commencement of the civil war, which extirpated slavery in this
country, Douglass was continuously speaking on the platform, writing for
his newspaper and for magazines, or working in conventions for the aboli
tion of slavery.

The life and work of Douglass has been a complete vindication of the
colored people in this respect; it has refuted and overthrown the position
taken by some writers that colored people were deficient in mental qualifica
tions and were incapable of attaining high intellectual position.^†Nineteenth-century arguments supporting the intellectual inferiority of blacks proceeded along three interconnected axes: scientific, aesthetic, and biblical. The ethnological conclusions of Josiah Clark Nott, George Robert Gliddon, Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz, and Samuel George Morton collectively formed the doctrines of what came to be known as the American School of Ethnology. These ethnologists posited a polygenist theory of racial origin, claiming that each race was a distinct species, based on what they considered empirical evidence of fixed intellectual inferiority. Morton's measurements of cranial capacity provided the bulk of this evidence, although Morton himself opposed slavery and believed that intellectual growth of blacks was impossible because of the hostile social environment in which they lived rather than because of heredity. Most ethnological treatises included a chapter on beauty, connecting a racist aesthetic to both moral and intellectual development. Conversely, white proslavery Christians in the South argued against polygenesis, classifying blacks as inferior members of the same species. They claimed that scripture provided a defense of slavery and that the mission of that institution was to Christianize those of African descent. Some clergymen justified enslaving dark-skinned races on a misinterpretation of Noah's curse on Ham. While most southern Christians did not believe that intellectual growth was impossible for slaves, they envisioned such progress as occurring slowly and in minuscule increments barely noticeable over the course of centuries. George M. Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Destiny, 1817-1914 (New York, 1971), 43-96; David M. Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton, N.J., 2003), 167; Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny: The Origins of American Racial Anglo-Saxonism (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), 116-57; William Stanton, The Leopard's Spots: Scientific Attitudes toward Race in America, 1815-59 (Chicago, 1960), 92-97, 100; Christopher A. Luse, "Slavery's Champions Stood at Odds: Polygenesis and the Defense of Slavery," CWH, 53:379-412 (December 2007); Arthur Riss, "The Art of Discrimination," English Literary History, 71:251-87 (Spring 2004). We may
reasonably expect to hear no more of this now, the argument is exploded.
Douglass has settled the fact the right way, and it is something to settle a
fact.

That Douglass is a brave man there can be little doubt. He has physical
as well as moral courage. His encounter with the overseer of the eastern
shore plantation^†An allusion to Douglass's audacious fight with the Maryland yeoman farmer Edward Covey (c. 1806-75), who had been given oversight of Douglass by Thomas Auld for the year 1834. Covey started out as a farm-renter in Talbot County, Maryland, but 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, folders 93, 203, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 240 (free schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 117-31. attests his pluck. There the odds were against him, everything was against him—there the unwritten rule of law was, that the negro who dared to strike a white man, must be killed, but Douglass fought the overseer and whipped him. His plotting with other slaves to escape, writing and giving them passes,^†In 1836 Douglass and five other slaves plotted to escape via a stolen ship from Talbot County, Maryland, to the North. Douglass recounts this failed effort in chapter 19 of this autobiography. and the unequal and desperate fight maintained by him in the Baltimore ship yard,^†In 1836 Douglass and five other slaves plotted to escape via a stolen ship from Talbot County, Maryland, to the North. Douglass recounts this failed effort in chapter 19 of this autobiography. where law and public sentiment were against him, also show that he has courage. But since the day of his slavery, while living here at the North, many instances have happened which show very plainly that he is a man of courage and determination; if he had not been, he would have long since succumbed to the brutality and violence of the low and mean spirited people found in the Free States.

Up to a very recent date it has been deemed quite safe even here in the
North to insult and impose on inoffensive colored people, to elbow a colored
man from the sidewalk, to jeer at him and apply vile epithets to him, in some
localities this has been the rule and not the exception, and to put him out of
public conveyances and public places by force, was of common occurrence.
It made little difference that the colored man was decent, civil, and respect
ably clad, and had paid his fare, if the proprietor of the place or his patrons
took the notion that the presence of the colored man was an affront to their
dignity or inconsistent with their notions of self-respect, out he must go. Nor
must he stand upon the order of his going, but go at once. It was against this
feeling that Douglass had to contend. He met it often; he was a prominent
colored man traveling from place to place. A good part of the time he was in
strange cities stopping at strange taverns—that is, when he was allowed to
stop. Time and again has he been refused accommodation in hotels. Time

and again has he been in a strange place^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: places with nowhere to lay his head until some kind anti-slavery person would come forward and give him shelter; and as to riding in public conveyances, mean spirited conductors at one time made it a rule to put all colored people, nolens volens, in the smoking car. Many times was Douglass subjected to this indignity.

The writer of this remembers well, because he was present and saw the transaction,—the John Brown meeting^†Newspaper reports vary significantly on the details of the riotous events that overwhelmed the meeting at Boston Tremont Temple on 3 December 1860 to commemorate the first anniversary of John Brown's execution. Organized by James Redpath on behalf of "John Brown's Anniversary Committee," the meeting announced its goal as not only to honor Brown but also to discuss the question "How can American Slavery be Abolished?" With strong commercial ties with the South, Boston's business elite denounced the holding of such a gathering so soon after Abraham Lincoln's presidential election had frightened slaveholders. After three hours of heckling, skirmishing, and acrimonious debate between a proslavery mob and the abolitionists, the Boston police cleared the hall on the order of the mayor. Douglass, Redpath, and other abolitionists reconvened at a nearby black church and completed their commemoration of Brown. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 3:387-88; New York Daily Tribune, 4 December 1860; Boston Post, 4 December 1860; Boston Semi-Weekly Courier, 6 December 1860; NASS, 8 December 1860; Lib., 14, 21 December 1860. in Tremont Temple^†The foundation for the Tremont Theater and for what later became known as Tremont Temple was laid in May 1827 on Tremont Street in Boston, Massachusetts. The "Proprietors of Tremont Theater," a group of investors, chartered by the state legislature, owned the theater. Architect Isaiah Rogers designed the building to resemble a church with its heavy granite facade. On 24 September 1827, Tremont Theater opened under the management of local actor William Phelby. When he failed to turn a profit, investors replaced Phelby with a succession of managers. The Tremont ultimately could not compete against the long-established Boston Theater and closed its doors in May 1843. The Free Church, organized by antislavery activist Timothy Gilbert, bought the theater for $12,500 and converted it into a church, the Tremont Temple. Gilbert was determined that Tremont Temple be a church where individuals could worship according to their own dictates regardless of race or wealth. Consequently, the Free Church refused to extend membership to slave owners or anyone who did not share its views on temperance. In order to sustain the Temple, Gilbert leased out the large hall for political caucuses, concerts, and lectures given by such notables as Rufus Choate and the remaining portions of the building were leased as stores and offices. On 30 March 1852, the Tremont Temple was destroyed by fire. Its congregation quickly rebuilt the structure with the help of local Baptists who formed the Evangelical Baptist Benevolent and Missionary Society. The Temple was rebuilt two more times following fires in 1879 and 1892. In 1863 the Free Church was still having financial difficulties and joined forces with the neighboring Union Baptist Church to form the Union Temple Baptist Church under the direction of Justin Dewey Fulton. Tremont Temple was never identified with purely religious fervor, since its halls were rented out to various performers throughout the week regardless of whether they followed the dictates of the congregation that worshipped there on Sundays. In the twentieth century, church membership declined as conservative Protestant religious practices replaced popular revivalism. Margaret Lamberts Bendroth, Fundamentalists in the City: Conflict and Division in Boston's Churches, 1885-1950 (New York, 2003), 103-05, 123-24; Jeanne Halgren KiIde, When Church Became Theater: The Transformation of Evangelical Architecture and Worship in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 2002), 138, 257n; Donald C. King, The Theatres of Boston: A Stage and Screen History (Jefferson, N.C., 2005), 15, 22-24, 28-29, 39, 67, 105. in 1860, when a violent mob composed of the rough element from the slums of the city, led and encouraged by bankers and brokers came into the hall to break up the meeting. Douglass was presiding; the mob was armed; the police were powerless; the mayorLincoln, Frederick Walker, Jr.

Frederick Walker Lincoln, Jr. (1817-98), served as mayor of Boston from 1858 to 1860 and again from 1863 to 1866. Lincoln had been apprenticed at age thirteen to a maker of mathematical instruments and later became successful in a number of business fields. He served in the state legislature in 1847 and 1848 and in the Massachusetts constitutional convention of 1853. Lincoln was elected mayor by nonpartisan conservative coalitions and gained a reputation for efficient administration of the city's finances. Justin Winsor and Clarence F. Jewett, eds., The Memorial History of Boston, Including Suffolk County, Massachusetts, 1630-1880, 4 vols. (Boston, 1880-81), 3:262-73; Albert P. Langtry, ed., Metropolitan Boston: A Modern History, 5 vols. (New York, 1929), 1:231-32. could not or would not do anything. On came the mob surging through the aisles over benches and upon the platform; the women in the audience became alarmed and fled. The hirelings were prepared to do anything, they had the power and could with impunity. Douglass sat upon the platform with a few chosen spirits, cool and undaunted; the mob had got about and around him; he did not heed their howling nor was he moved by their threats. It was not until their leader, a rich banker,^†The "gentlemen's mob...of the 'DOLLAR STAMP,"'as Douglass labeled it, quickly seized control of the Tremont Temple meeting. Over the loud protests of Douglass and other abolitionists the meeting elected either Richard Sullivan Fay (1806-65) or James Murray Howe (?-c. 1872) as chair, or perhaps both men as cochairmen, of the proceedings. Son of a prominent Massachusetts Judge, Fay had attended Harvard and briefly practiced law in Boston. After residing in England as a gentleman farmer from 1848 to 1853, Fay returned to Massachusetts and bought a large estate near Lynn, where he conducted experiments in forestry and animal husbandry. In 1860 he was an unsuccessful candidate for Congress on the Constitutional Union party ticket. Better fitting Ruffin's description was Howe, a businessman from Brookline, Massachusetts, and the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for the Massachusetts General Court in 1860. During the Civil War he recruited Brookline men for the Union army. Howe established a brokerage firm in Boston after the war. D. Hamilton Hurd, comp., History of Essex County, Massachusetts, with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men, 2 vols. (Philadelphia, 1888), 1:353-54; James R. Newhall, History of Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts: Including Lynnfield, Saugus, Swampscott, and Nahant, 2 vols. (1890; Lynn, Mass., 1897), 2:1920; Harriet F. Woods, Historical Sketches of Brookline, Mass. (Boston, 1874), 417; Charles Knowles Bolton, Brookline: the History of a Favored Town (Brookline, Mass., 1897), 60, 73, 128; John Gould Curtis, History of the Town of Brookline, Massachusetts: A Memorial to Edward W. Baker (Boston, 1933), 266, 268. with his followers, had mounted the platform and wrenched the chair from under him that he was dispossessed, by main force and personal violence (Douglass resisting all the time) they removed him from the platform. Free speech was violated; Boston was disgraced; but the Chairman of that meeting was not intimidated.

It affords me great pleasure to introduce to the public this book, "The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass." I am glad of the opportunity to present a work which tells the story of the rise and progress of our most celebrated colored man. To the names of Toussaint L'OuvertureL'Ouverture, François Dominique Toussaint

Born to a literate slave father, François Dominique Toussaint L'Ouverture (c. 1744-1803) was raised near Le Cap in the North Province of St. Domingo, which later became Haiti. Like his father, he learned to read while growing up as a slave on the plantation. When the slaves of St. Domingo revolted, L'Ouverture emerged as a capable military leader, commanding an army of 55,000 men to victory over the combined forces of England, France, and Spain in 1794. This victory guaranteed him the role of leader of the new independent regime in Haiti. In 1802 he was taken prisoner by the French, who had returned to reclaim the island. While awaiting sentencing, L'Ouverture died of pneumonia in April 1803 after enduring ten months of harsh conditions in a French prison. Ralph Korngold, Citizen Toussaint (Boston, 1944); Martin Ros, Night of Fire: The Black Napoleon and the Battle for Haiti (New York, 1994); Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (New York, 1999), 904-05. ^†Editorial Emendation: L'Overture and Alexander DumasDumas, Alexandre

Alexandre Dumas (1802-70), a French novelist and playwright, was one of the pioneers of the Romantic theater in France. During his career, he published more than 200 works of fiction. His best-known novels include The Three Musketeers (1844) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-45). Rullin lists him because Dumas's grandmother had been a black slave on the West Indian island of Santo Domingo. Jacques Barzun, ed., European Writers: The Romantic Century, 7 vols. (New York, 1985), 6:723-24; Frank N. Magill, ed., Great Lives from History: Renaissance to 1900 Series, 5 vols. (Pasadena, Calif., 1989), 2:665-69); Drabble, Oxford Companion to English Literature, 294. is to be added that of Frederick Douglass. We point with pride to this trio of illustrious names. I bid my fellow countrymen^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: ~ ~ take new hope and courage; the near future will bring us other men of worth and genius, and our list of illustrious names will become lengthened. Until that time the duty is to work and wait.

Respectfully,

GEORGE L. RUFFIN.
Boston, Sept. 1st, 1881.

Author's place of birth—Description of country —Its inhabitants—Genealogical trees—Method of counting time in slave districts—Date of author's birth—Names of grandparents—Their cabin—Home with them—Slave practice of separating mothers from their children—Author's recollections of his mother—Who was his father?... 23

Author's early home—Its charms—Author's ignorance of "old master"—His gradual perception of the truth concerning him—His relations to Col. Edward Lloyd—Author's removal to "old master's" home—His journey thence—His separation from his grandmother—His grief... 25

Captain Lloyd's plantation—Aunt Katy— Her cruelty and ill-nature—Capt. Anthony's partiality to Aunt Katy—Allowance of food—Author's hunger—Unexpected rescue by his mother—The reproof of Aunt Katy—Sleep—A slave mother's love—Author's inheritance—His mother's acquirements—Her death... 28

Home plantation of Colonel Lloyd—Its isolation—Its industries—The slave rule—Power of overseers—Author finds some enjoyment—Natural scenery—Sloop "Sally Lloyd"—Wind mill—Slave quarter—"Old master's" house—Stables, store houses, etc., etc.—The great house—Its surroundings—Lloyd Burial-place—Superstition of slaves—Colonel Lloyd's wealth—Negro politeness—Doctor Copper—Captain Anthony—His family—Master Daniel Lloyd—His brothers—Social etiquette... 30

CHAPTER V.
A SLAVEHOLDER'S CHARACTER.

Increasing acquaintance with old master—Evils of unresisted passion—Apparent tenderness—A man of trouble—Custom of muttering to himself—Brutal outrage—A drunken overseer—Slaveholder's impatience—Wisdom of appeal—A base and selfish attempt to break up a courtship..............................................37

CHAPTER VI.
A CHILD ' S REASONING.

The author's early reflections on slavery—Aunt Jennie and Uncle Noah—Presentiment^†*Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: Presentment of one day becoming a freeman—Conflict between an overseer and a slave woman—Advantage of resistance—Death of an overseer—Col. Lloyd's plantation home—Monthly distribution of food—Singing of slaves—An explanation—The slaves' food and clothing—Naked children—Life in the quarter—Sleeping places—not beds—Deprivation of sleep—Care of nursing babies—Ash cake—Contrast..... 40

CHAPTER VII.
LUXURIES AT THE GREAT HOUSE.

Contrasts—Great House luxuries—Its hospitality—Entertainments—Fault-finding—Shameful humiliation of an old and faithful coachman—William Wilks—Curious incident—Expressed satisfaction not always genuine—Reasons for suppressing the truth............................................................46

CHAPTER VIII.
CHARACTERISTICS OF OVERSEERS.

Austin Gore—Sketch of his character—Overseers as a class—Their peculiar characteristics—The marked individuality of Austin Gore—His sense of duty—Murder of poor Denby—Sensation—How Gore made his peace with Col. Lloyd—Other horrible murders—No laws for the protection of slaves possible of being enforced........................... 52

CHAPTER IX.
CHANGE OF LOCATION.

Miss Lucretia—Her kindness—How it was manifested—"lke"—A battle with him—Miss Lucretia's balsam—Bread—How it was obtained—Gleams of sunlight^†Editorial Emendation: sunset amidst the general darkness—Suffering from cold—How we took our meal mush—Preparations for going to Baltimore—Delight at the change—Cousin Tom's opinion of Baltimore—Arrival there—Kind reception—Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld—Their son Tommy—My relations to them—My duties—A turning-point in my life..................55

CHAPTER X.
LEARNING TO READ.

City annoyances—Plantation regrets—My mistress—Her history—Her kindness—My master—His sourness—My comforts—Increased sensitiveness—My occupation—Learning to read—Baneful effects of slaveholding on my dear, good mistress—Mr. Hugh forbids Mrs. Sophia to teach me further—Clouds gather on my bright prospects—Master Auld's exposition of the Philosophy of Slavery—His iron sentences—A new and special revelation—"knowledge unfits a child to be a slave"—Mr. Hugh's determination to keep him in ignorance—He owes as much to Mr. Hugh's opposition as to Mrs. Sophia's assistance.............................60

CHAPTER XI.
GROWING IN KNOWLEDGE.

My mistress—Her slaveholding duties—Their effects on her originally noble nature—The conflict in her mind—She opposes my learning to read—Too late—She had given me the "inch," I was resolved to take the "ell"—How I pursued my study to read—My tutors—What progress I made—Slavery—What I heard said about it—Thirteen years old—"Columbian Orator"^†Editorial Emendation: orator—Dialogue—Speeches—O'Connor^†Editorial Emendation: Sheridan—Pitt—Lords Chatham and Fox—Knowledge increasing—Liberty—Singing—Sadness—Unhappiness of Mrs. Sophia—My hatred of slavery—One Upas tree overshadows us all......................................................63

CHAPTER XII.
RELIGIOUS NATURE AWAKENED.

Abolitionists spoken of—Eagerness to know the meaning of the word—Consults the dictionary—Incendiary information—The enigma solved—"Nat" Turner^†Editorial Emendation: "Nat Turner" insurrection—Cholera—Religion—Methodist Minister—Religious impressions—Father Lawson—His character and occupation—His influence over me—Our mutual attachment—New hopes and aspirations—Heavenly light—Two Irishmen on wharf—Conversation with them—Learning to write—My aims..............................69

CHAPTER XIII.
THE VICISSITUDES OF SLAVE LIFE.

Death of old Master's son Richard, speedily followed by that of old Master—Valuation and division of all the property, including the slaves—Sent for to come to Hillsborough to be valued and divided—Sad prospects and grief—Parting—Slaves have no voice in deciding their own destinies—General dread of falling into Master Andrew's hands—His drunkenness—Good fortune in falling to Miss Lucretia—She allows my return to Baltimore—Joy at Master Hugh's—Death of Miss

Lucretia—Master Thomas Auld's second marriage—The new wife unlike the old—Again removed from Master Hugh's—Reasons for regret—Plan of escape........ 74

CHAPTER XIV.
EXPERIENCE IN ST. MICHAELS.

St. Michaels and its inhabitants— Capt. Auld—His new wife—Sufferings from hunger—Forced to steal—Argument in vindication thereof—Southern camp-meeting—What Capt. Auld did there—Hopes—Suspicions—The result—Faith and works at variance—Position in the church—Poor Cousin Henny—Methodist preachers—Their disregard of the slaves—One exception—Sabbath-school—How and by whom broken up—Sad change in my prospects—Covey, the negrobreaker ..............................................................80

CHAPTER XV.
COVEY, THE NEGRO BREAKER.

Journey to Covey's—Meditations by the way—Covey 's house—Family—Awkwardness as a field hand—A cruel beating—Why given—Description of Covey—First attempt at driving oxen—Hair-breadth escape—Ox and man alike property—Hard labor more effective than the whip for breaking down the spirit—Cunning and trickery of Covey—Family worship—Shocking and indecent contempt for chastity—Great mental agitation—Anguish beyond description.................................... 89

CHAPTER XVI.
ANOTHER PRESSURE OF THE TYRANT'S VICE

Experience at Covey's summed up—First six months severer than the remaining six—Preliminaries to the change—Reasons for narrating the circumstances—Scene in the treading-yard—Author taken ill—Escapes to St. Michael's—The pursuit—Suffering in the woods—Talk with Master Thomas—His beating—Driven back to Covey's—The slaves never sick—Natural to expect them to feign sickness—Laziness of slaveholders................................. 99

CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST FLOGGING.

A sleepless night—Return to Covey's—Punished by him—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 master—Sandy's hospitality—The ash-cake supper—Interview with Sandy—His advice—Sandy a conjuror 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 ..................................................... 104

CHAPTER XVIII.
NEW RELATIONS AND DUTIES.

Change of masters—Benefits derived by change—Fame of the fight with Covey—Reckless unconcern—Author's abhorrence^†Editorial Emendation: abhorence of slavery—Ability to read a cause of prejudice—The holidays—How spent—Sharp hit at slavery—Effects of holidays—Difference between Covey and Freeland—An irreligious master preferred to a religious one—Hard life at Covey's useful to the author—Improved condition does not bring contentment—Congenial society at Freeland's—Author's Sabbath-school—Secresy necessary—Affectionate relations of tutor and pupils—Confidence and friendship among slaves—Slavery the inviter of vengeance................... 113

CHAPTER XIX.
THE RUNAWAY PLOT.

New Year's thoughts and meditations—Again hired by Freeland—Kindness no compensation for slavery—Incipient steps toward escape—Considerations leading thereto—Hostility to slavery—Solemn vow taken—Plan divulged to slaves—"Columbian Orator" again—Scheme gains favor—Danger of discovery—Skill of slaveholders—Suspicion and coercion—Hymns with double meaning—Consultation—Pass-word—Hope and fear—Ignorance of Geography—Imaginary difficulties—Patrick Henry—Sandy a dreamer—Route to the north mapped out—Objections—Frauds—Passes—Anxieties—Fear of failure—Strange presentiment—Coincidence—Betrayal—Arrests—Resistance—Mrs. Freeland—Prison—Brutal jests—Passes eaten—Denial—Sandy—Dragged behind horses—Slave traders—Alone in prison—Sent to Baltimore..................................121

CHAPTER XX.
APPRENTICESHIP LIFE.

Nothing lost in my attempt to run away—Comrades at home—Reasons for sending me away—Return to Baltimore—Tommy changed—Caulking in Gardner's^†Gardiner's ship yard—Desperate fight—Its causes—Conflict between white and black labor—Outrage testimony—Master Hugh—Slavery in Baltimore—My condition improves—New associations—Slaveholder's right to the slave's wages—How to make a discontented slave................................................138

CHAPTER XXI.
ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY.

Closing incidents in my life as a slave^†"Life as a Slave"—Discontent—Suspicions—Master's generosity—Difficulties in the way of escape—Plan to obtain money—Allowed to hire my time—A gleam of hope—Attend camp-meeting—Anger of Master Hugh—The result—Plans of escape—Day for departure fixed—Harassing doubts and fears—Painful thoughts of separation from friends......................147

-------------------------------------------
SECOND PART.
-----------

CHAPTER I.
ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY.

Reasons for not having revealed the manner of escape—Nothing of romance in the method—Danger—Free Papers—Unjust tax—Protection papers—Free trade and sailors' rights"—American eagle—Railroad train—Unobserving conductor—Capt. McGowan—Honest German—Fears—Safe arrival in Philadelphia—Ditto in
New York....................................................... 153

CHAPTER II.
LIFE AS A FREEMAN.

Loneliness and insecurity—"Allender's Jake"—Succored by a sailor—David Ruggles—Marriage—Steamer "J. W. Richmond"— Stage to New Bedford—Arrival there—Driver's detention of baggage—Nathan Johnson—Change of Name—Why called ''Douglass"—Obtaining Work—The Liberator and its Editor......................... 157

CHAPTER III.
INTRODUCED TO THE ABOLITIONISTS.

Anti-Slavery Convention at Nantucket-first Speech—Much Sensation—Extraordinary Speech of Mr. GarrisonGarrison, William Lloyd

William Lloyd Garrison (1805-79) was the foremost white abolitionist of the nineteenth century and was credited with the discovery of Douglass as a speaker at an antislavery meeting in Nantucket in 1841. He began his career as an apprentice printer on the Newburyport (Mass.) Herald at the age of thirteen. Garrison became editor of the Newburyport Free Press in 1826, but the paper closed within a year. He was then associated with a series of periodicals in Boston that advocated reform before Benjamin Lundy offered the young journalist the opportunity to write for his antislavery newspaper. Garrison joined Lundy in editing the Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1829, during the last year of the paper's 1821-1830 run. In 1830 a libel suit against the editors forced the paper to close and landed Garrison in jail. After his release, he courted the wealthy merchants of New York and Boston in order to start the Liberator (1831-65), a weekly journal based in Boston in which he advocated an immediate end to slavery. Garrison's brand of abolition condemned any institution that would tolerate the existence of slavery, including churches, political parties. and even the United States itself and any scheme aimed at removing black people from the country. Instead, Garrison hoped to raise the public's awareness that slavery was morally wrong and thereby force its end in an almost millennial moment of emancipation. His approach appealed to both white and black antislavery advocates but earned him many enemies among those only moderately opposed to slavery and slaveholders alike. Seeing the need for greater action and organization beyond the pages of the Liberator; Garrison joined with other abolitionists to form the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1831. Two years later he helped found the larger American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1833 he established ties with English abolitionists after a trip to Great Britain, and he later brought the noted and notorious speaker George Thompson to the United States for a tour. Garrison also dedicated himself to women's rights, encouraging women to enter the public sphere by inviting them, via the Liberator, to form female antislavery societies. In addition to the thirty-three women's antislavery societies that flourished by 1838, Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society welcomed women as well as blacks into its ranks. However, female delegates were excluded from the World's Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840 in London. The issue of women's participation in the antislavery movement and Garrison's absolute refusal to turn to politics to end slavery caused a division in the American Anti-Slavery Society. Brothers Lewis and Arthur Tappan, who opposed women's acting as speakers and who hoped to use politics toward abolition, broke with Garrison's American Anti-Slavery Society, forming the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, or the "New Organization" in 1841. Garrison's ideas were so closely associated with the "Old Organization" that the American Anti-Slavery Society became known simply as the "Garrisonians." With the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, Garrison believed that he had accomplished his life's work and that of the antislavery movement. He then resigned from the presidency of the American Anti-Slavery Society and closed the Liberator. Wendell Phillips Garrison and Francis Jackson Garrison, William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879: The Story of His Life Told by His Children, 4 vols. (New York, 188589); Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York, 1998); James Brewer Stewart, William Lloyd Garrison and the Challenge of Emancipation (Arlington Heights, Ill., 1992); John L. Thomas, The Liberator: William Lloyd Garrison (Boston, 1963); Dictionary of American Biography, 20 vols. (New York, 1928-36), 7:168-72. —Anti-Slavery Agency—Youthful Enthusiasm Fugitive Slaveship Doubted—Experience in Slavery Written—Danger of Recapture.
................................................167

CHAPTER IV.
RECOLLECTIONS OF OLD FRIENDS.

Work in Rhode Island—Dorr War—Recollections of old friends—Further labors in Rhode Island and elsewhere in New England...................................... 171

CHAPTER V.
ONE HUNDRED CONVENTIONS.

Anti-Slavery Conventions held in parts of New England, and in some of the Middle and Western States—Mobs—Incidents, etc. .............................................. 175

CHAPTER VI.
IMPRESSIONS ABROAD.

Danger to be averted—A refuge sought abroad—Voyage on the steamship "Cambria"—Refusal of first-class passage—Attractions of the fore-castle-deck—

Hutchinson family—Invited to make a speech—Southerners feel insulted—Captain threatens to put them in irons—Experiences abroad—Attentions received—Impressions of different members of Parliament, and of other public men—Contrast with life in America—Kindness of friends—Their purchase of my person, and the gift of the same to myself—My return...................... 180

CHAPTER VII.
TRIUMPHS AND TRIALS.

New Experiences—Painful Disagreement of Opinion with old Friends—Final Decision to Publish my Paper in Rochester—Its Fortunes and its Friends—Change in my own Views Regarding the Constitution of the United States—Fidelity to Conviction—Loss of Old Friends—Support of New Ones—Loss of House, etc., by Fire—Triumphs and Trials—Under-ground Railroad—Incidents.......................... 202

CHAPTER VIII.
JOHN BROWN AND MRS. STOWE.

My first meeting with Capt. John Brown—The Free Soil Movement—Colored Convention—"Uncle Tom's Cabin"—Industrial School for Colored People—Letter to Mrs. H. B. Stowe.................................................................. 211

CHAPTER IX.
INCREASING DEMANDS OF THE SLAVE POWER.

Increased demands of slavery—War in Kansas—John Brown's raid—His capture and execution—My escape to England from United States marshals............................. 228

CHAPTER X.
THE BEGINNING OF THE END.

My connection with John Brown—To and from England—Presidential Contest—Election of Abraham Lincoln............................................... 245

CHAPTER XI.
SECESSION AND WAR.

Recruiting of the 54th and 55th Colored Regiments—Visit to President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton—Promised a Commission as Adjutant General to General Thomas—Disappointment....................................260

CHAPTER XII.
HOPE FOR THE NATION.

Proclamation of emancipation—Its reception in Boston—Objections brought against it—Its effect on the country—Interview with President Lincoln—New York

riots—Re-election of Mr. Lincoln—His inauguration, and inaugural—Vice-President Johnson—Presidential reception—The fall of Richmond—Fanueil Hall—The assassination—Condolence................ 274

CHAPTER XIII.
VAST CHANGES.

Satisfaction and anxiety—New fields of labor opening—Lyceums and colleges soliciting addresses—Literary attractions—Pecuniary gain—Still pleading for human rights—President Andy Johnson—Colored delegation—Their reply to him—National Loyalist Convention, 1866, and its procession—Not Wanted—Meeting with an old friend—Joy and surprise—The old master's welcome, and Miss Amanda's friendship—Enfranchisement discussed—its accomplishment^†Editorial Emendation: Enfranchisement debated and accomplished―The Negro—The negro a citizen........................................ 291

CHAPTER XIV.
LIVING AND LEARNING.

Inducements to a political career—Objections—A newspaper enterprise—The New National Era—Its abandonment—The Freedman's Savings^†Editorial Emendation: Saving and Trust Company—Sad experience—Vindication.................................311

CHAPTER XV.
"WEIGHED IN THE BALANCE."^†Editorial Emendation: First American Edition, Second Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: "Weighed in the Balance."

The Santo Domingo controversy—Decoration Day at Arlington, 1871—Speech delivered there—National colored convention at New Orleans, 1872—Elector at large for the State of New York—Death of Hon. Henry Wilson................................... 318

CHAPTER XVI.
"TIME MAKES ALL THINGS EVEN."

Return to the "old master"—A last interview—Capt. Auld's admission—"Had^†Editorial Emendation: ~ "had I been in your place, I should have done as you did"—Specch at Easton—The old jail there—Invited to a sail on the revenue cutter "Guthrie"—Hon. John L. Thomas—Visit to the old plantation—Home of Col. Lloyd—Kind reception and attentions—Familiar scenes—Old memories—Burial-ground—Hospitality—Gracious reception from Mrs. Buchanan—A little girl's floral gift—A promise of a "good time coming"—Speech at Harper's Ferry, Decoration day, 1881—Storer College—Hon. A. J. Hunter...............................................344

CHAPTER XVII.
INCIDENTS AND EVENTS.

Hon. Gerrit SmithSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. and Mr. E. C. Delavan^†Editorial Emendation: Delevan—Experiences at Hotels and on Steamboats and other modes of travel—Hon. Edward Marshall—Grace Greenwood—Hon.

Moses Norris—Rob't G.^†Editorial Emendation: ~ J. Ingersoll—Reflections and conclusions—Compensations.................................................... 354

CHAPTER XVIII.
"HONOR TO WHOM HONOR."
Grateful recognition—Friends in need—Lucretia Mott—Lydia Maria Child—Sarah and Angelina Grimké^†Editorial Emendation: Grimke—Abby Kelley^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: Kelly—H. Beecher Stowe—Other Friends—Woman Suffrage^†Editorial Emendation: First American Edition, Second Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: Suffrage━
Concluding thoughts....................................364

CHAPTER XIX.
RETROSPECTION.

Concluding reflections and convictions^†Editorial Emendations: First American Edition, Second Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: XIX......................372

-----------------------------------------
THIRD PART.

CHAPTER I.
LATER LIFE

Again summoned to the defense of his people—The difficulties of the task—The race problem—His life work.............................................................. 375

CHAPTER II.
ANTI-SLAVERY.

The anti-slavery movement^†Editorial Emendation: consult the printed volume for chapter heading emendations based on Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893.................................378

CHAPTER III.
A GRAND OCCASION: DOUBTS AS TO GARFIELD'S COURSE

Inauguration of President Garfield—A valuable precedent—An affecting scene—The greed of the office-seekers—Conference with President Garfield—Distrust of the Vice-President—Garfield not a stalwart—Encounter of Garfield with Tucker—Hope in promises of a new departure—The sorrow-stricken nation.................. 379

CHAPTER IV.
RECORDER OF DEEDS.

Activity in behalf of his people—Income of the Recorder of Deeds—False impressions as to his wealth—Appeals for assistance—Persistent beggars.................... 386

CHAPTER V.
PRESIDENT CLEVELAND'S ADMINISTRATION.

Circumstances of Cleveland's election—Political standing of the District of Columbia—Estimate of Cleveland's character—Respect for Mr. Cleveland—Decline of strength in the Republican party—Time of gloom for the colored people—Reason for the defeat of Blaine..............................................390

CHAPTER VI.
THE SUPREME COURT DECISION.

Action of the Supreme Court—Its effects on the colored people—Address at Lincoln Hall...................... 395

CHAPTER VII.
DEFEAT OF JAMES G. BLAINE.

Causes of the Republican defeat—Tariff and free trade—No confidence in the Democratic party...................... 406

CHAPTER VIII.
EUROPEAN TOUR.

Revisits Parliament—Changes in Parliament—Recollections of Lord Brougham—Listens to Gladstone—Meeting with old friends.............................................. 408

CHAPTER IX.
CONTINUATION OF EUROPEAN TOUR

Through France—Dijon and Lyons—The palace of the Popes—The Amphitheater at Arles—Visits Nice—Pisa and its leaning tower—The Pantheon— Modern Rome—Religion at Rome—Rome of the Past—Vesuvius and Naples—Through the Suez Canal—Life in the East—The Nile—The religion of Mahomet—At the graves of Theodore Parker and Mrs. Browning—The mountains of the Tyrol................... 412

CHAPTER X.
THE CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

Preference for John Sherman—Speech at the convention—On the stump—The Tariff question..................................... 435

CHAPTER XI.
ADMINISTRATION OF PRESIDENT HARRISON.

Appointed minister at Haïti—Unfriendly criticism—Admiral Gherardi.............. 439

CHAPTER XII.
MINISTER TO HAÏTI.

The Môle St. Nicolas—Social Relations—Sympathy for Haïti—The facts about the Môle St. Nicolas—Conference with the Haïtian Government—Negotiations for the Môle St. Nicolas—Close of the interview.......................................... 441

CHAPTER XIII.
CONTINUED NEGOTIATIONS FOR THE MÔLE^†Editorial Emendation: MOLE ST. NICOLAS.

Unfortunate delay—Renewed authority from the United States—Haïti's Refusal—Reasons for the Refusal—The Clyde contract—A dishonest proposition—A strange demand—Haïti's mistake—Bad effect of the Clyde proposition—Final words.................................................. 448

------------------------------------
APPENDIX.

Oration at the unveiling of the Freedmen's monument, at Lincoln Park, Washington, D.C. April 14. 1876—Extract from a speech delivered at Elmira, N. Y., August 1, 1880—Meeting of colored citizens in Washington, to express their sympathy at the great national bereavement, the death of President Garfield^†Editorial Emendation: A2. First American Edition, Second Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882; note 19.8-10................ 459

FIRST PART.^†Editorial Emendation: LIFE AS A SLAVE.

CHAPTER I.
AUTHOR'S BIRTH.

Author's place of birth—Description of country—Its inhabitants—Genealogical trees—Method of
counting time in slave districts—Date of author's birth—Names of grandparents—Their
cabin—Home with them—Slave practice of separating mothers from their children—
Author's recollections of his mother—Who was his father?

In Talbot County,^†Talbot County, Eastern Shore, State of Maryland, near Easton] Talbot County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, had been an important tobacco-growing 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. Preston and Harrington, Talbot County, 140, 191, 256; Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland, 104-05. Eastern Shore, State of Maryland, near Easton, the county town, 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 and fever.^†A common symptom of malaria, ague is characterized by paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating recurring in intervals. 23.14 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. The Choptank begins in Delaware County, Delaware, and flows southeast into Maryland. At Cambridge, Maryland, the river's course turns westward and it flows into the Chesapeake Bay at a very wide mouth, permitting navigation far inland. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 170-84. It was in this dull, flat, and unthrifty district or neighborhood, bordered by the Choptank river, among the laziest and muddiest of streams surrounded by a white population of the lowest order, indolent and drunken to a proverb, and among slaves who, in point of ignorance and indolence, were fully in accord with their surroundings, that I, without any fault of my own, was born, and spent the first years of my childhood.

The reader must not expect me to say much of my family. Genealogical trees did not flourish among slaves. A person of some consequence in civilized society, sometimes designated as father, was literally unknown to slave law and slave practice. I never met with a slave in that part of the country who could tell me with any certainty how old he was. Few at that time knew anything of the months of the year or of the days of the month. They measured the ages of their children by spring-time, winter-time, harvest-time, planting-time, and the like. Masters allowed no questions to be put to them by slaves concerning their ages. Such questions were regarded by the masters as evidence of an impudent curiosity. From certain events, however, the dates of which I have since learned, I suppose myself to have been born in February, 1817.^†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." Aaron Anthony Ledger B. 1812-26, folders 95, 165, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Further evidence for the year 1818 is presented in Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 31-34, 218-19.

My first experience of life, as I now remember it, and I remember it but hazily, began in the family of my grandmother and grandfather, BetseyBailey, Betsey (Douglass's grandmother)

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 acquired 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. Douglass to Thomas Auld, 3 September 1848, 3 September 1849, in NS, 8 September 1848, 7 September 1849, reprinted in Lib., 22 September 1848, 14 September 1849; 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, 77, Aaron Anthony Ledger A, 1790-1818, folder 94, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folders 77, 159, 165-68. Anthony Family Papers, Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folders 93, 180, all in Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 8, 16-20, 167. and Isaac BaileyBailey, Isaac (Douglass's grandfather)

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. On occasion, he would hire one of Anthony's slaves to assist him in his work. He also 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 living with one adult woman and a young boy. Bailey died during the 1840s. Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folder 95. Aaron Anthony Ledger C, 1809-27, folder 96, 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 considered old settlers in the neighborhood, and from certain circumstances I infer that my grandmother, especially, was held in high esteem, far higher than was the lot of most colored persons in that

region. She was a good nurse, and a capital hand at making nets used for catching shad and herring, and was, withal, somewhat famous as a fisherwoman. I have known her to be in the water waist deep, for hours, seine-hauling.^†Catching fish with a net that hangs vertically in the water. She was a gardener as well as a fisherwoman, and remarkable for her success in keeping her seedling sweet potatoes through the months of winter, and easily got the reputation of being born to "good luck." In planting time Grandmother Betsey was sent for in all directions, simply to place the seedling potatoes in the hills or drills; for superstition had it that her touch was needed to make them grow. This reputation was full of advantage to her and her grandchildren, for a good crop, after her planting for the
neighbors, brought her a share of the harvest.

Whether because she was too old for field service, or because she had so
faithfully discharged the duties of her station in early life, I know not, but she enjoyed the high privilege of living in a cabin separate from the quarters, having only the charge of the young children and the burden of her own support imposed upon her.^†On some plantations, elderly slave women cared for children under six years of age in communal "nurseries" during the day while the mothers worked. Many slave mothers assumed traditional family responsibilities like childcare, cooking, sewing, and cleaning for their own households, accomplishing these tasks either in the early morning hours, before the work day, or late at night. Some slaveholders manumitted their older slaves, both women and men, when their ability to work did not seem to justify the expense of keeping them. In other cases, the slave community itself cared for its aged members, delegating to them the tasks of caring for the youngest children: teaching them manners, prayers, and skills like fishing and feeding the animals. Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work, and the Family from Slavery to the Present (New York, 1985), 11-43; Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll, 494-523. She esteemed it great good fortune to live so, and took much comfort in having the children. The practice of separating mothers from their children^†While many pregnant slave women continued physical labor until mere weeks before their children were to be born, slaveholders, interested in each child as a new acquisition, often freed a mother for days or weeks to nurse a newborn. Some owners even established nursing schedules for the infants. Some mothers, like Douglass's, were hired out to other plantations and rarely saw their children. But it was more often the case that slave mothers shared cabins with their children and spent as much time caring for them as possible, given a demanding work day. During the day, young children were frequently neglected in the plantation nursery or cared for by siblings scarcely older than themselves. As a result, child mortality was high. However, many slave autobiographies attest to the love, compassion, and hope within slave families, relating stories of children fighting overseers who tried to beat their mothers, or of offspring choosing to remain in bondage with their mothers when offered an opportunity for escape or freedom. John W. Blassingame, The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South (1972; New York, 1979), 77-103. and hiring them out at distances too great to admit of their meeting, save at long intervals, was a marked feature of the cruelty and barbarity of the slave system; but it was in harmony with the grand aim of that system, which always and everywhere sought to reduce man to a level with the brute. It had no interest in recognizing or preserving any of the ties that bind families together or to their homes.

My grandmother's five daughters^†Of the twelve children born to [Betsey and Isaac Bailey, five daughters, all owned by Aaron Anthony were hired out. Milly Bailey (1790-?), the first child of Isaac and Betsey, worked on Aaron Anthony's Tuckahoe farms and had seven children. Betsey and Isaac's second child, Harriet (1792-1825), was hired out by Anthony to local farmers as a field hand from 1808 until her death. 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. Jenny Bailey (1799-?), the third daughter of Betsey and Isaac, either worked on Anthony's 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 Lower South. The fourth daughter, Hester Bailey (1810-?), bore one child, and was last mentioned in 1827, when she was awarded to Thomas Auld after the death of Aaron Anthony. Priscilla Bailey (1816-?), the eleventh of Betsey and Isaac's twelve children, was given to Richard Lee Anthony upon the death of his father, Aaron Anthony, in 1826. Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folders 95, 165, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827. Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 5859, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass 8-9, 17-18, 21, 27, 34-35, 37, 62-65, 205-06, 219, 221. were hired out in this way, and my only recollections of my own mother are of a few hasty visits made in the night on foot, after the daily tasks were over, and when she was under the necessity of returning in time to respond to the driver 's call to the field in the early morning. These little glimpses of my mother, obtained under such circumstances and against such odds, meager as they were, are ineffaceably stamped upon my memory. She was tall and finely proportioned, of dark glossy complexion, with regular features, and amongst the slaves was remarkably sedate and dignified. There is, in Prichard'sPrichard, James Cowles

James Cowles Prichard (17861848) was an English physician, notable for having held a favorable view on the origin and potential of blacks. In The Natural History of Man, he argues for monogenism, claiming that humans were originally black, their skin color becoming lighter over time. Prichard believed that racial varieties were inherent in the original structure of a being rather than imposed by external circumstances like climate. The figure to which Douglass refers is a sketch of the Egyptian Pharaoh, Ramses the Great, found in Prichard's book. James Cowles Prichard, The Natural History of Man, 3d ed. (London, 1848), 1-26, 157; George W. Stocking, Jr. , ed., Researches into the Physical History of Man (1813; Chicago, 1973), ix-ex. "Natural History of Man," the head of a figure, on page 157, the features of which so resemble my mother that I often recur to it with something of the feelings which I suppose others experience when looking upon the likenesses of their own dear departed ones.

Of my father I know nothing.^†In Narrative Douglass] not only claims that his father was a white man but even intimates that he was rumored to be his first master, Aaron Anthony. However, this speculation becomes more doubtful in his subsequent autobiographies. "My father was a white man, or nearly white," Douglass adds to his original remark in My Bondage and My Freedom, while also mentioning that he cannot give any credence to the rumor that his father was Anthony. By the time he wrote Life and Times, Douglass had ceased to speculate about the actual identity of his father. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 2:35; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 22-23. Slavery had no recognition of fathers, as none of families. That the mother was a slave was enough for its deadly purpose. By its law the child followed the condition of its mother.^†A 1662 Virginia statute applies the civil law concept partus sequitar ventrem, stating that "all children borne in this country shall be held bond or free only according to the condition of the mother." This law placed the offspring of black human beings in the same condition as the broods of tame and domestic animals, a departure from the English common-law rule that a child follows the status of the father. The reasoning behind this practice was that it benefited slaveholders economically and allowed them to avoid complex social situations that might undermine the emerging institution of slavery. V. Lynn Kennedy, Born Southern: Childbirth, Motherhood, and Social Networks in the Old South (Baltimore), 2010), 160-65; Paul Finkelman, "The Crime of Color," Tulane Law Review, 67:2063-112 (June 1993). The father might be a freeman and the child a slave. The father might be a white man,

glorying in the purity of his Anglo-Saxon blood, and his child ranked with the blackest slaves. Father he might be, and not be husband, and could sell his own child without incurring reproach, if in its veins coursed one drop of African blood.^†Douglass's reference to "one drop of African blood" predates the first legal statute (Tennessee, 1910) that explicitly stated that such a measurement should determine race. Virginia adopted its one-drop rule in the 1920s; however, during the nineteenth century, state courts classified race using definitions more complex than the one-drop rule. Some scholars write ahout this rule as though it had been adopted by all states in antebellum America through Reconstruction to the Jim Crow era and beyond. Although there is little evidence supporting this claim of widespread legislation, the one-drop rule as a social definition of race dictated, to an extant, the self-identification of blacks in the United States. F. James Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition (University Park, Pa., 1991), 15; Michael A. Elliot, "Telling the Difference: Nineteenth-Century Legal Narratives of Racial Taxonomy," Law and Social Inquiry, 24:611-36 (Summer 1999); Ariela J. Gross, "Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South," Yale Law Journal, 108:109-88 (October 1998); Finkelman, "Crime of Color," 2063-112.

CHAPTER II.
REMOVAL FROM GRANDMOTHER'S.

Author's early home—Its charms—Author's ignorance of "old master"—His gradual perception of the truth concerning him—His relations to Col. Edward Lloyd—Author's removal to "old master's" home—His journey thence—His separation from his grandmother—His grief.

Living thus with my grandmother, whose kindness and love stood in place of my mother's, it was some time before I knew myself to be a slave. I knew many other things before I knew that. Her little cabin had to me the attractions of a palace. Its fence-railed floor—which was equally floor and bedstead—up stairs, and its clay floor down stairs, its dirt and straw chimney, and windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship, the ladder stairway, and the hole so strangely dug in front of the fire-place, beneath which grandmamma placed her sweet potatoes, to keep them from frost in winter, were full of interest to my childish observation. The squirrels, as they skipped the fences, climbed the trees, or gathered their nuts, were an unceasing delight to me. 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. Nor were these all the attractions of the place. At a little distance stood Mr. Lee'sLee, Levi

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, Talbot County, 48; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 36. mill, where the people came in large numbers to get their corn ground. I can never tell the many things thought and felt, as I sat on the bank and watched that mill, and the turning of its ponderous wheel. The mill-pond, too, had its charms; and with my pin-hook and thread line^†A primitive fishing tackle composed of a small hook made from or resembling a pin and a line spun from flax, cotton, or some other available fiber. I could get amusing nibbles if I could catch no fish.

It was not long, however, before I began to learn the sad fact that this house of my childhood belonged not to my dear old grandmother, but to some one I had never seen, and who lived a great distance off. I learned, too, the sadder fact, that not only the home and lot, but that grandmother herself and all the little children around her belonged to a mysterious personage, called by grandmother, with every mark of reverence, "Old Master."Anthony, Aaron

Aaron Anthony (1767-1826), Frederick Douglass's first owner and possibly his father, was born at Tuckahoe Neck in what later became Maryland's Caroline County. 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 rest 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 at $8,042. Anthony Family Bible, Oxford Museum, Oxford, Md.; Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folders 93, 58, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Inventory of Estate of Aaron Anthony, 13 January 1827, Talbot County Inventories, box 13, 5-9, MdTCH; Charles B. Clark, ed., The Eastern Shore of Maryland and Virginia, 3 vols. (New York, 1950), 1:491-92; Footner], Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 285, 299-304; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 22-30; idem., "Aaron Anthony" (unpublished paper, Easton, Maryland, 1977), MdTCH. Thus early did clouds and shadows begin to fall upon my path.

I learned that this old master, whose name seemed ever to be mentioned with fear and shuddering, only allowed the little children to live with grandmother for a limited time, and that as soon as they were big enough they were promptly taken away to live with the said old master. These were distressing revelations indeed. My grandmother was all the world to me, and the thought of being separated from her was a most unwelcome suggestion to my affections and hopes. This mysterious 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 Colonel LloydLloyd, Edward V

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 slaveowners, he was also Maryland’s most successful wheat grower and cattle raiser. 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 extended back to colonial Maryland. In 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, Edward V became a Republican delegate to the state legislature when he reached the age of majority in 1800. The following year, he helped secure passage of a bill removing all restrictions to white male suffrage. As a U.S. congressman (1806–08), Lloyd voted against a bill to end the African slave trade. He also served as Maryland’s governor (1809–10), a state legislator (1811–16), U.S. senator (1819–26), and state senator (1826–31). Edward 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, comp., History of Talbot County, Maryland, 1661–1861, 2 vols. (Baltimore, 1915), 1:184–210; Hulbert Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore: Seventeen Maryland Rivers (New York, 1944), 283–90; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 26, 30, 48–54, 57–58, 74, 82; BDAC, 1403. , had overseers as well as slaves on his own farms, and gave directions to the overseers on the farms owned by Colonel Lloyd. Captain Aaron Anthony, for such is the name and title of my old master, lived on Colonel Lloyd's plantation,^†Wye House. which was situated on the Wye river, and which was one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed in the State.

About this plantation and this old master I was most eager to know everything which could be known; and, unhappily for me, all the information I could get concerning him increased my dread of being separated from my grandmother and grandfather. I wished it was possible I could remain small all my life, knowing that the sooner I grew large the shorter would be my time to remain with them. Everything about the cabin became doubly dear, and I was sure there could be no other spot equal to it on earth. But the time came when I must go, and my grandmother, knowing my fears, in pity for them, kindly kept me ignorant of the dreaded moment up to the morning (a beautiful summer morning) when we were to start, and, indeed, during the whole journey, which, child as I was, I remember as well as if it were yesterday, she kept the unwelcome truth hidden from me. The distance from Tuckahoe to Colonel Lloyd's, 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"^†American colloquialism meaning to transport a load. me on her shoulder. Advanced in years as she was, as was evident from the more than one gray hair which peeped from between the ample and graceful folds of her newly and smoothly ironed bandana turban,^†Historians dispute the origins of the turban or bandana worn by female slaves in the American South. The historical record provides mixed evidence as to whether the tradition was a product of African heritage or the slave trade. Helen Bradley Foster, New Raiments of Self: African American Clothing in the Antebellum South (New York, 1997), 275-81. Editorial Emendation: "toteing." grandmother was yet a woman of power and spirit. She was remarkably straight in figure, elastic and muscular in movement. I seemed hardly to be a burden to her. She would have "toted" me farther, but I felt myself too much of a man to allow it. Yet while I walked I was not independent of her. She often found me holding her skirts lest something should come out of the woods and eat me up. Several old logs and stumps imposed upon me, and got them-

selves taken for enormous animals. I could plainly see their legs, eyes, ears, and teeth, till I got close enough to see that the eyes were knots, washed white with rain, and the legs were broken limbs, and the ears and teeth only such because of the point from which they were seen.

As the day advanced the heat increased, and it was not until the afternoon that we reached the much dreaded end of the journey. Here I found myself in the midst of a group of children of all sizes and of many colors, black, brown, copper-colored, and nearly white. I had not seen so many children before. As a new comer I was an object of special interest. After laughing and yelling around me and playing all sorts of wild tricks they asked me to go out and play with them. This I refused to do. Grandmamma looked sad, and I could not help feeling that our being there boded no good to me. She was soon to lose another object of affection, as she had lost many before. Affectionately patting me on the head she told me to be a good boy and go out to play with the children. They are "kin to you," she said, "go and play with them." She pointed out to me my brother PerryBailey, Perry (Douglass's brother)

Perry Bailey (1813-80), 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 postemancipation 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 Collection, DHU-MS; Douglass to J. J. Spellman, 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 I827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 175-77, 206. , and my sisters, SarahPettit, Sarah Bailey (Douglass's sister)

Sarah Bailey (1814-?) was Frederick Douglass's oldest sister and the second of seven children born to Harriet Bailey. Aaron Anthony owned Sarah, but after his death in 1826, she became the chattel of his son, Andrew Skinner Anthony. In 1832 Anthony 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, frames 77880, 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 ElizaMitchell, Eliza (Ellen) Bailey (Douglass's sister)

Third of the 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 their 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. Lewis Douglass to Douglass, 9 June 1865, FD Papers, DHU-MS; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 5859. 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; New York Independent, 2 March 1865; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 164-65. 184, 206-07, 229. . I had never seen them 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. Brothers and sisters we were by blood, but slavery had made us strangers. They were already initiated into the mysteries of old master's domicile, and they seemed to look upon me with a certain degree of compassion. I really wanted to play with them, but they were strangers to me, and I was full of fear that my grandmother might leave for home 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. Play, 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, grandmamma gone!" I could not believe it. Yet, fearing the worst, I ran into the kitchen to see for myself, and lo! she was indeed gone, and was now far away and "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 gave me peaches and pears to quiet me, but I promptly threw them on the ground. I had never been deceived before, and something of resentment at this, mingled with my grief at parting with my grandmother.

It was now late in the afternoon. The day had been an exciting and wearisome one, and I know not where, but I suppose I sobbed myself to sleep, and its balm was never more welcome to any wounded soul than to mine.

28 LIFE AND TIMES OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

The reader may be surprised that I relate so minutely an incident apparently
so trivial and which must have occurred when I was less 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, and
which I still remember so vividly. Besides, this was my first introduction to
the realities of the slave system.

CHAPTER III
TROUBLES OF CHILDHOOD.

Col. Lloyd's plantation — Aunt Katy — Her cruelty and ill-nature — Capt. Anthony's partiality to Aunt Katy — Allowance of food — Author's hunger — Unexpected rescue by his mother — The reproof of Aunt Katy — Sleep — A slave mother's love — Author's inheritance — His mother's acquirements — Her death

Once established on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd— I was with the children there, left to the tender mercies of Aunt Katy, a slave woman who was to my master what he was to Col. Lloyd. Disposing of us in classes or sizes. he left to Aunt KatyEmblem, Kate

Kate Emblem (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, folders 95, 159, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27, 91, 225. all the minor details concerning our management. She was a woman who never allowed herself to act greatly within the limits of delegated power, no matter how broad that authority might be. Ambitious of old master's favor, ill-tempered and cruel by nature, she found in her present position an ample field for the exercise of her ill-omened qualities. She had a strong hold upon old master, for she was a first-rate cook. and very industrious. She was therefore greatly favored by him— and as one mark of his favor she was the only mother who was permitted to retain her children around her, and even to these, her own children, she was often fiendish in her brutality. Cruel, however, as she sometimes was to her own children, she was not destitute of maternal feeling, and in her instinct to satisfy their demands for food, she was often guilty of starving me and the other children. Want of food was my chief trouble during my first summer here. Captain Anthony, instead of allowing a given quantity of food to each slave, committed the allowance for all to Aunt Katy, to be divided by her, after cooking, amongst us. The allowance consisted of coarse corn meal, not very abundant, and which by passing through Aunt Katy's hands, became more slender still for some of us. I have often been so pinched with hunger, as to dispute with old "Nep,'' the dog, for the crumbs which fell from the kitchen table. Many times have I followed with eager step, the waiting-girl when she shook the table-cloth, to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the dogs and cats. It was a great thing

to have the privilege of dipping a piece of bread into the water in which meat
had been boiled—and the skin taken from the rusty bacon was a positive
luxury. With this description of the domestic arrangements of my new home,
I may here recount a circumstance which is deeply impressed on my memory,
as affording a bright gleam of a slave-mother's love, and the earnestness of a
mother's care. I had offended Aunt Katy. I do not remember in what way, for
my offences were numerous in that quarter, greatly depending upon her
moods as to their heinousness, and she had adopted her usual mode of punish
ing me: namely, making me go all day without food. For the first hour or two
after dinner time, I succeeded pretty well in keeping up my spirits; but as the
day wore away. I found it quite impossible to do so any longer. Sundown
came, but no bread: and in its stead came the threat from Aunt Katy, with a
scowl well suited to its terrible import, that she would starve the life out of
me. Brandishing her knife, she chopped off the heavy slices of bread 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 the other children around me with satisfied faces, I could
stand it no longer. I went out behind the kitchen wall and cried like a fine fel
low. When wearied with 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 upon an upper shelf. I watched my
chance and got it; and shelling off a few grains, I put it back again. These
grains I quickly put into the hot ashes to roast. I did this 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 I eagerly pulled it from the ashes, and placed it
upon a stool in a clever little pile. I began to help myself, when who but my
own dear mother should come in. The scene which followed is beyond my
power to describe. The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need,
found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother. I have before spo
ken of my mother's dignified and impressive manner. I shall never forget the
indescribable expression of her countenance when I told her that Aunt Katy
had said she would starve the life out of me. There was deep and tender pity
in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt Katy at the same moment,
and while she took the corn from me, and gave in its stead a large ginger cake,
she read Aunt Katy a lecture which was never forgotten. That night I learned
as I had never learned before, that I was not only a child, but somebody's
child. I was grander upon 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 to

A manlike female, heroic warrior.find my mother gone and myself at the mercy again of the virago^†A manlike female, heroic warrior. in my master's kitchen, whose fiery wrath was my constant dread.

My mother had walked twelve miles to see me, and had the same dis
tance to travel over again before the morning sunrise. I do not remember
ever seeing her again. Her death^†Harriet Bailey died on the Holme Hill Farm after a long illness in late 1825 or early 1826. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 64. soon ended the little communication that
had existed between us, and with it, I believe, a life full of weariness and
heartfelt sorrow. To me it has ever been a grief that I knew my mother so
little, and have so few of her words treasured in my remembrance. I have
since learned that she was the only one of all the colored people of Tuckahoe
who could read. How she acquired this knowledge I know not, for Tuckahoe
was the last place in the world where she would have been likely 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^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: achievements. of my mother, considering the place and circumstances, was very extraordinary. In view of this fact, I am happy to attribute any love of letters I may have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother—a woman who belonged to a race whose mental endowments are still disparaged and despised.

CHAPTER IV.
A GENERAL SURVEY OF THE SLAVE PLANTATION.

Home Plantation of Colonel Lloyd—Its Isolation—Its Industries —The Slave Rule—Power of Overseers—Author finds some Enjoyment—Natural Scenery—Sloop "Sally Lloyd"—Wind Mill—Slave Quarter—"Old master's" House—Stables, Store Houses. etc., etc.—The Great House—Its Surroundings—Lloyd Burial-Place—Superstition of Slaves—Colonel Lloyd's Wealth—Negro Politeness—Doctor Copper—Captain Anthony—His family—Master Daniel Lloyd—His Brothers—Social Etiquette

It was generally supposed that slavery in the State of Maryland existed in its
mildest form,^†According to historian Barbara Jeanne Fields and others, the attitudes of and actions taken by slaveholders in Maryland were similar to those in other southern states, so in terms of provisions and treatment, enslavement in the border state did not differ much from the Lower South. Still, the brisk pace of slave trading and the prevalence of small-scale slaveholding, both of which disrupted the fabric of families, did make practices in Maryland remarkable and, in some ways, more bitter than elsewhere. Barbara Jeanne Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century (New Haven, Conn.] 1985), 23-26; Christopher Phillips, Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 (Urbana, Ill., 1997), 14-20; Frank Towers, The Urban South and the Coming of the Civil War (Charlottesville, Va., 2004), 61-62, 173; Steven Deyle, Carry Me Back: The Domestic Slave Trade in American Life (New York, 2005), 86-87, 98-99. and that it was totally divested of those harsh and terrible peculiarities which characterized the slave system in the Southern and Southwestern^†Editorial Emendation: South Western. States of the American Union. The ground of this opinion was the contiguity of the free States, and the influence of their moral, religious, and humane sentiments. Public opinion was, indeed, a measurable restraint upon the cruelty and barbarity of masters, overseers, and slave-drivers, whenever and wherever it could reach them; but there were certain secluded and out of the way places, even in the State of Maryland, fifty years ago,

seldom visited by a single ray of healthy public sentiment, where slavery, wrapt in its own congenial darkness, could and did develop all its malign and shocking characteristics, where it could be indecent without shame, cruel without shuddering, and murderous without apprehension or fear of exposure, or punishment. Just such a secluded, dark, and out of the way place, was the home plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd, in Talbot county,^†Wye House. eastern shore of Maryland. It was far away from all the great thoroughfares of travel and commerce, and proximate to no town or village. There was neither school-house nor town-house in its neighborhood.^†As late as 1833 the community of St. Michaels did not have a public school for the children of local planters and farmers. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 110. The school-house was unnecessary, for there were 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. PagePage, Joel

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 Dickson 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, 221. from Greenfield, Massachusetts, a tall, gaunt, sapling of a man, remarkably dignified, thoughtful, and reticent, and who did not speak a dozen words to a slave in a whole year). The overseer's children went off somewhere in the State to school, and therefore could bring no foreign or dangerous influence from abroad to embarrass the natural operation of the slave system of the place. Not even the commonest mechanics,^†White artisans in the South identified themselves as mechanics in the early nineteenth century. White mechanics distinguished themselves from free black artisans by virtue of their legal rights and moral obligations to their communities as taxpayers and as citizens. Unlike their eighteenth-century predecessors, nineteenthcentury mechanics embraced the principles of market capitalism as a natural precondition of their advancement in the traditional artisan hierarchy through a process of material accumulation. Bruce Laurie, Artisans into Workers: Labor in Nineteenth-Century America (New York, 1989), 49-51; David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness, rev. ed. (New York, 2003 ), 52. from whom there might have been an occasional outburst of honest and telling indignation at cruelty and wrong on other plantations, were white men here. Its whole public was made up of and divided into three classes, slaveholders, slaves, and overseers. Its blacksmiths, wheelwrights, shoemakers, weavers, and coopers, were slaves. Not even commerce, selfish and indifferent to moral considerations as it usually is, was 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 products of this plantation and those of the neighboring farms, belonging to Col. Lloyd, were transported to Baltimore in his own vessels,^†The Maryland property holdings of Edward Lloyd V were extensive. When Douglass first came to Wye Plantation in 1824, Lloyd reportedly held about 900 acres comprised of 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 the 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, were owned by him as his property. In return, everything brought to the plantation came through the same channel. To make this isolation more apparent it may be stated that the estates adjoining to Col. Lloyd's were owned and occupied by friends of his, who were as deeply interested as himself in maintaining the slave system in all its rigor. These were the Tilghmans,^†In 1820 several male members of the Tilghman family, all of whom lived in Talbot County, each owned large numbers of slaves. John owned fiftytwo; William H. had twenty-two; Robert owned forty-four; William G. held sixtynine; and James had thirty-five. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 7, 22, 25, 50. Editorial Emendation: Tilgmans. the Goldsboroughs,^†The Goldsborough family was part of the antebellum political, economic, and social elite of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Their colonial ancestors had received large land grants from the Calverts, which had been parlayed into a vast tobacco fortune. Located in Talbot County, the Goldsborough family estate possessed twenty-eight slaves by 1790. The Goldsboroughs were active in the Federalist and Anti-Jacksonian parties and exerted great influence over the recruitment of potential leadership to local and national political offices. Judge Robert Goldsborough IV (1740-98) served in the Maryland constitutional convention and then the state senate. His son, Robert Henry Goldsborough (1779-1836), served as a U.S. senator (1813-19) and cemented the family's hold over Talbot County politics. Whitman H. Ridgway, Community Leadership in Maryland, 1790-1840 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1979), 163-64; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:408-14; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 1, 10-11. Editorial Emendation: Goldboroughs. the Loockermans,^†While the Loockermans resided in several Eastern Shore counties, including Caroline, Talbot, and Queen Anne, 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 of land. His son, Theodore Richard Loockerman (1798-1851), 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. Ridgway, Community Leadership in Maryland, 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). the PacasPaca, Robert

Also referred to as Peakers, a common, local corruption of their 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 inherit her sizable land holdings. Despite his 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 time the Stamp Act was imposed in 1765. He later 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 l 770 his wife inherited half of Wye Island in Queen Anne's 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 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 of the county; this plantation was the principal Skinner residence in Talbot County throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Skinners farmed tobacco there until after the Revolution, when they made the conversion with many others tn 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, 214; Preston and Harrington, Talbot County, 115. GibsonsGibson, Jacob

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, 221. , and others of lesser affluence and standing.

The fact is, public opinion in such a quarter, the reader must see, was not likely to be very efficient in protecting the slave from cruelty. To be a restraint upon abuses of this nature, opinion must emanate from humane and virtuous communities, and to no such opinion or influence was Col. Lloyd's plantation exposed. It was a little nation by itself, having its own language,

its own rules, regulations, and customs. The troubles and controversies arising here were not settled by the civil power of the State. The overseer was the important dignitary. He was generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate, and executioner. The criminal was always dumb—and no slave was allowed to testify, other than against his brother slave.^†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, a trial by jury to slaves accused of crimes. 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. John Codman Hurd, The Law of Freedom and Bondage in the United States, 2 vols. (Boston, 1858-62), 1:251-54; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 446.

There were, of course, no conflicting rights of property, for all the people
were the property of one man, and they could themselves own no property.^†U.S. Civil Code, article 35, stated that a slave "can possess nothing or acquire any thing but what must belong to his master." The only exception was the Civil Code of Louisiana. Article 175 of the Louisiana Civil Code allowed slaves to possess property, but only the property his master allowed him. U.S. courts upheld the right of masters regarding decisions in the matter of slave property ownership made by state legislatures. William Goodell, The American Slave Code in Theory and Practice (1853; New York, 1968), 89-92; Stanley Elkins and Eric McKitrick, "Institutions and the Law of Slavery: Slavery in Capitalist and Non-Capitalist Cultures," American Quarterly, 9:159-79 (Summer 1957). Religion and politics were largely excluded. One class of the population was too high to be reached by the common preacher, and the other class was too low in condition and ignorance to be much cared for by religious teachers, and yet some religious ideas did enter this dark corner.

This, however, is not the only view which the place presented. Though civilization was in many respects shut out, nature could not be. Though separated from the rest of the world, though public opinion, as I have said, could seldom penetrate its dark domain, though the whole place was stamped with its own peculiar iron-like individuality, and though crimes, high-handed and atrocious, could be committed there with strange and shocking impunity, it was to outward seeming a most strikingly interesting place, full of life, activity, and spirit, and presented a very favorable contrast to the indolent monotony and languor of Tuckahoe. It resembled in some respects descriptions I have since read of the old baronial domains of Europe. Keen as was my regret, and great as was my sorrow, at leaving my old home, I was not long in adapting myself to this my new one. A man's troubles are always half disposed of when he finds endurance the only alternative. I found myself here; there was no getting away; and naught remained for me but to make the best of it. Here were plenty of children to play with, and plenty of pleasant resorts for boys of my age and older. The little tendrils of affection so rudely broken from the darling objects in and around my grandmother's home, gradually began to extend and twine themselves around the new surroundings. Here for the first time I saw a large wind-mill, with its wide-sweeping white wings, a commanding object to a child's eye. This was situated on what was called 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-milelong Miles River lies entirely within Talbot County. The right-angled river flows southwest for its first eight miles and then flows 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.^†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 Anne Counties, to the Wye River near its mouth. Footner, Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 294-308; Cohen, Columbia Gazetteer, 3:3497. I spent many hours here watching the wings of this wondrous mill. In the river, or what was called the "Swash,"^†In the sense used here, swash is a body of water moving forcibly or dashing against an object. at a short distance from the shore, quietly lying at anchor, with her small row boat dancing at her stem, 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 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 of their contact with the world outside the rural plantations and their 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 the favorite daughter of the ColonelLowndes, Sally Scott Lloyd

Sally Scott Lloyd Lowndes, daughter of Edward Lloyd V, was the namesake of her mother, Sally Scott Murray Lloyd. She married Charles Lowndes, a U.S. Navy officer, on 24 May 1824. Colonel Lloyd purchased an estate called the Anchorage on the Miles River as a gift for the couple. Their son, Lloyd Lowndes, served as governor of Maryland from 1896 to 1900. Rossiter Johnson, ed., The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, 10 vols. (Boston, 1904). 7:67; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:207; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 224. . These two objects, the sloop and mill, as I remember, awakened thoughts, ideas, and wondering. 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. SevierSevier, William

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, folders 94, 19, Aaron Anthony Ledger C, 1809 27, folders 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, 222. ,^†Editorial Emendation: Sevcir. the overseer; a little nearer to my old master's^†Aaron Anthony resided in a two-story brick structure that dated back to the 1660s. Anthony and the Lloyd family had split the cost of remodeling the house in 1808, and it thereafter became popularly known as the "Captain's House." The house had a wooden kitchen, slightly separated from the main dwelling for safety considerations, where Douglass spent much time as a youth. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27-28. stood a long, low, rough building literally alive with slaves of all ages, sexes, conditions, sizes, and colors. This was called the long quarter.^†Editorial Emendation: quarters. Perched upon a hill east of our house, was a tall dilapidated old brick building, the architectural dimensions of which proclaimed its creation 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, were completely occupied.

Old master's house, a long brick building, plain but substantial, was centrally located, and was an independent establishment. Besides these houses there were barns, stables, store-houses, tobacco-houses, blacksmith shops, wheelwright shops, cooper shops; but above all there stood the grandest building my young eyes had ever beheld, called by everyone 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. It was surrounded by numerous and variously shaped out-buildings. There were kitchens, wash-houses, dairies, summer-houses, green-houses, hen-houses, turkey-houses, pigeon-houses, and arbors of many sizes and devices, all neatly painted or whitewashed—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 broad portico extended the entire length of the building, supported by a long range of columns, which gave to the Colonel's home an air of great dignity and grandeur. It was a treat to my young and gradually opening mind to behold this elaborate exhibition of wealth, power, and beauty.

The carriage entrance to the house was by a large gate, more than a quarter of a mile distant. The intermediate space was a beautiful lawn, very neatly kept and cared for. It was dotted thickly over with trees 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 lawn. Outside this select enclosure were parks, as about the residences of the English nobility, where rabbits, deer, and other wild game might be seen peering and playing about, with "none to molest them or make them afraid."^†Micah 4:4. The tops of the stately poplars were often covered with red-winged blackbirds, 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, whether they did or not, I greatly enjoyed them. Not far from the great house were the stately mansions of the dead Lloyds—a place of somber aspect. Vast tombs,

embowered beneath the weeping willow and the fir tree, told of the genera
tions of the family, as well as 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, and I was often compelled to hear stories of
shrouded ghosts, riding on great black horses, and of balls of fire which had
been seen to fly there at midnight, and of startling and dreadful sounds that
had been repeatedly heard. Slaves knew enough of the Orthodox theology at
the time, to consign all bad slaveholders to hell, and they often fancied 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 great
security to the grounds about them, for few of the slaves had the courage to
approach them during 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.

Here was transacted the business of twenty or thirty different farms, which, with the slaves upon them, numbering, in all, not less than a thousand,^†Edward Lloyd V owned numerous plantations and farms in Louisiana, Arkansas, and Mississippi, as well as across Maryland. Historical sources estimate that he owned in excess of 700 slaves. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 42-43. all belonged to Col. Lloyd. Each farm was under the management of an overseer, whose word was law.

Mr. Lloyd at this time was very rich. His slaves alone, numbering as I have said not less than a thousand, were an immense fortune, and though scarcely a month passed without the sale of one or more lots to the Georgia traders,^†Douglass probably refers to slave traders from states in the Lower South, such as Georgia. Major slave traders would ship their "cargo" by water to southern ports such as Savannah, Charleston, or Mobile, although New Orleans was the predominant destination. 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), 100-05; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 686-88. there was no apparent diminution in the number of his human stock. The selling of any to the State of Georgia was a sore and mournful event to those left behind, as well as to the victims themselves.

The reader has already been informed of the handicrafts carried on here by the slaves. "Uncle" Toney was the blacksmith, "Uncle" HarryBailey, Henry (Douglass's uncle)

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. the cart-wright, and "Uncle" Abel was the shoemaker, and these had assistants 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 etiquette 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 is maintained among them. I set this down as partly constitutional with the colored race and partly conventional. There is no better material in the world for making a gentleman than is furnished in the African.

Among other slave notabilities, I found here one called by everybody,
white and colored, "Uncle" Isaac Copper. It was seldom that a slave, however

venerable, was honored with a surname in Maryland, and so completely has the south shaped the manners of the north in this respect that their right to such honor is tardily admitted even now. It goes sadly against the grain to address and treat a negro as one would address and treat a white man. But once in a while, even in a slave state, a negro had a surname fastened to him by common consent. This was the case with "Uncle" Isaac CopperCooper, Isaac

. When the "Uncle" was dropped, he was called Doctor Copper. He was both our Doctor of Medicine and our Doctor of Divinity. Where he took his degree I am unable to say, but he was too well established in his profession to permit question as to his native skill, or attainments. One qualification he certainly had. He was a confirmed cripple, wholly unable to work, and was worth nothing for sale in the market. Though lame, he was no sluggard. He made his crutches do him good service, and was always on the alert looking up the sick, and such as were supposed to need his aid and counsel. His remedial prescriptions embraced four articles. For diseases of the body, epsom salts and castor oil;^†Epsom salts (the popular name for magnesium sulfate), castor oil, laudanum, paregoric, sugar of lead, and mercurial ointment were common treatments for ailments in the early nineteenth century. 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, La., 1989), 286-88; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 313. for those of the soul, the "Lord's prayer,"^†The modern name given to the prayer offered by Jesus and taught to his disciples. as related in Matt. 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4. The prayer contains petitions relating to the fulfillment of God's will and to human needs. David Noel Freedman et al., eds., The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 6 vols. (New York, 1992). 4:356-62. and a few stout hickory switches.

I was early sent to Doctor Isaac Copper, with twenty or thirty other children, to learn the Lord's prayer. The old man was seated on a huge three-legged oaken stool, armed with several large hickory switches, and from the point where he sat, lame as he was, he could reach every boy in the room. After our standing^†Editorial Emendation: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: After standing. a while to learn what was expected of us, he commanded us to kneel down. This done, he told 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, and to use his switches on our backs.

Everybody in the South seemed to want the privilege of whipping somebody else. Uncle Isaac, though a good old man, shared the common passion of his time and country. I cannot say I was much edified by attendance upon his ministry. There was even at that time something a little inconsistent and laughable, in my mind, in the blending of prayer with punishment. I was not long in my new home before I found that the dread I had conceived of Captain Anthony was in a measure groundless. Instead of leaping out from some hiding place and destroying me, he hardly seemed to notice my presence. He probably thought as little of my arrival there, as of an additional pig to his stock. He was the chief agent of his employer. The overseers of all the farms composing the Lloyd estate, were in some sort under him. The Colonel himself seldom addressed an overseer, or allowed himself to be addressed by one. To Captain Anthony, therefore, was committed the head-ship of all the

farms. He carried the keys of all the store-houses, weighed and measured the allowances of each slave, at the end of each month; superintended the storing of all goods brought to the store-house; dealt out the raw material to the different handicraftsmen, shipped the grain, tobacco, and all other saleable produce of the numerous farms to Baltimore, and had a general oversight of all the workshops of the place. In addition to all this he was frequently called abroad to Easton and elsewhere in the discharge of his numerous duties as chief agent of the estate.

The family of Captain Anthony consisted of two sons—AndrewAnthony, Andrew Skinner

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 cabinetmaker, 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 his holding of slaves to twenty, Andrew suffered from alcoholism and operated a whiskey shop in his final years. John Manross to Douglass, 14 January 1856, General Correspondence File, reel l, frames 654-56, FD Papers, DLC; Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folders 93, 176, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 51; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 26, 29, 218, 224. and RichardAnthony, Richard Lee

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 prior to inheriting land, money, and slaves after his father's death in November 1826. Harriet L. Anthony, annotated copy of Bondage and Freedom, folders 93, 173-74, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D. 5859, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27-29, 52, 91, 218. , his daughter LucretiaAuld, Lucretia Planner Anthony

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 her husband opened a store and served as town postmaster. Following the deaths of her father and her 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, 223; Preston and Harrington, Talbot County, 191; Emerson B. Roberts, '"A Visitation of Western Talbot," MdHM, 41:244-45 (September 1946). and her newly married husband, Captain Thomas AuldAuld, Thomas (1795- 1880)

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 a 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. Reconciliation occurred in the post-Reconstruction period when Douglass visited the dying Auld in St. Michaels. 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); NASS, 25 November 1845; NS, 8 September 1848, 7 September 1849; Baltimore Sun, 19 June 1877; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 342-43; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:395; Preston, "Aaron Anthony," 5; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 235-45. . In the kitchen were Aunt Katy, Aunt EstherBailey, Hester (Douglass's aunt)

Hester Bailey, the sister of Douglass's mother. , and ten or a dozen children, most of them older than myself. Capt. Anthony was not considered a rich slave-holder, though he was pretty well off in the world. He owned about thirty slaves^†Aaron Anthony owned precisely thirty slaves at the time of his death in 1826. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 27. and three farms in the Tuckahoe district. The more valuable part of his property was in slaves, of whom he sold one every year, which brought him in seven or eight hundred dollars,^†Douglass undoubtedly inflated the estimates of Aaron Anthony's profits from selling slaves in the 1820s. Prices in the Chesapeake Bay region in that decade varied greatly depending on the age, gender, and physical condition of the individual slave, but typical prices averaged closer to $150. Slave traders bought at low prices in the Upper South and often made profits of one-third to one-half by selling those slaves in the southwestern Cotton Belt. Robert H. Gudmestad, A Troublesome Commerce: The Transformation of the Interstate Slave Trade (Baton Rouge, La., 2003), 8, 19-21; Collins, Domestic Slave Trade, 28-29; Alrutheus A. Taylor, "The Movement of Negroes from the East to the Gulf States from 1830-1850," JNH, 8:367-83 (October 1923). besides his yearly salary and other revenue from his lands.

I have been often asked during the earlier part of my free life at the north, how I happened to have so little of the slave accent in my speech. The mystery is in some measure explained by my association with Daniel LloydLloyd, Daniel

Daniel Lloyd (1811-?) was the sixth child and youngest son of Edward Lloyd V. Daniel became a farmer and increased his wealth steadily, expanding the number of slaves he owned from eighteen to thirty-six between 1840 and 1850. By the latter year, he possessed real estate valued at $25,000. After the death of his father, Lloyd resided at the nearby Wye Heights Plantation, earlier built for Edward Lloyd VI and his wife. Daniel's son, Henry, was Maryland's governor in the 1880s. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 59; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 11a (free schedule), 14 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 54-55, 61, 81, 221; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:207, 212. , the youngest son of Col. Edward Lloyd. The law of compensation holds here as well as elsewhere. While this lad could not associate with ignorance without sharing its shade, he could not give his black playmates his company without giving them his superior intelligence as well. Without knowing this, or caring about it at the time, I, for some cause or other, was attracted to him and was much his companion.

I had little to do with the older brothers of Daniel—EdwardLloyd, Edward VI

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, Talbot County, 1:210-21; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 42-43, 44-45, 70, 192; J. Donnell Tilghman, "Wye House," MdHM, 48:89-108 (June 1953). and MurrayLloyd, James Murray

James Murray Lloyd (1803-47) was the middle son of Edward Lloyd V and Sally Murray Scott. When he married, his father built a mansion for him called Presqu'ile, which quickly became a Talbot County showplace. In 1840 he was one of the region's wealthiest farmers, owning 113 slaves. 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 60; Stella Pickett Hardy, Colonial Families of the Southern States of America (New York, 1911 ), 387; Tilghman, Talbot County, 1:207, 222; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 47, 49-50, 69-70. . They were grown up and were fine looking men. Edward was especially esteemed by the slave children and by me among the rest, not that he ever said anything to us or for us which could be called particularly kind. It was enough for us that he never looked or acted scornfully toward us. The idea of rank and station was rigidly maintained on this estate. The family of Captain Anthony never visited the great house, and the Lloyds never came to our house. Equal non-intercourse was observed between Captain Anthony's family and the family of Mr. Sevier,^†Editorial Emendation: Sevcir the overseer.

Such, kind readers, was the community and such the place in which my
earliest and most lasting impressions of the workings of slavery were
received—of which impressions you will learn more in the after coming
chapters of this book.

CHAPTER V.
A SLAVEHOLDER'S CHARACTER.

Increasing acquaintance with old master—Evils of unresisted passion—Apparent tenderness—A
man of trouble—Custom of muttering to himself—Brutal outrage—A drunken overseer—
Slaveholder's impatience—Wisdom of appeal—A base and selfish attempt to break up a
courtship

Although my old master, Captain Anthony, gave me, at the first of my com
ing to him from my grandmother's, 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 liter
ally insensible to the claims of humanity. He could not only be deaf to the
appeals of the helpless against the aggressor, but 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 full
restraints of civilized society—restraints which are necessary to the free
dom of all its members, alike and equally, Capt. Anthony might have been
as humane a man as are members of such society generally. A man's char
acter always takes its hue, more or less, from the form and color of things
about him. The slaveholder, as well as the slave, was the victim of the slave
system. Under the whole heavens there could be no relation more unfavor
able to the development of honorable character than that sustained by the
slaveholder to the slave. Reason is imprisoned here and passions run wild.
Could the reader have seen Captain Anthony gently leading me by the hand,
as he sometimes did, patting me on the head, speaking to me in soft, caress
ing tones and calling me his little Indian boy, he would have deemed him a
kind-hearted old man, and really almost fatherly to the slave boy. But the
pleasant moods of a slaveholder are transient and fitful. They neither come
often nor remain long. The temper of the old man was subject to special tri
als, but since these trials were never borne patiently, they added little to his
natural stock of patience. Aside from his troubles with his slaves and those
of Mr. Lloyd,^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: L1 oyd's. he made the impression upon me of being 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. Most of his leisure was spent in walking around, cursing and gesticulating as if possessed by a

demon. He was evidently a wretched man, at war with his own soul and all the world around him. To be overheard by the children disturbed him very little. He made no more of our presence than that of the ducks and geese he met on the green. But when his gestures were most 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 safe distance from him.

One of the first circumstances that opened my eyes to the cruelties and wickedness of slavery and its hardening influences upon my old master, was his refusal to interpose his authority to protect and shield a young woman, a cousin of mineBailey, Henny

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 and his mother's sister. As a child Henny suffered severe burns, which left her hands severely scarred and virtually useless and she was 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. Auld constantly abused Henny after he inherited her. 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, Distribution of Negroes, folder 71, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folders 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, 225; Bondage and Freedom, 201. , who had been most cruelly abused and beaten by his overseer 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, folders 97, 30, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 71, 222. was like most of his class, little less than a human brute; and in addition to his general profligacy and repulsive coarseness, he was a miserable drunkard, a man not fit to have the management of a drove of mules. In one of his moments of drunken madness he committed the outrage which brought the young woman in question down to my old master's for protection. The poor girl, on her arrival at our house, presented a most 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 wretch 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, "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 the poor girl was compelled to return without redress, and perhaps to receive an additional flogging for daring to
appeal to authority higher than that of the overseer.

I did not at that time understand the philosophy of this treatment of my cousin. I think I now understand it. This treatment was a part of the system, rather than a part of the man. To have encouraged appeals of this kind would have occasioned much loss of time, and would have left^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: and leave. the overseer powerless to enforce obedience. Nevertheless, when a slave had nerve enough to go straight to his master, with a well-founded complaint against an overseer, though he might be repelled and have even that of which he complained at the time repeated, and though he might be beaten by his master as well as by the

overseer, for his temerity, in the end, the policy of complaining was generally vindicated by the relaxed rigor of the overseer's treatment. The latter became more careful and less disposed to use the lash upon such slaves thereafter.

The overseer very naturally disliked to have the ear of the master disturbed by complaints, and either for this reason or because of advice privately given him by his employer, he generally modified the rigor of his rule after complaints of this kind had been made against him. For some cause or other the slaves, no matter how often they were repulsed by their masters, were ever disposed to regard them with less abhorrence than the overseer.^†Slaves' preference for masters above overseers resulted from the power structure of master-overseer-slave relationships. To slaves, the virtually powerless, the overseer was a palpable symbol of their enslavement. The overseer controlled their lives, calling them to work, keeping them motivated in the fields, and punishing their transgressions. In contrast, masters, who often distanced themselves from day-to-day labor, provided what comforts slaves had and sometimes offered mercy when a slave appealed an overseer's decision. In this way, masters deflected dissatisfaction away from themselves and onto overseers. John Spencer Bassett, The Southern Plantation Overseer, as Revealed in His Letters (1925; New York, 1968), 3-5; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 555-56. And yet these masters would often go beyond their overseers in wanton cruelty. They wielded the lash without any sense of responsibility. They could cripple or kill without fear of consequences. I have seen my old master in a tempest of wrath, full of pride, hatred, jealousy, and revenge, where he seemed a very fiend.

The circumstances which I am about to narrate, and which gave rise to this fearful tempest of passion, were not singular, but very common in our slave-holding community.

The reader will have noticed that among the names of slaves, EstherBailey, Hester (Douglass's aunt)

Hester Bailey, the sister of Douglass's mother. is mentioned. This was a young woman who possessed that which was ever a curse to the slave girl—namely, personal beauty. She was tall, light-colored, well formed, and made a fine appearance. Esther was courted by "Ned" RobertsRoberts, Ned

Ned Roberts (1810-?l) 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. , the son of a favorite slave of Col. Lloyd, who was as fine-looking a young man as Esther was a woman. Some slave-holders would have been glad to have promoted the marriage of two such persons,^†In writing of "two such persons," Douglass means more than two strong and attractive slaves whose progeny would increase the owner's wealth. Although slaves could be permitted to "marry" by their masters, the American slave code did not recognize such unions as contractual or legal. Rather, they were merely "moral" arrangements. Some masters promoted slave marriage because such arrangements conformed to their own religious beliefs and because they felt it might render their slaves easier to discipline. On large plantations, slaveholders saw slave marriage and family life as a way to promote contentment among bondsmen in order to discourage escape. "Abroad" marriages--those between slaves owned by different masters--were more likely to engender some dissatisfaction. The most compelling reason for slaveholders to promote marriage, however, was economic; to increase their population of slaves. By law, the offspring of the Lloyd slave Ned Roberts and Aaron Anthony's Hester Bailey would have belonged to the latter master. Also a marriage of these two slaves would not have shared the negative features of most abroad marriages, because of the geographical proximity of the Anthony and Lloyd households. Douglass's comment therefore seems to allude to more sinister motives for Anthony's desire to keep the couple apart. These motives may be seen in Douglass's description of Hester's torture at her master's hands. Wilma King, Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America (Bloomington, Ind., 1995), 1-19; Blassingame, Slave Community, 77-104; Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 11-43; E. Franklin Frazier, "The Negro Slave Family," JNH, 15:198-259 (April 1930). but for some reason, Captain Anthony disapproved of their courtship. He strictly ordered her to quit the company of young Roberts, telling her that he would punish her severely if he ever found her again in his company. But it was impossible to keep this couple apart. Meet they would, and meet they did. Had Mr. Anthony been himself a man of honor, his motives in this matter might have appeared more favorably. As it was, they appeared as abhorrent as they were contemptible. It was one of the damning characteristics of slavery, that it robbed its victims of every earthly incentive to a holy life. The fear of God and the hope of heaven were sufficient to sustain many slave women amidst the snares and dangers of their strange lot; but they were ever at the mercy of the power, passion, and caprice of their owners.^†Their legal status as chattel or real estate placed slaves, male and female alike, wholly at the mercy of their masters. While several slave women's narratives confirm instances of rape by owners, owners' sons, and overseers, it is unclear how often such exploitation occurred. Although rape of slave women was assumed by abolitionists to be the common practice of slaveholders, available evidence of the distribution of persons considered mulattoes among freemen and slaves in the antebellum South does not necessarily support that assumption. Conversely, the enforced submission of female slaves and high rates of miscarriage and infant mortality in the slave population may suggest hidden evidence of a more widespread practice. Goodell, American Slave Code, 105-21; Elizabeth FoxGenovese, Within the Plantation Household: Black and While Women of the Old South (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1988), 146-242, 325-29; Ira Berlin, Marc Favreau, and Steven F. Miller, eds., Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk about Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Freedom (New York, 1998), 146-48; Fogel and Engerman, Time on the Cross 126-38; Jones, Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow, 11-43; Wilbert E. Moore, "Slave Law and the Social Structure," JNH, 26:171-202 (April 1941). Slavery provided no means for the honorable perpetuation of the race.^†Because most American slave codes defined slaves as either personal property or real estate of slaveholders, a slave could not be party to a contract. Therefore, slaves were unable to enter into a legal marriage. Nonetheless, some masters recognized quasi-marriage--contubernium, the factual state of two slaves or a slave and a freeman dwelling together. This union did not preclude a slave owner's interference and could be broken without legal consequence through sale of one of the slaves, adultery, or forced breeding of one of the partners. William Wells Brown, Narrative of William W. Brown: An American Slave (London, 1849), 149-62; Goodell, American Slave Code, 105-21; Moore, "Slave Law and the Social Structure," 171-202; John Roberts, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World (London, 2005), 180. Yet despite of this destitution there were many men and women among the slaves who were true and faithful to each other through life.

But to the case in hand. Abhorred and circumvented as he was, Captain

Anthony, having the power, was determined on revenge. I happened to see its shocking execution, and shall never forget the scene. It was early in the morning, when all was still, and before any of the family in the house or kitchen had risen. I was, in fact, awakened by the heart-rending shrieks and piteous cries of poor Esther. My sleeping-place was on the dirt floor of a little rough closet which opened into the kitchen, and through the cracks in its unplaned boards I could distinctly see and hear what was going on, without being seen. Esther's wrists were firmly tied, and the twisted rope was fastened to a strong iron staple in a heavy wooden beam above, near the fire-place. Here she stood on a bench, her arms tightly drawn above her head. Her back and shoulders were perfectly bare. Behind her stood old master, with cowhide in hand, pursuing his barbarous work with all manner of harsh, coarse, and tantalizing epithets. He was cruelly deliberate, and protracted the torture as one who was delighted with the agony of his victim. Again and again he drew the hateful scourge through his hand, adjusting it with a view of dealing the most pain-giving blow his strength and skill could inflict. Poor Esther had never before been severely whipped. Her shoulders were plump and tender. Each blow, vigorously laid on, brought screams from her as well as blood. "Have mercy! Oh, mercy!" she cried. "I won't^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: wont do so no more." But her piercing cries seemed only to increase his fury. The whole scene, with all its attendants, was revolting and shocking to the last degree, and when the motives for the brutal castigation are known, language has no power to convey a just sense of its dreadful criminality. After laying on I dare not say how many stripes, old master untied his suffering victim. When let down she could scarcely stand. From my heart I pitied her, and child as I was, and new to such scenes, the shock was tremendous. I was terrified, hushed, stunned, and bewildered. The scene here described was often repeated, for EdwardRoberts, Ned

Ned Roberts (1810-?l) 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 Esther continued to meet, notwithstanding all efforts to prevent their meeting.

CHAPTER VI.
A CHILD'S REASONING.

The author's early reflections on slavery—Aunt Jennie and Uncle Noah—Presentiment^†Editorial Emendation: Presentment. of one day becoming a freeman—Conflict between an overseer and a slave woman—Advantage of resistance—Death of an overseer—Col. Lloyd's plantation home—Monthly distribution of food—Singing of Slaves—An explanation—The slaves' food and clothing—Naked children—Life in the quarter—Sleeping places—not beds—Deprivation of sleep—Care of nursing babies—Ash cake—Contrast.

The incidents related in the foregoing chapter led me thus early to inquire into the origin and nature of slavery. Why am I a slave? Why are some people slaves and others masters? These were perplexing questions and very troublesome to my childhood. I was told by some one very early that "God up in the sky" had made all things, and had made black people to be slaves and white people to be masters. I was told too that God was good and that he knew what was best for everybody. This was, however, less satisfactory than the first statement. It came point blank against all my notions of goodness. The case of Aunt Esther was in my mind. Besides, I could not tell how anybody could know that God made black people to be slaves. Then I found, too, that there were puzzling exceptions to this theory of slavery, in the fact that all black people were not slaves, and all white people were not masters. An incident occurred about this time that made a deep impression on my mind. One of the men slaves of Captain Anthony and my Aunt Jennie ran away.^†Jenny Bailey and her husband Noah ran away from Aaron Anthony in 1825. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 21, 27, 37, 64-65, 205-06. A great noise was made about it. Old master was furious. He said he would follow them and catch them and bring them back, but he never did it, and somebody told me that Uncle Noah and Aunt Jennie had gone to the free states and were free. Besides this occurrence, which brought much light to my mind on the subject, there were several slaves on Mr. Lloyd's place who remembered being brought from Africa. There were others that told me that their fathers and mothers were stolen from Africa.^†Douglass's claim is certainly plausible, although African-born slaves on the Eastern Shore of Maryland would have been rare by the time of his childhood in the 1820s. Even at its peak in the mideighteenth century, the slave trade in that region was composed mostly of slaves shipped from the English Caribbean colony of Barbados, not directly from Africa. Maryland's importation of slaves dwindled in the late eighteenth century on account of a stagnant agricultural economy and high duties passed by the legislature to discourage black population growth. Federal legislation made further slave importation illegal after 1 January 1808, although a small illicit trade may have continued thereafter. Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground, 4-6, 14-15; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 382-84, 442-43; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 11-12, 42.

This to me was important knowledge, but not such as to make me feel very easy in my slave condition. The success of Aunt Jennie and Uncle Noah in getting away from slavery was, I think, the first fact that made me seriously think of escape for myself. I could not have been more than seven or eight years old at the time of this occurrence, but young as I was I was already a fugitive from slavery in spirit and purpose.

Up to the time of the brutal treatment of my Aunt Esther, already narrated, and the shocking plight in which I had seen my cousin from Tuckahoe, my attention had not been especially directed to the grosser and more revolting features of slavery. I had, of course, heard of whippings and savage mutilations^†Penal code punishment for slaves in noncapital cases precluded imposing fines, because they could own no property. Instead, branding, castration, ear cropping, irons, and deportation were used to enforce obedience from offending slaves who committed noncapital crimes such as rape and theft. In capital cases, burning, breaking on the wheel, decapitation, and hanging were meted out as punishment for crimes such as treason, murder, and poisoning of their masters. Punishments inflicted on slaves by their owners were similar to those devised by lawmakers in noncapital cases. Punishments administered by owners far exceeded the number carried out by the state and were probably more severe in nature. In addition, dismemberment and isolation were common forms of plantation punishment. By the mid-1800s most of the most severe punishments such as bodily mutilation were not publicly or privately practiced. Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 603-05. of slaves by brutal overseers, but happily for me I had always been out of the way of such occurrences. My play time was spent outside of the corn and tobacco fields, where the overseers and slaves were brought together and in conflict. But after the case of my Aunt Esther I saw others of the same disgusting and shocking nature. The one of these which agitated and distressed me most was the whipping of a woman, not belonging to my old master, but to Col. Lloyd. The charge against her was very common and very indefinite, namely, "impudence." This crime could be committed by a

slave in a hundred different ways, and depended much upon the temper and caprice of the overseer as to whether it was committed at all. He could create the offense whenever it pleased him. A look, a word, a gesture, accidental or intentional, never failed to be taken as impudence when he was in the right mood for such an offense. In this case there were all the necessary conditions for the commission of the crime charged. The offender was nearly white, to begin with; she was the wife of a favorite hand on board of Mr. Lloyd's sloop^†The Sally Lloyd. and was besides the mother of five sprightly children. Vigorous and spirited woman that she was, a wife and a mother, with a predominating share of the blood of the master running in her veins, NellieKellem, Nelly

Nelly Kellem (c. 1787-?) was the wife of Harry, a favored deck hand aboard Colonel Lloyd's sloop, the Sally Lloyd. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 70, 222. (for that was her name) had all the qualities essential to impudence to a slave overseer.^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: Nelly My attention was called to the scene of the castigation by the loud screams and curses that proceeded from the direction of it. When I came near the parties engaged in the struggle, the overseer had hold of Nellie, endeavoring with his whole strength to drag her to a tree against her resistance. Both his and her faces were bleeding, for the woman was doing her best. Three of her children were present, and though quite small, (from seven to ten years old I should think.) they gallantly took the side of their mother against the overseer, and pelted him well with stones and epithets. Amid the screams of the children—"Let my mammy go! Let my mammy go."—the hoarse voice of the maddened overseer was heard in terrible oaths that he would teach her how to give a white man "impudence." The blood on his face and on hers attested her skill in the use of her nails, and his dogged determination to conquer. His purpose was to tie her up to a tree and give her, in slave-holding parlance, a "genteel flogging," and he evidently had not expected the stern and protracted resistance he was meeting, or the strength and skill needed for its execution. There were times when she seemed likely to get the better of the brute, but he finally overpowered her, and succeeded in getting her arms firmly tied to the tree towards which he had been dragging her. The victim was now at the mercy of his merciless lash. What followed I need not here describe. The cries of the now helpless woman, while undergoing the terrible infliction, were mingled with the hoarse curses of the overseer and the wild cries of her distracted children. When the poor woman was untied, her back was covered with blood. She was whipped, terribly whipped, but she was not subdued, and continued to denounce the overseer, and pour upon him every vile epithet she could think of. Such floggings were^†Editorial Emendations: are. seldom repeated by overseers on the same persons. They preferred^†Editorial Emendation: prefer. to whip those who were the most easily whipped. The doctrine that submission to violence is the best cure for violence did not hold good as between slaves and overseers. He was whipped

oftener who was whipped easiest. That slave who had the courage to stand up for himself against the overseer, although he might have many hard stripes at first, became while legally a slave virtually a freeman. "You can shoot me," said a slave to Rigby HopkinsHopkins, Rigby

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 within 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 indicating a preference for renting 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. , "but you can't whip me," and the result was he was neither whipped nor shot. I do not know that Mr. Sevier ever attempted to whip Nellie^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: Nelly. again. He probably never did, for not long after he was taken sick and died. It was commonly said that his death-bed was a wretched one, and that, the ruling passion being strong in death, he died flourishing the slave whip and with horrid oaths upon his lips. This death-bed scene may only be the imagining of the slaves. One thing is certain, that when he was in health his profanity was enough to chill the blood of an ordinary man. Nature, or habit, had given to his face an expression of uncommon savageness. Tobacco and rage had ground his teeth short, and nearly every sentence that he uttered was commenced or completed with an oath. Hated for his cruelty, despised for his cowardice, he went to his grave lamented by nobody on the place outside of his own house, if, indeed, he was even lamented there.

In Mr. James HopkinsHopkins, James

, the succeeding overseer, we had a different and a better man, as good perhaps as any man could be in the position of a slave overseer. Though he sometimes wielded the lash, it was evident that he took no pleasure in it and did it with much reluctance. He stayed but a short time here, and his removal from the position was much regretted by the slaves generally. Of the successor of Mr. Hopkins I shall have something to say at another time and in another place.

For the present we will attend to a further description of the business-like aspect of Col. Lloyd's "Great House" farm. There was always much bustle and noise here on the two days at the end of each month, for then the representatives of the slaves^†Editorial Emendation: then the slaves. belonging to the different branches of this great estate assembled here to^†Editorial Emendation: here by their representatives to. obtain their monthly allowances of corn-meal and pork. These were gala days for the slaves of the outlying farms, and there was much rivalry among them as to who should be elected to go up to the Great House farm for the "Allowances," and indeed to attend to any other business at this great place, to them the capitol of a little nation. Its beauty and grandeur, its immense wealth, its numerous population, and the fact that uncles HarryKellem, Harry

One of the slave crew of the Lloyd, Harry was Harry Kellem, husband of Nelly. The business records of Edward Lloyd V give the birth year for a slave named Peter as 1799. Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. , PeterPeter (slave crew on Lloyd)

The slave crew of the Lloyd, included Harry Kellem, husband of Nelly. The business records of Edward Lloyd V give the birth year for a slave named Peter as 1799. Land Papers—Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. , and JakeJake (slave crew on_ Sally Lloyd)

, the sailors on board the sloop, usually kept on sale trinkets which they bought in Baltimore to sell to their less fortunate fellow-servants, made a visit to the Great House farm a high privilege, and eagerly sought. It was valued, too, as a mark of distinction and confidence; but probably the chief motive among the competitors for the office was the

opportunity it afforded to shake off the 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 the cart, with no overseer to look after him, he felt himself comparatively free.

Slaves were expected to sing as well as to work. A silent slave was not liked, either by masters or by overseers. "Make a noise there! make a noise there!" and "bear a hand,'' were words usually addressed to slaves when they were silent. This, and the natural disposition of the negro to make a noise in the world, may account for the almost constant singing among them when at their work. There was generally more or less singing among the teamsters at all times. It was a means of telling the overseer, in the distance, where they were, and what they were about. But on the allowance days those commissioned to the Great House farm were peculiarly vocal. While on the way they would make the grand old woods for miles around reverberate with their wild and plaintive notes. They were indeed both merry and sad. Child as I was, these wild songs greatly depressed my spirits. Nowhere outside of dear old Ireland, in the days of want and famine,^†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 there was a loss of two million people, mainly on account of mass emigration. Starvation caused the deaths of 20,000 from 1846 to 1851, and 339,000 died 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. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 1:xcvi-xcvii; Edward Norman, A History of Modern Ireland (London, 1971), 108-17; Noel Kissane, The Irish Famine A Documentary History (Dublin, Ire., 1995), 27, 46-48, 75, 107-08, 123. have I heard sounds so
mournful.

In all these slave songs there was ever some expression of praise of the Great House farm—something that would please the pride of the Lloyds.

"I am going away to the Great House farm.
O, yea! O, yea! O, yea!
My old master is a good old master,
O, yea! O, yea! O, yea!"^†Douglass recalled this song in both of his earlier autobiographies. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:20, 2:57.

These words would be sung over and over again, with others, improvised as they went along—jargon, perhaps, to the reader, but full or meaning to the singers. I have sometimes thought that the mere hearing of these songs would have done more to impress the good people of the north with the soul-crushing character of slavery than whole volumes exposing the physical cruelties of the slave system; for the heart has no language like song. Many years ago, when recollecting my experience in this respect, I wrote of these slave songs in the following strain:

"I did not, when a slave, fully understand the deep meaning of those rude and apparently incoherent songs. I was, myself, within the circle, so that I could then neither hear nor see as those without might see and hear. They breathed the prayer and complaint of souls overflowing with the bitterest anguish. They depressed my spirits and filled my heart with ineffable sadness."^†Douglass offers a close paraphrase of his statement in the Narrative. He repeated the passage in My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:20, 2:58.

The remark in the olden time was not unfrequently made, that slaves
were the most contented and happy laborers in the world, and their dancing
and singing were referred to in proof of this alleged fact; but it was a great
mistake to suppose them happy because they sometimes made those joyful
noises. The songs of the slaves represented their sorrows, rather than their
joys.^†Slaves' songs were an important and regular part of work and home life. Both secular and sacred music enabled bondsmen to communicate with one another in improvised codes that their owners did not understand. Because they employed techniques like innuendo, these songs could be sung in front of whites as a form of resistance. When in a master's presence, slaves sang songs that seemed to reflect a more positive view of their situation than was the case. However, the majority of antebellum slave songs focused on the oppressive conditions of daily life and work, such as cruel treatment at the hands of a master or overseer. Some songs celebrated runaways and rebels, or featured satirical treatments of patrollers, slave traders, and even slaves themselves. Lawrence W. Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom ( 1977; New York, 2007), 3-30; Blassingame, Slave Community, 105-48; Paul Finkelman et al., eds., Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619-1895: From the Colonial Period to the Age of Frederick Douglass, 3 vols. (New York, 2006), 2:406. Like tears, they were a relief to aching hearts. It is not inconsistent with the constitution of the human mind, that avails itself of one and the same method for expressing opposite emotions. Sorrow and desolation have their songs, as well as joy and peace.

It was the boast of slaveholders that their slaves enjoyed 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,^†A peck is equal to one-fourth of a bushel, or two gallons. The ration allowed Douglass and the others enslaved by the Anthony family was only one gallon, or one-eighth bushel of cornmeal per week. Masters typically distributed staples to their slaves, who were in turn responsible for the preparation of their own meals. A standard weekly ration for an adult slave was three to four pounds of pork, and a peck of cornmeal; however, Thomas Auld's slaves received only half of the standard ration of cornmeal. Slaves supplemented their weekly allotment by adding vegetables and fruit from a master's orchards, by growing their own vegetables to eat or to sell, by hunting and fishing, and by taking food and ingredients from the master's kitchen. House slaves tended to be fed better than field slaves and would frequently give food to both children and adults who were not allowed in the master's house. On some large plantations cooking was a communal activity, but most often a mother would either cook her family's evening meal in the morning before work hours, place a meal on the fire to cook slowly during the day, or prepare a meal quickly after returning from the fields. George P. Rawick, The American Slave: A Composite Autobiography, 19 vols. (Westport, Conn., 1972), 1:67-73; EAAH, 2:30. eight pounds of pickled pork, or its equivalent in fish. The pork was often tainted, and the fish were of the poorest quality. With their pork or fish, they had given them one bushel of Indian meal, unbolted, of which quite fifteen per cent, was more fit for pigs than for men. 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 till night every day in the month except Sunday. There is no kind of work which really requires a better supply of food to prevent physical exhaustion than the field work of a slave. The yearly allowance of clothing^†Adult male and female slaves typically received clothing allotments twice a year, winter and fall. For each clothing allowance men received two shirts, two pairs of pants, and during the winter months they received a jacket and wool hat. Women's clothing allowance consisted of two dresses, and they were given coats, cloaks, and caps for the colder winter months. There is not much evidence available about children's clothing, except that often they went without clothing as they were too young to work; if they did receive clothing, boys would get shirts that reached below their knees, and girls, prior to puberty, would wear a one-piece frock. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 49; Miller and Smith, Dictionary of Afro-American Slavery, 118-20. was not more ample than the supply of food. It consisted of two tow-linen shirts, one pair of trowsers of the same coarse material, for summer, and a woolen pair of trowsers and a woolen jacket for winter, with one pair of yarn stockings and a pair of shoes of the coarsest description. Children under ten years old had neither shoes, stockings, jackets, nor trowsers. They had two coarse tow-linen shirts per year, and when these were worn out they went naked till the next allowance day— and this was the condition of the little girls as well as the boys. As to beds, they had none. One coarse blanket 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 corners of huge chimneys, with their feet in the ashes to keep them warm. The want of beds, however, was not considered a great privation by the field hands. Time to sleep was of far greater importance. For when the day's work was done most of these had their washing, mending, and cooking to do, and having few or no facilities for doing such things, very many of their needed sleeping hours were consumed in necessary preparations for the labors of the coming day. The sleeping apartments, if they could have been properly called such, had little regard to comfort or decency. Old and young,

male and female, married and single, dropped down upon the common clay
floor, each covering up with his or her blanket, their only protection from
cold or exposure. The night, however, was shortened at both ends. The slaves
worked often as long as they could see, and were late in cooking and mend
ing for the coming day, and at the first gray streak of the morning they were
summoned to the field by the overseer's horn.^†Work patterns of the slavery economy followed the rhythmic patterns of the season according to crop productions. Tobacco was the least intensive of all plantation crops to harvest because it did not require a rigorous processing regime like sugar. When slaves were not engaged in growing the staple crop, more time was spent in subsistence activities, and men often practiced skilled trades on the plantation. Miller and Smith, Dictionary of AfroAmerican Slavery, 238-40. They were whipped for over-sleeping more than for any other fault. Neither age nor sex found any favor. The overseer stood at the quarter door, armed with stick and whip, ready to deal heavy blows upon any who might be a little behind time. When the horn was blown there was a rush for the door, for the hindermost one was 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. This was when they were not required to take them to the field with them, and leave them upon "turning row,"^†The unplanted end of a cultivated furrow where horse or mule and plow make their turn to go back up a new row. or in the corner of the fences.

As a general rule the slaves did not come to their quarters to take their meals, but took their ash-cake (called thus because baked in the ashes) and piece of pork, or their salt herrings, where they were at work.

But let us now leave the rough usage of the field, where vulgar coarseness and brutal cruelty flourished as rank as weeds in the tropics, where a vile wretch, in the shape of a man, rides, walks, and struts about, with whip in hand, dealing heavy blows and leaving deep gashes on the flesh of men and women, and turn our attention to the less repulsive slave life as it existed in the home of my childhood. Some idea of the splendor of that place sixty years ago has already been given. The contrast between the condition of the slaves and that of their masters was marvelously sharp and striking. There were pride, pomp, and luxury on the one hand, servility, dejection, and misery on the other.

CHAPTER VII.
LUXURIES AT THE GREAT HOUSE.

Contrasts—Great House luxuries—Its hospitality—Entertainments—Fault-finding—Shameful
humiliation of an old and faithful coachman—William Wilks—Curious incident—Expressed
satisfaction not always genuine—Reasons for suppressing the truth.

The close-fisted stinginess that fed the poor slave on coarse corn-meal and tainted meat, that clothed him in crashy tow-linen^†A light coarse fabric, used for draperies and towels. and hurried him on to toil through the field in all weathers, with wind and rain beating through his tattered garments, that scarcely gave even the young slave-mother time to nurse

her infant in the fence-corner, wholly vanished on approaching the sacred precincts of the "Great House" itself. There the scriptural phrase descriptive of the wealthy found exact illustration. The highly-favored inmates of this mansion were literally arrayed in "purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day."^†Douglass quotes Luke 16:19. The table of this house groaned under the blood-bought luxuries gathered with painstaking care at home and abroad. Fields, forests, rivers, and seas were made tributary. Immense wealth and its lavish expenditures filled the Great House with all that could please the eye or tempt the taste. Fish, flesh, and fowl were here in profusion. Chickens of all breeds; ducks of all kinds, wild and tame, the common and the huge Muscovite;^†A greenish-black gooselike duck having heavy red wattles. Guinea fowls,^†Guinea fowls can be 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. were fat, and fattening for the destined vortex. Here the graceful swan, the mongrels, the black-necked wild goose, partridges, quails, pheasants and pigeons, choice water-fowl, with all their strange varieties, were caught in this huge net. Beef, veal, mutton, and venison, of the most select kinds and quality, rolled in bounteous profusion to this grand consumer. The teeming riches of the Chesapeake Bay, its rock perch, drums,^†A name of various American Sciaenoird fish with the ability to make 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. were drawn hither to adorn the glittering table. The dairy, too, the finest then on the eastern shore of Maryland, supplied by cattle of the best English stock, imported for the express purpose, poured its rich donations of fragrant cheese, golden butter, and delicious cream to heighten the attractions of the gorgeous, unending round of feasting. Nor were the fruits of the earth overlooked. The fertile garden, many acres in size, constituting a separate establishment distinct from the common farm, with its scientific gardener direct from Scotland, a Mr. McDermottMcDermott, William

, and four men under his direction, was not behind, either in the abundance or in the delicacy of its contributions. The tender asparagus, the crispy celery, and the delicate cauliflower, egg plants, beets, lettuce, parsnips, peas, and French beans, early and late, radishes, cantaloupes,^†Editorial Emendation: cantelopes. melons of all kinds; and the fruits of all climes and of every description, from the hardy apples of the north to the lemon and orange of the south, culminated at this point. Here were gathered figs, raisins, almonds, and grapes from Spain, wines and brandies from France, teas of various flavor from China, and rich, aromatic coffee from Java,^†An island in the Malay archipelago. In the mid-nineteenth century, "java" became slang for coffee. all conspiring to swell the tide of high life, where pride and indolence lounged in magnificence and satiety.

Behind the tall-backed and elaborately wrought chairs stood the servants, fifteen in number, carefully selected, not only with a view to their capacity and adeptness, but with especial regard to their personal appearance, their graceful agility, and pleasing address. Some of these servants, armed with fans, wafted reviving breezes to the over-heated brows of the

alabaster ladies, whilst others watched with eager eye and fawn-like step, anticipating and supplying wants before they were sufficiently formed to be
announced by word or sign.

These servants constituted a sort of black aristocracy. They resembled the field hands in nothing except their color, and in this they held the advantage of a velvet-like glossiness, rich and beautiful. The hair, too, showed the same advantage. The delicately-formed 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.

In the stables and carriage-houses were to be found the same evidences of pride and luxurious extravagance. Here were three splendid coaches, soft within and lustrous without. Here, too, were 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 and sleighs. Here were saddles and harnesses, beautifully wrought and richly mounted. Not less than thirty-five horses of the best approved blood, both for speed and beauty, were kept only for pleasure. The care of these horses constituted the entire occupation of two men, one or the other of them being always in the stable to answer any call which might be made from the Great House. Over the way from the stable was a house built expressly for the hounds, a pack of twenty-five or thirty, the fare for which would have made glad the hearts of a dozen slaves. Horses and hounds, however, were not the only consumers of the slave's toil. The hospitality practiced at the Lloyds'^†Lloyd's. would have astonished and charmed many a health-seeking divine or merchant from the north. Viewed from his table, and not from the field, Colonel Lloyd was, indeed, 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. It was something to me that I could share these odors with the winds, even if the meats themselves were under a more stringent monopoly. In master Daniel I had a friend at court, who would sometimes give me a cake, and who kept me well informed as to their guests and their entertainments. Viewed from Col. Lloyd's table, who could have said that his slaves were not well clad and well cared for? Who would have said they did not glory in being the slaves of such a master? Who but a fanatic could have seen any cause for sympathy for either master or slave? Alas, this immense wealth, this gilded splendor, this profusion of luxury, this exemption from toil, this life of ease, this sea of plenty were not the pearly gates they seemed

to a world of happiness and sweet content. The poor slave, on his hard pine plank, scantily covered with his thin blanket, slept more soundly than the feverish voluptuary who reclined upon his downy pillow. Food to the indolent is poison, not sustenance. Lurking beneath the rich and tempting viands^†A choice or tasty dish of food. were invisible spirits of evil, which filled the self-deluded gourmandizer^†Glutton. with aches and pains, passions uncontrollable, fierce tempers, 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 regions of the body. and gout,^†A usually hereditary disease, mainly occurring 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 had a full share.

I had many opportunities of witnessing the restless discontent and capricious irritation of the Lloyds. My fondness for horses attracted me to the stables much of the time. The two men in charge of this establishment were oldSampson, Barnett ("Old Barney")

Old Barney was Barnett Sampson (c. 1768-?). He was listed as fifty-five years old in January 1824. Old Barney was owned by Edward Lloyd V and was the father of Young Barney, Barnett Bentley (c. 1810-?). Return Book, I January 1824, Land Papers--Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. and youngBentley, Barnett ("Young Barney")

Old Barney was Barnett Sampson (c. 1768-?). He was listed as fifty-five years old in January 1824. Old Barney was owned by Edward Lloyd V and was the father of Young Barney, Barnett Bentley (c. 1810-?). Return Book, I January 1824, Land Papers--Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi. Barney—father and son. Old Barney was a fine looking, portly old man of a brownish complexion, and a respectful and dignified bearing. He was much devoted to his profession, and held his office as 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 takes care of horses and mules. and could bleed, remove lampers from their mouths,^†Lampers, or lampas, is an equine disease that manifests as a congestion of the mucous membrane in the hard palate of the mouth. and administer medicine to horses. No one on the farm knew so well as old Barney what to do with a sick horse; but his office was not an enviable one, and his gifts and acquirements were of little advantage to him. In nothing was Col. Lloyd more unreasonable and exacting than in respect to the management of his 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 heels were far softer and cleaner than those of his human cattle. No excuse could shield old Barney if the Colonel only suspected something wrong about his horses, and consequently he was often punished when faultless. It was painful to hear the unreasonable and fretful scoldings administered by Col. Lloyd, his son Murray, and his sons-in-law, to this poor man. Three of the daughters of Col. Lloyd were married, and they with their husbands remained at the great house a portion of the year, and enjoyed the luxury of whipping the servants when they pleased. A horse was seldom brought out of the stable to which no objection could be raised. "There was dust in his hair;" "there was a twist in his reins;" "his foretop was not combed;" ''his mane did not lie straight;" "his head did not look well;" "his fetlocks^†Part of a horse's leg where the tuft of hair grows behind the pastern joint, a part analogous to the human ankle; the tuft itself. 50.20 William 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. In that city, Wilks 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 Baltimore Director for 1835-6 (Baltimore, 1835), 275; Matchett's Baltimore Director for 1837-8 (Baltimore, 1837), 472. had not been properly trimmed." Something was always wrong. However groundless the complaint, Barney must stand, hat in hand, lips sealed, never answering a word in explanation or excuse. In a free State, a master thus complaining without cause, might be told by his ostler: "Sir, I am sorry l cannot please you, but since I have done the best I can and fail to do so, your remedy is to dismiss me." But here the ostler must listen and tremblingly abide his master's behest. One of the most heart-saddening and humiliating scenes I ever witnessed was the whipping of old Barney by Col. Lloyd. These two men were both advanced

in years; there were the silver locks of the master, and the bald and toil-worn brow of the slave—superior and inferior here, powerful and weak here, but equals before God. "Uncover your head,'' said the imperious master; he was obeyed. "Take off your jacket, you old rascal!" and off came Barney's jacket. "Down^†Editorial Emendation: B1. Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: down. on your knees!" Down knelt the old man, his shoulders bare, his bald head glistening in the sunshine, and his aged knees on the cold, damp ground. In this humble and debasing attitude, that master, to whom he had devoted the best years and the best strength of his life, came forward and laid on thirty lashes with his horse-whip. The old man made no resistance, but bore it patiently, answering each blow with only a shrug of the shoulders and a groan. I do not think that the physical suffering from this infliction was severe, for the whip was a light riding-whip; but the spectacle of an aged man—a husband and a father—humbly kneeling before his fellow-man, shocked me at the time; and since I have grown older, few of the features of slavery have impressed me with a deeper sense of its injustice and barbarity than this exciting scene. I owe it to the truth, however, to say that this was the first and last time I ever saw a slave compelled to kneel to receive a whipping.

Another incident, illustrating a phase of slavery to which I have referred in another connection, I may here mention. Besides two other coachmen, Col. Lloyd owned one named William WilksWilks, William (slave)

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. In that city, Wilks 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 Baltimore Director[y]. . . 1835-6 (Baltimore, 1835), 275; Matchett's Baltimore Director[y] . . . 1837-8 (Baltimore, 1837), 472. , and his was one of the exceptional^†Editorial Emendation: exceptionable. cases where a slave possessed a surname, and was recognized by it, by both colored and white people. Wilks was a very fine-looking man. He was about as white as any one on the plantation, and in form and feature bore a very striking resemblance to Murray Lloyd. It was whispered and generally believed 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 from his personal appearance, but from 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 WoolfolkWoolfolk, Austin

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. Deyle, Carry Me Back, 98-100, 179-80; 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," CWH, 23:195-211 (September 1977). ,^†Editorial Emendation: Woldfolk, here and below. the great slave-trader at that time. Before selling him, however, he tried to make things smooth by giving William a whipping, but it proved a failure. It was a compromise, and like most such, defeated itself,—for soon after Col. Lloyd atoned to William for the abuse by giving him a gold watch and chain. Another fact somewhat curious was, that though sold to the remorseless Woolfolk, taken in irons to Baltimore, and cast into prison, with a view to being sent to the South, William outbid all his purchasers,

paid for himself and afterwards resided in Baltimore. How this was accomplished was a great mystery at the time, explained only on the supposition that the hand which had bestowed the gold watch and chain had also supplied the purchase-money, but I have since learned that this was not the true explanation. Wilks had many friends in Baltimore and Annapolis, and they united to save him from a fate which was the one of all others most dreaded by the slaves. Practical amalgamation was however so common at the South, and so many circumstances pointed in^†Editorial Emendation: B1. Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: pointedin that direction, that there was little reason to doubt that William Wilks was the son of Edward Lloyd.

The real feelings and opinions of the slaves were not much known or respected by their masters. The distance between the two was too great to admit of such knowledge; and in this respect Col. Lloyd was no exception to the rule. His slaves were so numerous he did not know them when he saw them. Nor, indeed, did all his slaves know him. It is reported of him, that riding along the road one day he met a colored man, and addressed him in what was 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 hard?" "Yes, sir." "Well, don't he give you enough to eat?" "Yes, sir, he gives me enough to eat, such as it is." The Colonel rode on; the slave also went on about his business, not dreaming that he had been conversing with his master. He thought and said nothing of the matter, until two or three weeks afterwards, he was 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 as unrelenting as that of death. This was the penalty of telling the simple truth, in answer to a series of plain questions. It was partly in consequence of such facts, that slaves, when inquired of as to their condition and the character of their masters, would almost invariably say that they were contented and their masters kind. Slaveholders are known to have sent spies among their slaves to ascertain if possible their views and feelings in regard to their condition; hence the maxim established among them, that "a still tongue makes a wise head." They would suppress the truth rather than take the consequences of telling it, and in so doing they proved^†Editorial Emendation: prove. themselves a part of the human family. I was frequently asked if I had a kind master, and I do not remember ever to have given a negative reply. I did not consider myself as uttering that which was strictly untrue, for I always measured the kindness of my master by the standard of kindness set up by the slaveholders around us.

CHAPTER VIII.
CHARACTERISTICS OF OVERSEERS.

Austin Gore—Sketch of his character—Overseers as a class—Their peculiar characteristics—The marked individuality of Austin Gore—His sense of duty—Murder of poor Denby—Sensation—How Gore made his peace with Col. Lloyd—Other horrible murders—No laws for the protection of slaves possible of being enforced.

The comparatively moderate rule of Mr. Hopkins as overseer on Col. Lloyd's plantation was succeeded by that of another whose name was Austin GoreGore, Austin

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 1822 a young slave named Bill Denby died. A friend of Gore's later challenged Douglass's assertion that Gore coolly murdered Denby, 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, because 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 age 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; Land Papers--Maintenance of Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 14. . I hardly know how to bring this man fitly before the reader, for under him there was more suffering from violence and bloodshed than had, according to the older slaves, ever been experienced before at this place. He was an overseer, and possessed the peculiar characteristics of his class, yet to call him merely an overseer would not give one a fair conception of the man. I speak of overseers as a class, for they were such. They were as distinct from the slave-holding gentry of the south as are the fish-women of Paris, and the coal-heavers of London, distinct from other grades of society. They constituted a separate fraternity at the south. They were arranged and classified by that great law of attraction which determines the sphere and affinities of men; which ordains that men whose malign and brutal propensities preponderate 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 took this raw material of vulgarity and brutality, and stamped it as a distinct class in southern life. But in this class, as in all other classes, there were sometimes persons of marked individuality, yet with 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 mean ambition of his class, without its disgusting swagger and noisy bravado. There was an easy air of independence about him; a calm self-possession; at the same time a sternness of glance which well might daunt less timid hearts than those of poor slaves, accustomed from childhood to cower before a driver's lash. He was one of those overseers who could torture the slightest word or look into impudence, and he had the nerve not only to resent, but to punish promptly and severely. There could be no answering back. Guilty or not guilty, to be accused was to be sure of a flogging. His very presence was fearful, and I shunned him as I would have shunned a rattlesnake. His piercing black eyes and sharp, shrill

voice ever awakened sensations of dread. Other overseers, how brutal soever they might be, would sometimes seek to gain favor with the slaves, by indulging in a little pleasantry; but Gore never said a funny thing, or perpetrated a joke. He was always cold, distant, and unapproachable—the overseer on Col. Edward Lloyd's plantation—and needed no higher pleasure than the performance of the duties of his office. When he used the lash, it was from a sense of duty, without fear of consequences. There was a stern will, an iron-like reality about him, which would easily have made him chief of a band of pirates, had his environments been favorable to such a sphere. Among many other deeds of shocking cruelty committed by him was the murder of a young colored man named Bill DenbyDemby, Bill (slave)

Bill Demby (Denby) (c. 1802-22) though Douglass in his second autobiography thought it could have been Denby. Demby lived with twenty-three other slaves, including his family, on "Davises Farm," one of several Talbot County plantations owned by Edward Lloyd V. His family had been Lloyd property since the latter decades of the seventeenth century. Plantation records indicate that Denby, 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, 213. . He was a powerful fellow, full of animal spirits, and one of the most valuable of Col. Lloyd's slaves. In some way—I know not what—he offended this Mr. Austin Gore, and in accordance with the usual custom the latter undertook to flog him. He had given him but few stripes when Denby broke away from him, plunged into the creek, and standing there with the water up to his neck refused to come out; whereupon, for this refusal, Gore shot him dead! It was said Gore gave Denby three calls to come out, telling him if he did not obey the last call he should shoot him. When the last call was given Denby still stood his ground, and Gore, without further parley, or without making any further effort to induce obedience, raised his gun deliberately to his face, took deadly aim at his standing victim, and with one click of the gun the mangled body sank out of sight, and only his warm red blood marked the place where he had stood.

This fiendish murder produced, as it could not help doing, a tremendous sensation. The slaves were panic-stricken, and howled with alarm. The atrocity roused my old master, and he spoke out in reprobation of it. Both he and Col. Lloyd arraigned Gore for his cruelty; but he, calm and collected, as though nothing unusual had happened, declared that Denby had become unmanageable; that he set a dangerous example to the other slaves, and that unless some such prompt measure was resorted to there would be an end to all rule and order on the plantation. That convenient covert for all manner of villainy and outrage, that cowardly alarm-cry, that the slaves would "take the place," was pleaded, just as it had been in thousands of similar cases. Gore's defense was evidently considered satisfactory, for he was continued in his office, without being subjected to a judicial investigation. The murder was committed in the presence of slaves only, and they, being slaves, could neither institute a suit nor testify against the murderer. Mr. Gore lived in St. Michaels,^†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 on the Miles River, the town became the local place of embarkation for vessels bound for Baltimore. Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:375-77, 381-85. Talbot Co., Maryland, and I have no reason to doubt, from what I know to have been the moral sentiment of the place, that he was as highly

esteemed and as much respected as though his guilty soul had not been stained with innocent blood.

I speak advisedly when I say that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot Co., Maryland, was not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lambdin,Lambdin, Thomas H. W.

Douglass typically identifies the person as Thomas Lanman, a ship carpenter, but it likely Thomas H. W. Lambdin (c. 1807-?) had labored at a number of trades by 1850; shipwright, 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 $1,000. 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." In January 1848 Lambdin was elected the town bailiff of St. Michaels. A. C. C. Thompson, "To the Public-Falsehood Refuted," reprinted in theNASS, 25 November 1845 and in Lib.; Douglass, Narrative, 41; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:395. ship carpenter of St. Michaels, killed two slaves, one of whom he butchered with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of having committed the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so laughingly, declaring himself a benefactor of his country, and that "when others would do as much as he had done, they would be rid of the d—d niggers."

Another notorious fact which I may state was the murder of a young girl between fifteen and sixteen years of age, by her mistress, Mrs. Giles Hicks,^†No court records of this murder have been found. Douglass probably learned of this incident from his wife Anna Murray Douglass who grew up in Caroline County. A Mr. and Mrs. Giles Hicks resided in Caroline County, Maryland, in 1820. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 92; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 74. who lived but a short distance from Col. Lloyd's. This wicked woman, in the paroxysm of her wrath, not content at killing her victim, literally mangled her face, and broke her breast-bone. Wild and infuriated as she was, she took the precaution to cause the burial of the girl; but, the facts of the case getting abroad, the remains were disinterred, and a coroner's jury assembled, who, after due deliberation, decided that "the girl had come to her death from severe beating." 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' baby, and having fallen into a sound sleep the crying of the baby did not wake her, as it did its mother. The tardiness of the girl excited Mrs. Hicks, who, after calling her several times, seized a piece of fire-wood from the fire-place, and pounded in her skull and breast-bone till death ensued. I will not say that this murder most foul produced no sensation. It did produce a sensation. A warrant was issued for the arrest of Mrs. Hicks, but incredible to tell, for some reason or other, that warrant was never served, and she not only escaped condign punishment, but the pain and mortification as well of being arraigned before a court of justice.

While 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 about the time of the murder of Denby.

On the side of the river Wye, opposite from Col. Lloyd's, there lived a Mr. Beale BordleyBordley, John Beale

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 War era patriot from Maryland. Often called simply Beale Bordley, John Beale Bordley was born on his father's Wye Island 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, Va., 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.^†Editorial Emendation: Bondley, here and below. In the direction of his land, and near the shore, there was an excellent oyster fishing-ground, and to this some of Lloyd's slaves 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. Mr. Bordley took it into his head to regard this as a trespass, and while an old man slave was engaged in catching

a few of the many millions of oysters that lined the bottom of the creek, to satisfy his hunger, the rascally Bordley, lying in ambush, without the slightest warning, discharged the contents of his musket into the back of the poor old man. As good fortune would have it, the shot did not prove fatal, and Mr. Bordley came over the next day to see Col. Lloyd about it. What happened between them I know not, but there was little said about it and nothing publicly done. One of the commonest sayings to which my ears early became accustomed, was that it was "worth but a half a cent to kill a nigger, and half a cent to bury one." While I heard of numerous murders committed by slave-holders on the eastern shore of Maryland, I never knew a solitary instance where a slaveholder was either hung or imprisoned for having murdered a slave. The usual pretext for such crimes was that the slave had offered resistance. Should a slave, when assaulted, but raise his hand in self-defense, the white assaulting party was fully justified by southern law, and southern public opinion in shooting the slave down, and for this there was no redress.

CHAPTER IX.
CHANGE OF LOCATION.

Miss Lucretia—Her kindness—How it was manifested—"Ike"—A battle with him—Miss Lucretia's balsam—Bread—How it was obtained—Gleams of sunlight amidst the general darkness—Suffering from cold—How we took our meal mush—Preparations for going to Baltimore—Delight at the change—Cousin Tom's opinion of Baltimore—Arrival there— Kind reception—Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld—Their son Tommy—My relations to them—My duties—A turning point in my life.

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 have to say 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 AuldAuld, Lucretia Planner Anthony

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 her husband opened a store and served as town postmaster. Following the deaths of her father and her 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, 223; Preston and Harrington, Talbot County, 191; Emerson B. Roberts, '"A Visitation of Western Talbot," MdHM, 41:244-45 (September 1946). . I had 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 and indifferent, the slightest word or look of kindness was of great value. Miss Lucretia—as we

all continued to call her long after her marriage—had bestowed on me such looks and words as taught me that she pitied me, if she did not love me. She sometimes gave me a piece of bread and butter, an article not set down in our bill of fare, but an extra ration aside from both Aunt Katy's^†Editorial Emendation: Katy. and old master's,^†Editorial Emendation: master. and given as I believed solely out of the tender regard she had for me. Then too, I one day got into the wars with Uncle Abel's son "Ike,"Ike (slave)

and got sadly worsted; the little rascal 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 even now. The gash bled very freely, and I roared 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 would do me good; I would now keep away from 'dem Lloyd niggers.'" Miss Lucretia in this state of the case came forward, and called me into the parlor (an extra privilege of itself), and without using toward me any of the hard and reproachful epithets of Aunt Katy, quietly acted the good Samaritan.^†The good Samaritan, mentioned in Luke 10:33, generally refers to a kind and helpful person. Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, ed., Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, ed. John Ayto (New York, 2005), 598; Freedman, Anchor Bible Dictionary, 5:149-50. With her own soft hand she washed the blood from my head and face, brought her own bottle of balsam, and with the balsam^†An aromatic oily or resinous medicinal application, usually for external application, for healing wounds or soothing pain. 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, induced by the unfeeling words of Aunt Katy. After this Miss Lucretia was yet more 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 heart an interest in my welfare. It is quite true that this interest seldom showed itself in anything more than in giving me a piece of bread and butter, 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 severely pinched with hunger, I had the habit of singing, which the good lady very soon came to understand, and when she heard me singing under her window, I was very apt to be paid for my music. Thus I had two friends, both at important points.—Mas'r Daniel at the great house, and Miss Lucretia at home. From Mas'r 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 the termagant^†An overbearing or nagging woman. in the kitchen. For such friendship I was deeply grateful, and bitter as are my recollections of slavery, it is a true pleasure 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 there is vividly distinct.

As before intimated, I received no severe treatment from the hands of my

master, but the insufficiency of both food and clothing was a serious trial to me, especially from the lack of clothing. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost in a state of nudity. My only clothing—a little coarse sackcloth^†Coarse textile used for bags or for wrapping bales. or tow-linen sort of shirt, scarcely reaching to my knees, was worn night and day and changed once a week. In the day time I could protect myself by keeping on the sunny side of the house, or in stormy weather, in the corner of the kitchen chimney. But the great difficulty was to keep warm during the night. 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 was carried to the mill, and crawled into that. Sleeping there with my head in and my feet out, I was partly protected, though never comfortable. My feet have been so cracked with the frost that the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes. Our corn meal mush, which was our only regular if not all-sufficing diet, when sufficiently cooled from the cooking, was placed in a large tray or trough. This 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 would come, some with oyster-shells, some with pieces of shingles, but none with spoons, and literally devour the mush. He who could eat fastest got most, and he that was strongest got the best place, but few left the trough really satisfied. I was the most unlucky of all, for Aunt Katy had no good feeling for me, and if I pushed the 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 became more and more filled with a sense of my wretchedness. The unkindness of Aunt Katy, the hunger and cold I suffered, and the terrible reports of wrongs and outrages which came to my ear, together with what I almost daily witnessed, led me to wish I had never been born. I used to contrast my condition with that of the blackbirds, in whose wild and sweet songs I fancied them so happy. Their apparent joy only deepened the shades of my sorrow. There are 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, to regard God as "Our Father," condemned slavery as a crime.

I was in this unhappy state when I received from Miss Lucretia the joyful intelligence that my old master had determined to let me go to Baltimore

to live with Mr. Hugh AuldAuld, Hugh, Jr. (1799-1861)

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. Prior to moving to Baltimore, Hugh married Sophia Keithley. Between 1826 and 1833 and again between 1836 and 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, General Correspondence File, FD Papers, DLC; Talbot County Records, V.60, 35-36, MdTCH, Easton, Md. (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, Miss Lucretia's husband. I shall never forget the ecstacy with which I received this information, three days before the time set for my departure. They were the three happiest days I had ever known. I spent the largest part of them in the creek, washing off the plantation scurf, and thus preparing for my new home. Miss Lucretia took a lively interest in getting me ready. She told me I must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees, for the people in Baltimore were very cleanly, and would laugh at me if I looked dirty; and besides she was intending to give me a pair of trowsers, but which I could not put on unless I got all the dirt off. This was a warning which I was bound to heed, for the thought of owning and wearing a pair of trowsers was great indeed. So I went at it in good earnest, working for the first time in my life 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, had no existence in my case, and in thinking of a home elsewhere, I was confident of finding none that I should relish less than the one I was leaving. If I should meet with hardship, hunger, and nakedness, I had known them all before, and I could endure them elsewhere, especially in Baltimore, for I had something of the feeling about that city that is expressed in the saying that "being hanged in England is better than dying a natural death in Ireland." I had the strongest desire to see Baltimore. My cousin TomBailey, Tom (cousin)

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-MS; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 91, 174, 206, 221, 230. , a boy two or three years older than I, had been there, and, though not fluent in speech (he stuttered immoderately), he had inspired me with that desire by his eloquent descriptions of the place. Tom was sometimes cabin-boy on board the sloop "Sally Lloyd" (which Capt. Thomas Auld commanded), and when he came home from Baltimore he was always a sort of hero among us, at least till his trip to Baltimore was forgotten. I could never tell him 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," with all its pictures within, and pillars without, he had the hardihood to say, "was nothing to Baltimore." He bought a trumpet (worth sixpence)^†In Britain sixpence is a coin equivalent to six pennies. and brought it home; told what he had seen in the windows of the stores; that he had heard shooting-crackers,^†Probably firecrackers. and seen soldiers; that he had seen a steamboat; 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;^†Baltimore's first market house, though planned in 1751, was not completed until 1763. For the next twenty years, the market house in Baltimore at the comer of Gay and Baltimore Streets was the sole point of activity for provisions commerce. At that point the growing population, diverse in class and separated by location, demanded more markets to address new needs. Plans for three new markets followed. The Centre or Marsh Market and the Hanover Market shared the proceeds of the sale of the grounds of the first market house to finance their creation. The fourth and last market that existed during Douglass's time in Baltimore, the Lexington Market, was developed in the western precincts of Baltimore Centre or Marsh Market in Harrison Street became a locus for wholesaling, shipping, and finance. Hanover or Camden Market on Howard's Hill functioned primarily as a wholesale produce market. Douglass probably had the most vivid recollection of the third market site, the Fells Point or Broadway Market, nearest the residence of Hugh and Sophia Auld. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Baltimore City and County: From the Earliest Period to the Present Day (Philadelphia, 1881), 205-11; Sherry H. Olson, Baltimore: The Building of an American City (Baltimore, 1980), 19-20, 55, 175. of the ringing of the bells, and of many other things which roused my curiosity very much, and indeed which brightened 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 give to it, or to any place like it. After taking this last view, I quitted the quarter-deck,^†The portion of the upper or spar-deck that extends between the stern and aftermast and is used as a promenade by the superior officers or cabin passengers. made my way to the bow of the boat, and spent the remainder of the day in looking ahead; interesting myself in what was in the distance, rather than in what was near by, or behind. The vessels sweeping along the bay were objects full of interest to me. 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, stopping there not long enough to admit of 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 state house at Annapolis, Maryland, completed in 1799, is a brick building topped by a tall, white-painted octagonal wooden dome. Writers' Program of the Work Project Administration in the State of Maryland, comp., Maryland: A Guide to the Old Line State (1940; New York, 1973), 181-82. was especially imposing, and surpassed in grandeur the appearance of the "great house" I had left behind. So the great world was opening upon me, 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; Olson, Baltimore, 60. We had on board a large flock of sheep, for the Baltimore market; and after assisting in driving them to the slaughter house of Mr. Curtiss, on Loudon Slater's hill,^†Although no Curtiss 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 have been located on the western corner of what was called Loudenslager, not Loudon 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 Directory for 1829 (Baltimore, 1829), 78. I was conducted by RichRich (slave crew of Sally Lloyd)

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.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 on Aliceanna^†Editorial Emendation: Alliciana. street,^†Neither the 1824 nor 1827 Baltimore directory, the only extant directories in this period, lists Hugh Auld's residence. The Baltimore City Commission on Historical and Architectural Preservation established that Hugh Auld's house was on the southeast corner of Aliceanna and Durham, formerly Happy Alley, streets in Fells Point. Contemporary sources spell the street "Alisanna" (1824) or "Alice Anna" (1827). Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1824, 343; , 1 (street register); Fielding Lucas, Jr., comp., (Baltimore, 1836); Preston, , 223 near Gardner'sGardner, William

William Gardner, a ship 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 Directory for 1831 (Baltimore, 1831), 141, 5 (street register). ^†Editorial Emendation: Gardiner's. ship-yard, 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. Scharf, , 54, 59-60, 292-94; Olson, , 52-53, 85. Mr. and Mrs. Hugh AuldAuld, Sophia Keithley

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 carpenter, master shipbuilder, and shipyard fireman. Between 1826 and 1833, and again in 1836-38. 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." Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Baltimore Sun, 5 July 1880; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 87, 165-66, 168. , my new master and mistress, were both at home and met me at the door with their rosy-cheeked little son ThomasAuld, Thomas, Jr. (1824-48)

Aaron Anthony sent Douglass to Baltimore for the purpose of caring for Thomas Auld (1824–48), the son of Hugh and Sophia Auld and the nephew of Thomas Auld, Anthony's son-in-law. It was understood at the time that when young Thomas came of age he would receive legal title to Douglass. Douglass could later recall “few persons to whom I was more sincerely attached” than his young charge. He remembered fighting Tommy‘s “battles in the street, and shielding him from harm,” until young Auld reached early manhood and learned that “his friend must become his slave” and that he must find “more suitable associates” than his childhood companion. Thomas Auld later went to sea and was lost while serving on board the brig Tweed, in an attempt to rescue the crew of a sinking British vessel. Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 137–38, 152, 307–08; idem, Narrative, 55; Dr. T. E. Sears’s Auld Family Papers, MdHis; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC. , 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 legal form or arrangement entered into, I have no doubt 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. Little Thomas was affectionately told by his mother, that "there was his Freddy," 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. With these little ceremonies I was initiated into my new home, and entered upon my peculiar duties, then unconscious of a cloud to dim its broad 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 circum
stance of being thus removed, before the rigors of slavery had fully fastened
upon me; before my young spirit had been crushed under the iron control of
the slave-driver, I might have continued in slavery until emancipated by the
war.

CHAPTER X.
LEARNING TO READ.

City annoyances—Plantation regrets—My mistress—Her history—Her kindness—My master—His sourness—My comforts—Increased sensitiveness—My occupation—Learning to read—Baneful effects of slaveholding on my dear, good mistress—Mr. Hugh forbids Mrs. Sophia to teach me further—Clouds gather on my bright prospects—Master Auld's exposition of the Philosophy of Slavery—His iron sentences—A new and special revelation—"knowledge unfits a child to be a slave"—Mr. Hugh's determination to keep him in ignorance—He owes as much to Mr. Hugh's opposition as to Mrs. Sophia's assistance.

Established in my new home in Baltimore, I was not very long in perceiving that in picturing to myself what was to be my life there, my imagination had painted only the bright side; and that the reality had its dark shades as well as its light ones. The open country which had been so much to me, was all shut out. Walled in on every side by towering brick buildings, the heat of the summer was intolerable to me, and the hard brick pavements almost blistered my feet. If I ventured out on to the streets, new and strange objects glared upon me at every step, and startling sounds greeted my ears from all directions. My country eyes and ears were confused and bewildered. Troops of hostile boys pounced upon me at every corner. They chased me, and called me "Eastern-Shore man," till really I almost wished myself back on the Eastern Shore. My new mistress happily proved to be all she had seemed, and in her presence I easily forgot all outside annoyances. Mrs. SophiaAuld, Sophia Keithley

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 carpenter, master shipbuilder, and shipyard fireman. Between 1826 and 1833, and again in 1836-38. 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." Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC; Baltimore Sun, 5 July 1880; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 87, 165-66, 168. was naturally of an excellent disposition—kind, gentle, and cheerful. The supercilious contempt for the rights and feelings of others, and the petulance^†Editorial Emendation: B1. Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: petulence. and bad humor which generally characterized slaveholding ladies, were all quite absent from her manner and bearing toward me. She had never been a slaveholder—a thing then quite unusual at the South—but had 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 could change a saint into a sinner, and an angel into a demon. I hardly knew how

to behave towards "Miss Sopha," as I used to call Mrs. Hugh Auld. I could not approach her even as I had formerly approached Mrs. Thomas Auld. Why should 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 came to regard her as something more akin to a mother than a slaveholding mistress. So far from deeming it impudent in a slave to look her straight in the face, she seemed ever to say, "look up, child; don't be afraid." The sailors belonging to the sloop esteemed it a great privilege to be the bearers of parcels or messages to her, for whenever they came, they were sure of a most kind and pleasant reception. If little Thomas was her son, and her most dearly loved child, she 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 the mother's side. Nor did the slave-boy lack the caressing strokes of her gentle hand, soothing him into the consciousness that, though motherless, he was not friendless. Mrs. Auld was not only kind-hearted, but 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 was altogether a different character. He cared very little about religion; knew more of the world and was more a part 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, 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. Though I must in truth characterize Master Hugh as a sour man of forbidding appearance, it is due to him to acknowledge that he was never cruel to me, according to the notion of cruelty in Maryland. During the first year or two, he left me almost exclusively to the management of his wife. She was my law-giver. 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, and a frown from my mistress caused me far more suffering than had Aunt Katy's hardest cuffs. Instead of the cold, damp floor of my old master's kitchen, I was on carpets; for the corn bag in winter, I had a good straw bed, well furnished with covers; for the coarse corn meal in the morning, I had good bread and mush occasionally; for my old tow-linen shirt, 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. So for a time everything^†Editorial Emendation: every thing.

went well. I say for a time, because the fatal poison of irresponsible power, and the natural influence of slave customs, were not very long in making their impression on the gentle and loving disposition of my excellent mistress. She regarded me at first as a child, like any other. This was the natural and spontaneous thought; afterwards, when she came to consider me as property, our relations to each other were changed, but a nature so noble as hers could not instantly become perverted, and it took several years before the sweetness of her temper was wholly lost.

The frequent hearing of my mistress reading the Bible aloud, for she often read aloud when her husband was absent, awakened my curiosity in respect to this mystery of reading, and roused in me the desire to learn. Up to this time I had known nothing whatever of this wonderful art, and my ignorance and inexperience of what it could do for me, as well as my confidence in my mistress, emboldened me to ask her to teach me to read. With an unconsciousness and inexperience equal to my own, she readily consented, and in an incredibly short time, by her kind assistance, I had mastered 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, and of her intention to persevere in teaching me, as she felt her duty to do, at least to read the Bible. And here arose the first dark cloud over my Baltimore prospects, the precursor of chilling blasts and drenching storms. Master Hugh was astounded beyond measure, and probably for the first time proceeded to unfold to his wife the true philosophy of the slave system, and the peculiar rules necessary in the nature of the case to be observed in the management of human chattels. Of course he forbade her to give me any further instruction, telling her in the first place that to do so was unlawful,^†In fact, unlike in many other slave states, there was no legal proscription against slave literacy in Maryland. In Baltimore small blackoperated 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. Phillips, , 163-67; Miller and Smith, , 446. as it was also unsafe; "for," said he, "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, (1562; New York, 1967), 78. Leaming will spoil the best nigger in the world. If he learns to read the Bible it will forever unfit him to be a slave. He should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey it. As to himself, learning will do him no good, but a great deal of harm, making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you teach him how 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; 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 what he said, and like an obedient wife, began to shape her course

in the direction indicated by him. The effect of his words on me was neither slight nor transitory. His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk like heavy weights deep into my heart, and stirred up within me a rebellion not soon to be allayed. This was a new and special revelation, dispelling a painful mystery against which my youthful understanding had struggled, and struggled in vain, to wit, the white man's power to perpetuate the enslavement of the black 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. It was just what I needed, and it came to me at a time and from a source whence I least expected it. Of course I was greatly 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 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. He wanted me to be a slave; 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 to seek 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.

CHAPTER XI.
GROWING IN KNOWLEDGE.

My mistress—Her slaveholding duties—Their effects on her originally noble nature—The conflict in her mind—She opposes my learning to read—Too late—She had given me the "inch," I was resolved to take the "ell"—How I pursued my study to read—My tutors—What progress I made—Slavery—What I heard said about it—Thirteen years old—"Columbian Orator"^†Editorial Emendation: orator.—Dialogue—Speeches—O'Connor—Pitt—Lords Chatham and Fox—Knowledge increasing—Liberty—Singing—Sadness—Unhappiness of Mrs. Sophia—My hatred of slavery—One Upas tree overshadows us all

I lived in the family of Mr. Auld, at Baltimore, seven years, 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 my sense of candor and uprightness. My mistress, checked in her benevolent designs toward me, not only ceased instructing me herself, but set her face as a flint against my learning to read by any means. It is due to her to say, however, that she did not adopt this course in all its stringency at first. She either thought it unnecessary, or she lacked the depravity needed to make herself forget at once my human nature. She was, as I have said, naturally a 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.

Nature never intended that men and women should be either slaves or slaveholders, and nothing but rigid training long persisted in, can perfect the character of the one or the other. Mrs. Auld was singularly deficient in the qualities of a slaveholder. It was no easy matter for her to think or 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 more than that; 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 noblest powers of her soul? That struggle came, and the will and power of the husband were^†Editorial Emendation: B1. Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: was. victorious. Her noble soul was overcome, and he who wrought the wrong was injured in the fall no less than the rest of the household. When I went into that household, it was the abode of happiness and contentment. The wife and mistress there was a model of affection and tenderness. Her fervent piety and watchful uprightness made it impossible to see her without thinking and feeling "that woman is a Christian." 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 who came within her reach. But 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 injured, who is he who can repair the damage? If it be broken toward the slave on Sunday, it will be toward the master on Monday. It cannot long endure such shocks. It must stand unharmed, or it does not stand at all. As my condition in the family waxed bad, that of the family waxed no 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, my mistress had to seek to justify herself to herself, and once consenting to take sides in such a debate, she was compelled to hold her position. One needs little knowledge of moral philosophy to see where she inevitably landed. She finally became even more violent in her opposition to my learning to read than was Mr. Auld himself. Nothing now appeared to make her more angry than seeing me, seated in some nook or corner, quietly reading a book or newspaper. She would rush at me with the utmost fury, and snatch the book or paper from my hand, with something of the wrath and consternation which a traitor might be supposed to feel on being discovered in a plot by some dangerous spy. The conviction once thoroughly established in her mind, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other, 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 to give an account of myself. But this was too late; the first and never-to-be-retraced step had been taken. Teaching me the alphabet had been the '"inch" given, I was now waiting only for the opportunity to "take the ell."

Filled with the determination to learn to read at any cost, I hit upon many expedients to accomplish that much desired end. The plan which I mainly adopted, and the one which was the most successful, was that of using my young white playmates, with whom I met on the streets, as teachers. I used to carry almost constantly a copy of Webster's spelling-book^†The first version of the spelling book, (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 , and in 1829. Harry R. Warfel, (New York, 1936); Richard J. Moss, (Boston, 1984); DAB, 19:594-97. in my pocket, and when sent of errands, or when play-time was allowed me, I would step aside with my young friends and take a lesson in spelling. I am greatly indebted to these boys—Gustavus Dorgan, Joseph Bailey, Charles Farity, and William Cosdry.

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 seated on a curbstone 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 are 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 drawing out from them, as I occasionally did, that fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery which ever springs from nature unseared and unperverted. Of all consciences,^†Editorial Emendation: B1. Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: conscience. let me have those to deal with, which have not been seared and bewildered with the cares and perplexities of life. I do not remember ever to have met with a boy

while I was in slavery, who defended the system, but I do remember many times, when I was consoled by them, and by them encouraged to hope that something would yet occur by which I would be made free. Over and over again, they have told me that "they believed I had as good a right to be free as they had," and that "they did not believe God ever made any one to be a slave." It is easily seen that such little conversations with my play-fellows had no tendency to weaken my love of liberty, nor to render me contented as a slave.

When I was about thirteen years old, and had succeeded in learning to read, every increase of knowledge, especially anything respecting the free states, was an additional weight to the almost intolerable burden of my thought—"I am a slave for life." To my bondage I could see 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, I had earned a little money in blacking boots for some gentlemen, with which I purchased of Mr. KnightKnight, Nathaniel

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 1827. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1827, 155; John L. Sanford, Studies in Freemasonry (Baltimore,1924), 49-53. , on Thames street, what was then a very popular school book, viz., "The Columbian Orator,"Bingham, Caleb

Boston schoolteacher and bookseller Caleb Bingham (1757-1817) authored 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. for which I paid fifty cents. I was led to buy this book by hearing some little boys say that they were going to learn some pieces out of it for the exhibition. 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 read again and again 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, (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 submit 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, the quondam^†Formerly. slave makes^†Editorial Emendation: made. a spirited defense of himself, and thereafter the whole argument for and against slavery is^†Editorial Emendation: was. brought out. The master is vanquished at every turn in the argument, and appreciating the fact he generously and meekly emancipates the slave, with his best wishes for his prosperity. It is unnecessary to say that a dialogue with such an origin and such an end, read by me when every nerve of my being was in revolt at my own condition as a slave, affected me most powerfully. I could not help feeling that the day might yet come, when the

well-directed answers made by the slave to the master, in this instance, would find a counterpart in my own experience. This, however, was not all the fanaticism which I found in "The^†Editorial Emendation: 'the. Columbian Orator." I met there one of O'Connor'sO'Connor, Arthur

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, Columbian Orator, 130-31, 243-48; DNB, 18:78-85, 41:394-95. mighty speeches, on the subject of Catholic Emancipation,^†Although editions of published during Douglass's lifetime attribute the speech on Catholic Emancipation to Richard Sheridan (1751-1816), the Irish orator, playwright, and politician who entered Parliament in 1780 and championed Irish and other reform causes, the only speech extracted in Douglass's source, the , 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 Commons, in Favor of the Bill for Emancipating the Roman Catholics, 1795." Bingham, , 130-31, 243-48; , 18:78-85, 41:394-95. Lord Chatham'sPitt, William (the elder)

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 1777, and two in November 1777. The most strongly worded of the speeches warned against the dangers of the British army's 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, Eng., 1992), 288-99; Magnusson, Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, 297; DNB, 15:1240-53. speech on the American War,^†The contained several speeches given by William Pitt (1708-78), first earl of Chatham and speeches by the great William Pitt,Pitt, William (the younger)

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 post 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, 3 vols. (New York, 1969-96); Magnusson, Cambridge Biographical Dictionary, 1166-67; DNB, 15:1253-72. and by FoxFox, Charles James

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 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. George Otto Trevelyan, The Early History of Charles James Fox (1880; New York, 1971); Loren Reid, Charles James Fox: A Man for the People (Columbia, Mo., 1969); Edward Lascelles, The Life of Charles James Fox (New York, 1970); Magnus Magnusson, ed., Cambridge Biographical Dictionary (Cambridge, Eng., 1990), 535-36; DNB, 7:535-52. .^†Douglass refers to a speech concerning American affairs delivered to the British Parliament in 1778 by Charles James Fox. Bingham, , 172-75. These were all choice documents to me, and I read them over and over again, with an interest 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 often flashed through my mind and died away for want of words in which to give them utterance. The mighty power and heart-searching directness of truth penetrating 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, and from the speech of O'Connor 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 had ever wavered under the consideration that the Almighty, in some way, had ordained slavery and willed my enslavement for His^†Editorial Emendation: B1. Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: his own glory, I wavered no longer. I had now penetrated to the secret of all slavery and all oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power, and the avarice of man. With a book in my hand so redolent of the principles of liberty, with a perception of my own human nature and the facts of my past and present experience. I was equal to a contest with the religious advocates of slavery, whether white or black, for blindness in this matter was not confined to the white people. I have met many good religious colored people at the south, who were under the delusion that God required them to submit to slavery and to wear their chains with meekness and humility. I could entertain no such nonsense as this, and I quite lost my patience when I found a colored man weak enough to believe such stuff. Nevertheless, eager as I was to partake of the tree of knowledge, its fruits were bitter as well as sweet. "Slaveholders," thought I, "are only a band of successful robbers, who, leaving their own homes, 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. And 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 in Baltimore. Light had penetrated the moral dungeon where I had lain, and I saw the bloody whip for my back, and the iron chain for my feet, and my

good kind master, he was the author of my situation.^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: situ' ation. 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 indifference. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, and revealed the teeth of the frightful dragon that was ready to pounce upon me; but alas, it opened no way for my escape. I wished myself a beast, a bird, anything rather than a slave. I was wretched and gloomy beyond my ability to describe. This everlasting thinking distressed and tormented me; and yet there was no getting rid of this subject of my thoughts. Liberty, as the inestimable birthright of every man, converted every object into an asserter of this right. I heard it in every sound, and saw it in every object. It was ever present to torment me with a sense of my wretchedness. 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 it looked at me in every star, it 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 treatment which my mistress adopted towards me. I can easily believe that my leaden, downcast, and disconsolate look was very offensive to her. Poor lady! She did not understand my trouble, and I could not tell her. Could I have 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. As it was, her abuse fell upon me like the blows of the false prophet upon his ass;^†Douglass refers to the story of Balaam's ass in Num. 22:21-30. she did not know that an angel stood in the way. Nature made us friends, but slavery had made us enemies. 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 misery. 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 slavery, not its mere incidents 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 felt to them as to 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 came in time but 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, she as mistress, I as slave. I will not censure her harshly.

CHAPTER XII.
RELIGIOUS NATURE AWAKENED.

Abolitionists spoken of—Eagerness to know the meaning of the word—Consults the dictionary—Incendiary information—The enigma solved—"Nat" Turner insurrection—Cholera—Religion—Methodist Minister—Religious impressions—Father Lawson—His character and occupation—His influence over me—Our mutual attachment—New hopes and aspirations—Heavenly light—Two Irishmen on wharf—Conversation with them—Learning to write—My aims.

In the unhappy state of mind described in the foregoing chapter, regretting my very existence because doomed to a life of bondage, so goaded and so wretched as to be even tempted at times to take my own life, I was most keenly sensitive to know any and everything possible that had any relation to the subject of slavery. I was all ears, all eyes, whenever the words slave or slavery dropped from the lips of any white person, and the occasions became more and more frequent when these words became leading ones in high, social debate at our house. Very often I would overhear Master Hugh, or some of his company, speak with much warmth of the "abolitionists."^†Antislavery sentiment had existed in a few religious groups such as the Quakers since colonial times. Inspired by a combination of religious evangelicalism, Enlightenment philosophy, and transformations in the marketplace. an organized movement to end the slave trade and then emancipate all slaves emerged first in Great Britain and then the United States in the first third of the nineteenth century. Movements for gradual emancipation in various northern states triumphed in the decades immediately following the American Revolution. In the same era, an effort was launched to colonize slaves and free blacks in Africa. Proponents of immediate emancipation formed a national abolitionist organization in 1833 and quickly developed a network of local societies, newspapers, and itinerant speaking agents across the North. Although some support for more gradual abolition persisted in the Border States in the 1830s, Douglass is correct that most slaveholders there became increasingly paranoid about abolitionism's sowing discontent among their bondsmen. Merton L. Dillon, Slavery Attacked; Southern Slaves and Their Allies, 1619-1865 (Baton Rouge, La., 1990), 64, 92, 101, 138-41, 171-74; John McCardell, The Idea of a Southern Nation; Southern Nationalists and Southern Nationalism, 1830-1860 (New York, 1979), 11-27, 51-56; Peter Hinks and John McKivigan, eds., Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolitionism, 2 vols. (Westport, Conn., 2007), 1:33-35, 303-09. Who or what the abolitionists were, I was totally ignorant. I found, however, that whoever or whatever they might be, they were most cordially hated and 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 had made good his escape from slavery, it was generally alleged that he had been persuaded and assisted to do so by the abolitionists. If a slave killed his master, 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 fruit^†Editorial Emendation: fruits. of the abolition movement. Hearing such charges often repeated, I naturally enough, received the impression that abolition—whatever else it might be—was not 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 offered 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 thing to be abolished. A city newspaper—the Baltimore American^†The Baltimore American 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 iden-tified 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 and memorials had been presented to Congress,^†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 Columhia. 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: Civi1 Liberties and the Slavery Controversy, 1830-1860 (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1963),41, 51. 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 ambiguity practiced by our white folks when alluding to this subject, was now fully explained. Ever after that, when I heard the word abolition, I felt the matter one of a personal concern, and I drew near to listen whenever 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 fear as well as rage in the manner of speaking of the abolitionists, and from this I inferred that they must have some power in the country, and I felt that they might perhaps 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 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 the slaveholders. The insurrection of Nat. Turner had been quelled,^†The Nat Turner Rebellion took place in the early morning of 22 August 1831 in Southampton County, Virginia. Nat Turner (1800-31), a literate and intelligent slave living at the home of Joseph Travis, led the slave uprising. The rebellion began at the Travis home with the deaths of Sally and Joseph Travis and Putnam Moore, the child who had inherited the ownership of Nat Turner, and lasted until the early hours of Sunday, 23 August. Best estimates determine that sixty to eighty slaves from the region took up arms to join the fight for freedom. Turner, already long harboring antislavery sentiment, was moti-vated to action by religious visions and perceived supernatural significance to natural phenomena, beginning with a solar eclipse on 12 February 1831. Approximately fiftyfive to sixty whites died in the rebellion in Southampton County. All white people were targeted victims, including women and children. The rebellion was put down by the local militia. Turner evaded capture until he was found hiding in the woods less than two miles from the Travis home on 30 October. He was executed by hanging on 11 November 1831. Stephen B. Oates, The Fires of Jubilee: Nat Turner's Fierce Rebellion (1975; New York, 1990); Scot French, The Rebellious Slave: Nat Turner in American Memory (Boston, 2004), 2-3, 79-80; James T. Baker, Nat Turner: Cry Freedom in America (Fort Worth, Tex., 1998), 21-41; ACAB, 6:187; DAB, 19:69-70; ANB, 22: 31-32. but the alarm and terror which it occasioned had not subsided. The cholera^†The first known widespread incidence of cholera in Baltimore reached the city 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. was then on its way to this country, and I remember thinking that God was angry with the white people because of their slaveholding wickedness, and therefore his judgments were abroad in the land. Of course it was impossible for me not to hope much for the abolition movement when I saw it supported by the Almighty, and armed with DEATH.

Previous^†Editorial Emendation: previously. 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 in my loneliness and destitution I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector. The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named HansonHanson, Rev. (Methodist minister)

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 commitment 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. , was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. 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 did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself other-

wise. I consulted a good colored man named Charles LawsonLawson, Charles

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. , and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to "cast all my care upon God."^†Douglass paraphrases 1 Peter 5:7, "Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you." This I sought to do; and though for weeks I was a poor, broken-hearted mourner, traveling through doubts and fears, I finally found my burden lightened, and my heart relieved. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever. I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible. I have gathered scattered pages of the Bible from the filthy street-gutters, and washed and dried them, that in moments of leisure I might get a word or two of wisdom from them. While thus religiously seeking knowledge, I became acquainted with a good old colored man named Lawson. 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 any one, were about a better world. Uncle Lawson lived near Master Hugh's house, and becoming deeply attached to him, 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 "the letter," but he could teach me "the spirit," and refreshing times we had together, in singing and praying. These meetings went on for a long time without the knowledge of Master Hugh or my mistress. Both knew, however, that I had become religious, and seemed to respect my conscientious piety. My mistress was still a professor of religion, and belonged to a class.^†Editorial Emendation: to class. Her leader was no less a person than Rev. Beverly WaughWaugh, Beverly

The son of a substantial farmer from Fairfax County, Virginia, Beverly Waugh (1789-1858) clerked in a government office in Washington, D.C. and managed a grocery store in Middleburg, Virginia, before becoming a traveling preacher for the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1809. Ordained a deacon in 1811 and an elder in 1813, Waugh served his early itinerancy in the Washington-Baltimore area. 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 which the Hugh Auld family attended. Douglass remembered Waugh's visits to the Auld household to "exhort and pray" with his mistress Sophia. From 1828 to 1836 Waugh was book agent for the Methodist Book Concern in New York City, in 1836 he was elected a bishop by the General Conference, and in 1852 he became the senior bishop of the church. Early in his career he flirted with a movement to democratize church government, but Waugh was committed to preserving church unity above all else. Thus, although he was "in sentiment and in habit antislavery" and felt that "slavery is a bitter pill and a great evil," he feared "the blighting effect of abolitionism" and used his episcopal power to try to suppress it. As the presiding bishop at the New England Annual Conference of 1837 he refused to allow abolitionist delegates to introduce antislavery petitions into the official proceedings. At the General Conference of 1844 he joined with other bishops in an effort to have the discussion of Bishop James O. Andrew's episcopacy postponed until the next General Conference. It was also at this meeting that Waugh, in an attempt to pacify the southern delegates, introduced the three resolutions which Douglass paraphrases. When the church divided, Waugh stayed with the parent body, as did the Baltimore Conference with which he had been associated. Methodist Episcopal Church, Minutes of Conferences, 1858, i-vi ; H. B. Ridgaway, "Beverly Waugh," in Lives of Methodist Bishops, ed. Theodore L. Flood and John W. Hamilton (New York, 1882), 225 - 62; Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 168; Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, 108, 153; Norwood, Schism in the Methodist Episcopal Church, 35 - 36; DAB, 19 : 558. , the presiding elder, and afterwards one of the bishops of the Methodist Episcopal church.^†Methodism began as an evangelical movement within the Church of England. The Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States was founded in 1784 at the General Conference, sometimes called the Christmas Conference, in Baltimore, Maryland. Because of the split in the denomination caused by the American Revolution , the Anglican Church refused to ordain a bishop for America. This refusal prompted John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, to ordain Thomas Coke, who, along with Francis Asbury, would serve as the first bishop of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Reverend Beverly Waugh was elected bishop in 1836. The Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church (New York, 1832), 14; Nathan Bangs, A History of the Methodist Episcopal Church, 4 vols. (New York, 1845-53), 4:240.

In view of the cares and anxieties incident to the life she was 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 often brought Mr. Waugh to our house, and gave me an opportunity to hear him exhort and pray. But my chief instructor in religious matters was Uncle Lawson. He was my spiritual father and I loved him intensely, and was at his house every chance I could get. This pleasure, however, was not long unquestioned. Master Hugh became averse to our intimacy, and threatened to whip me if I ever went there again. I now felt myself persecuted by a wicked man, and I would go. 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; that he had been shown that I must

preach the gospel. His words made a very deep impression upon me, and I verily felt that some such work was before me, though I could not see how I could ever engage in its performance. "The good Lord would bring it to pass in his own good time," he said, and that I must go on reading and studying the scriptures. This advice and these suggestions were not without their influence on my character and destiny. He fanned my already intense love of knowledge into a flame by assuring me that I was to be a useful man in the world. When I would say to him, "How can these things be? and what can I do?" his simple reply was, "Trust in the Lord." When I would tell him, "I am a slave, and a slave for life, how can I do anything?" he would quietly answer, "The Lord can make you free, my dear; all things are possible with Him; only have faith in God. 'Ask, and it shall be given you.'^†Douglass quotes Matt. 7:7. If you want liberty, ask the Lord for it in FAITH, and he will give it to you."

Thus assured and thus 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,^†In Exodus, the mercy seat refers to a slab of gold placed upon the Ark of the Covenant, housed in the Tabernacle. God commanded Moses to build the Tabernacle, a sanctuary in the wilderness. The priests went to the mercy seat to commune with God. Exod. 25:17-22. I always prayed that God would, of His great mercy and in His^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: his own good time, deliver me from my bondage.

I went, one day, on the wharf of Mr. WatersWaters, George P.

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 for 1833 (Baltimore, 1833), 189, 15 (street register); Matchett's Baltimore Dircctor for 1835-6, 267; Lucas, Plan of the City of Baltimore. , and seeing two Irishmen unloading a scow^†A large flat-bottomed boat propelled by a pole. of stone 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 for life." The good Irishman gave a shrug, and seemed deeply affected. He said it was a pity so fine a little fellow as I was 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 should then be as free as anybody. I pretended not to be interested in what they said, for I feared they might be treacherous. White men were not unfrequently known to encourage slaves to escape, and then, to get the reward, they would kidnap them and return them to their masters. 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 which most affected me; the being a slave for life was the saddest thought. I was too young to think of running away immediately; besides, I wished to learn 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—Master Hugh's, and that of Durgin & BaileyDurgin, John

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 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 Directory 1829, 94; Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1831, 21; Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1835-6, 12. ,^†Editorial Emendation: Durgan. and I observed that the carpenters, after hewing and getting ready a piece of timber to 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^*Right side of a ship, when looking forward from the stern. side, it was marked with a capital "S.'' A piece for the larboard^†Obsolete word used to identify the left or port side of a ship, when looking forward from the stern. side was marked " L.;" larboard forward was marked "L.F.;" larboard aft^†Near the stern, or hinder part, of a ship. 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 now was to keep fire under the steam-box,^†Device for containing the steam in a steam engine. and to watch the 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 letters I can make more.'' Having made these readily and easily, when I met boys about the Bethel church^†American Methodists founded the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1784, creating national autonomy for their denomination. Many free blacks were attracted to the Methodist Church for its inclusiveness, however, as the institu-tion of slavery grew, so did racial discrimination within American Methodist congre-gations. In 1787 the black members of St. George's Church in Philadelphia withdrew after white congregants attempted to forcibly remove Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, and William White to the area surrounding the church walls as the men knelt in prayer. This incident became the catalyst for the formation of two black churches in Philadelphia: an Episcopal church, St. Thomas, where Jones served as rector; and the Bethel African Methodist Church, led by Allen but governed by the white leadership of St. George's. Both churches were dedicated in 1794, but disputes between the Bethelites and the white elders were frequent and bitter. Facing similar problems within their Methodist congregations, black Methodists in Baltimore established their Bethel Church in 1797. Daniel Coker assumed leadership of the Baltimore church in 1801. Allen and Coker together started the independent African Methodist movement in America; by 1816, several black Methodist congregations existed. Representatives of these congregations met at Bethel Church in Philadelphia in April 1816 and resolved to form a separate body, the African Methodist Episcopal Church of the United States of America. While adhering to most of the Methodist discipline, the African Methodist Episcopal Church emphasized education, political agitation, and social action. Daniel A. Payne, (Nashville, Tenn., 1888); James T. Campbell, (New York, 1995 ), 10-14; Harry V. Richardson, (Garden City, N.Y., 1976), 62-116; George A. Singleton, (New York, 1952), 1-25; , 4:685; , 484; , 4:188. or on any of our playgrounds, 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 play-mates for my teachers, fences and pavements for my copy-books, and chalk for my pen and ink, I learned to write. I however adopted, afterward, various methods for improving my hand. The most successful was copying the italics 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 had been laid carefully away. Spending parts of my time both at the ship-yard and the house, I was 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^†Copybooks were used in the United States from the late eighteenth through the late nineteenth centuries to teach elementary school children pen-manship. The books contained writing samples for students to imitate on empty lines. Edward L. Dejnozka et al., eds., (New York, 1991), 138-39. 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 marking the highly-prized copy-books of the oldest son. In addition to these opportunities, sleeping as I did in the kitchen loft, a room seldom visited by any of the family, I contrived to get 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, and other books which I had accumulated, 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 these meetings, I must say for his credit that he never executed his threats 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 followed by that of old Master—Valuation and division of all the property, including the slaves—Sent for to come to Hillsborough to be valued and divided—Sad prospects and grief—Parting—Slaves have no voice in deciding their own destinies—General dread of falling into Master Andrew's hands—His drunkenness—Good fortune in falling to Miss Lucretia—She allows my return to Baltimore—Joy at Master Hugh's—Death of Miss Lucretia—Master Thomas Auld's second marriage—The new wife unlike the old—
Again removed from Master Hugh's—Reasons for regret—Plan of escape.

I must now ask the reader to go back with me a little in point of time, in my humble story, and notice another circumstance that entered into my slavery experience, and which, doubtless, had had^†Editorial Emendation: has. a share in deepening my horror of slavery, and my hostility toward those men and measures that practically upheld^†Editorial Emendation: uphold. the slave system.

It has already been observed that though I was, after my removal from Col. Lloyd's plantation, in form the slave of Master Hugh Auld, I was in fact and in law 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 my^†Editorial Emendation: months after my. old master himself died,^†Douglass errs slightly. Aaron Anthony died on 14 November 1826, and his son, Richard Lee Anthony, died one year and six months later, on 18 May 1828. Preston, , 223n6. leaving only his daughter Lucretia and his son Andrew to share the estate. The old man died while on a visit to his daughter in Hillsborough,^†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, (St. Michaels, Md., 1992), 7; Cohen, , 2:1283. where Capt. Auld and Mrs. Lucretia now lived, Master Thomas^†Thomas Auld. having given up the command of Col. Lloyd's sloop and was now keeping store in that town.

Cut off thus unexpectedly, Capt. Anthony died intestate,^†without leaving behind a valid will. Bryan A. Gamer, ed., , 7th ed. (St. Paul, Minn., 1999), 827. and his property must be equally divided between his two children, Andrew and Lucretia.

The valuation and division of slaves among contending heirs was a most important incident in slave life. The characters and tendencies of the heirs were generally well understood by the slaves who were to be divided, and all had their aversions and their preferences. But neither their aversions nor their preferences availed anything.

On the death of old master I was immediately sent for to be valued and

divided^†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, made up the division and were valued at $2,805. Frederick was among the slaves awarded to Thomas Auld, widower of Lucretia Anthony Auld. Aaron Anthony, Inventory of Negroes, Distribution of Negroes, folder 77, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH. with the other property. Personally, my concern was mainly about my possible removal from the home of Master Hugh, for up to this time there had no dark clouds arisen to darken the sky of that happy abode. It was a sad day to me when I left for the Eastern Shore, to be valued and divided, as it was for my dear mistress and teacher, and for little Tommy. We all three wept bitterly, for we were parting, and it might be we were parting forever. No one could tell amongst which pile of chattels I might be flung. Thus early, I got a foretaste of that painful uncertainty which in one form or another was ever obtruding itself in the pathway of the slave. It furnished me a new insight into the unnatural power to which I was subjected. Sickness, adversity, and death may interfere with the plans and purposes of all, but the slave had the added danger of changing homes, in the 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 thinking human 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 slave-holders to their slaves. Personality swallowed up in the sordid idea of property! Manhood lost in chattelhood!

The valuation over, then came the division and apportionment. Our destiny was to be fixed for life, 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 hayshed or barn, or the compartment of a barn in which hay is stored. One word of the appraisers, against all preferences and prayers, could sunder all the ties of friendship and affection, even to separating 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 this dread of separation, most painful to the majority of the slaves, we all had a decided horror of falling into the hands of Master Andrew, who was distinguished for his cruelty and intemperance.

Slaves had a great dread, very naturally, of falling into the hands of drunken owners. Master Andrew was a confirmed sot,^†One who repeatedly drinks to excess; a drunkard. and had already by his profligate dissipation wasted a large portion of his father's property. To fall into his hands, therefore, was considered as the first step toward being sold away to the far South. He would no doubt spend his fortune in a few years, it was thought, and his farms and slaves would be sold at public auction, and the slaves hurried away to the cotton-fields and rice-swamps of the burning South. This was 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 had the slaves. Their freedom to come and go, to be here or there, as they list, prevents any extravagant attachment to any one particular place. On the other hand, the slave was a fixture; he had no choice, no goal, but was pegged down to one single spot, and must take root there or nowhere. The idea of removal elsewhere came generally in shape of a threat, and in punishment for crime. It was therefore attended with fear and dread. 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 expect to rise to wealth and distinction, could have no place in the thought of the slave; nor could those from whom he^†Editorial Emendation: they. separated know anything of 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 the hope of reunion, but with the slave^†Editorial Emendation: slaves. all these mitigating circumstances were wanting. There was no improvement in condition probable—no correspondence possible—no reunion attainable. His going out into the world was 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 been 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 rigors of Mr. Plummer's^†James or Philemon Plummer. rule. He had written his character on the living parchment of most of their backs, and left them seamed and calloused;^†Editorial Emendation: callous. my back (thanks to my early removal to Baltimore) was yet tender. I had left a kind mistress in tears when we parted, and the probability of ever seeing her again, trembling in the balance as it were, could not fail to excite in me alarm and agony. The thought of becoming the slave of Andrew Anthony— who but a few days before the division had in my presence seized my brother PerryBailey, Perry (Douglass's brother)

Perry Bailey (1813-80), 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 postemancipation 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 Collection, DHU-MS; Douglass to J. J. Spellman, 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 I827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 175-77, 206. 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. After inflicting this cruel treatment on my brother, observing me, as I looked at him in astonishment, he said: "That's the way I'll serve you, one of these days"; meaning, probably, when I should come into his

possession. This threat, the reader may well suppose, was not very tranquilizing to my feelings.

At last the anxiety and suspense were ended; and 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 in her father's kitchen, and shielded me from the maledictions of Aunt Katy.

Capt. Thomas Auld and Mrs. Lucretia at once decided on my return to Baltimore. They knew how warmly Mrs. Hugh Auld was attached to me, and how delighted Tommy would be to see me, and withal, having no immediate use for me, they willingly concluded this arrangement.

I need not stop to narrate my joy on finding myself back in Baltimore. I was just one month absent, but the time seemed fully six months.

I had returned to Baltimore but a short time when the tidings reached me that my kind friend, Mrs. Lucretia, was dead.^†Aaron Anthony's daughter Lucretia Auld died on 6 July 1827. Preston, , 223n6. She left one child, a daughter, named AmandaSears, Arianna Amanda Auld

Arianna Amanda Auld Sears (1826-78), granddaughter of Aaron Anthony and only child of Thomas and Lucretia Anthony Auld. Born in Hillsborough, Maryland, "Miss Amanda" lived with her parents at the elder Anthony's home at the same time that Douglass resided there as a young slave. Amanda's mother died not long after the Auld family returned to Hillsborough. 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 a St. Michaels schoolteacher John L. Sears and moved with him to Philadelphia, where she and Douglass renewed acquaintance alter one of his speaking appearances. Sears later became a Philadelphia coal merchant, with whom she bore four children. She later moved with her husband to Baltimore but visited Philadelphia in September 1866 with her two children specifically to watch Douglass in a procession. Douglass remained in correspondence with her and visited her shortly before her death. After her death in 1878, Auld's husband, John, wrote to Douglass, "God bless you for your kindness to her." John L. Sears to Douglass, 10 January 1878, and Thomas E. Sears to Douglass, 1 February 1878, General Correspondence File, reel 3, frames 215-16, 225, FD Papers, DLC; Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Carl G. Auld); New York Herald, 6 September 1860; Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, 6 September 1866; Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:39, 2:102, 108; Quarles, Frederick Douglass, 232; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 30, 106-07, 168-70; Roberts, "Visitation of Western Talbot," 245. , of whom I shall speak again. Shortly after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Andrew died, leaving a wife and one child. Thus the whole family of Anthonys, as it existed when I went to Col. Lloyd's place, was swept away during the first five years' time of my residence at Master Hugh Auld's in Baltimore.

No especial alteration took place in the condition of the slaves, in consequence of these deaths, yet I could not help the feeling that I was less secure now that Mrs. Lucretia was gone. While she lived, I felt that I had a strong friend to plead for me in any emergency.

In a little book which I published six years after my escape from slavery, entitled, "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,"^†Published in 1845 by the American Anti-Slavery Society, with accompanying prefatory letters by William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips. Douglass's first autobiography, , was released to the antebellum American public when the author was twenty-seven years old. The Narrative achieved widespread success not only in the United States but also in the United Kingdom and Europe. In the eight years following its initial publication, Douglass's Narrative was translated into French, German, and Dutch and was published in over twenty U.S. editions, selling at least 30,000 copies by 1853. , ser. 2, 1:xvii, xxv, xxxii. Editorial Emendation: "Narrative of Frederick.—when the distance between the past then described, and the present was not so great as it is now,—speaking of these changes in my master's family, and their results, 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, has 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 great-grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in his infancy, attended him in his 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 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, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of them, and her present owner—his grandson—finding she was of but little value—her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs—took her to the woods, built her a little hut with a mud chimney, and then gave her the bounteous privilege of supporting herself there in utter loneliness: thus virtually turning her out to die. If my poor, dear old grandmother now lives, 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 WhittierWhittier, John Greenleaf

Born to Quaker parents, John Greenleaf Whittier (1807-92) tended his family farm near Haverhill, Massachusetts, in his youth. Inspired by poets Robert Burns and John Milton, Whittier's first published poem, "The Exile's Departure," appeared in William Lloyd Garrison's Newburyport Free Press in 1826. Garrison encouraged Whittier's father to allow his son to attend the Haverhill Academy in Boston for a year. Again with Garrison's help, Whittier secured his first editorial position in 1829 at a political weekly, the American Manufacturer, in Boston. There he became acquainted with the abolitionist movement and was one of the founding members of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. Whittier was elected to a term in the Massachusetts state legislature in 1835, and two years later friends published the first collection of his poems, Poems Written during the Progress of the Abolition Question in the United States. Whittier worked as a corresponding editor for the antislavery journal the Washington National Era, which published many of his antislavery poems, until he cofounded the Atlantic Monthly in 1857. Roland H. Woodwell, John Greenleaf Whittier: A Biography (Haverhill, Mass., 1985); DNB, 20:173-75; ANB, 23:320-21. , the slave's poet:

'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's 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 among his collection of antislavery poetry. John G. Whittier, The Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier, 4 vols. (Boston, 1892), 3:56.

'The hearth is desolate. 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, 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 needed time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can bestow on 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 cinders."^†"Now all the property. . .a few dim cinders."] While Douglass quotes this passage verbatim from his first autobiography in , he appears to have revised the passage somewhat here. None of his revisions changes the passage's essence; however, the substitution of the word "cinders" for "embers," implying a loss of meager warmth, may suggest that Douglass felt greater bitterness about his grandmother's circumstances as he crafted his third auto-biography, s, ser. 2, 1:39-41, 103-104.

Two years after the death of Mrs. Lucretia, Master Thomas married his

second wife. Her name was Rowena HambletonAuld, Rowena Hambleton

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 HambletonHambleton, William

William Hambleton (c. 1783-1855) 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 $10,000 and owned ten slaves. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 1016 (free schedule), 32 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 108-09, 130. ,^†Editorial Emendation: Hamilton. a rich slaveholder on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, who lived about five miles from St. Michaels, the then place of Master Thomas Auld's residence.

Not long after his marriage, Master Thomas had a misunderstanding with Master Hugh, and as a means of punishing him, he ordered him to send me home. As the ground of the misunderstanding will serve to illustrate the character of Southern chivalry and Southern humanity, fifty years ago, I will relate it.

Among the children of my Aunt MillyBailey, Milly (Douglass's aunt )

, was a daughter named HennyBailey, Henny

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 and his mother's sister. As a child Henny suffered severe burns, which left her hands severely scarred and virtually useless and she was 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. Auld constantly abused Henny after he inherited her. 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, Distribution of Negroes, folder 71, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folders 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, 225; Bondage and Freedom, 201. . When quite a child, Henny had fallen into the fire and had burnt her hands. so badly 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 property, ill-shapen and disfigured, Capt. Auld sent off to Baltimore.

After giving poor Henny a fair trial, Master Hugh and his wife came to the conclusion that they had no use for the poor cripple, 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. Michaels, saying, "if he cannot keep Hen., he shan't have Fred."

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 with slaves were unavailing; my wishes were nothing; my happiness was the sport of my master.

My regrets at leaving Baltimore now were not for the same reasons as when I before left the city to be valued and handed over to a new owner.

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 of slavery and social isolation on 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 towards me. My condition, therefore, in the house of Master Hugh was not by any means so comfortable as in former years. My attachments were now outside of our family. They were to those to whom I imparted instruction, and to those little white boys,

from whom I received instruction. There, too, was my dear old father, the pious Lawson, who was in all the Christian graces the very counterpart of "Uncle Tom"^†An allusion to the humble, pious, long-suffering attitude of the 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 so perfect that he might have been the original of Mrs. Stowe'sStowe, Harriet Elizabeth Beecher

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher Stowe (1811–96), the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) and a member of the outspoken Beecher family, began writing early in life and pioneered the use of slang and regional dialects in her works. Although Uncle Tom’s Cabin remains the most famous of Stowe’s writings, she published a number of others widely read in the nineteenth century, including a novel on slavery Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), Little Foxes (1866), and My Wife and I; or Harry Henderson's History (1871). Stowe never spoke publicly on behalf of abolition, but her name was one of those most closely associated with the cause because of the overwhelming international popularity of these novels. She and Douglass continued to correspond after this letter, meeting for the first time in 1853. Although he criticized her for advocating colonization and for failing to donate proceeds from Uncle Tom’s Cabin to the antislavery cause, to which she responded with a less than enlightened attitude, she defended him against Garrison. Catherine Gilbertson, Harriet Beecher Stowe (New York, 1937); Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (New York, 1994); Forrest Wilson, Crusader in Crinoline: The Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe (Philadelphia, 1941); Stowe, Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe; Stowe, Life and Letters Christian hero. The thought of leaving these dear friends greatly troubled me, for I was going without the hope of ever returning again; the feud being most bitter, and apparently wholly irreconcilable.

In addition to the pain of parting from friends, as I supposed, forever, I had the added grief of neglected chances of escape to brood over. I had put off running away until I was now to be placed where opportunities for escape would be much more difficult, and less frequent.

As we sailed down the Chesapeake bay, on board the sloop "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 Amanda was piloted by Captain Ed Dodson. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 105. to St. Michaels, and were passed by the steamers plying between Baltimore and Philadelphia, I formed many a plan for my future, beginning and ending in the same determination—yet to find some way of escape from slavery.

CHAPTER XIV.
EXPERIENCE IN ST. MICHAELS.

St. Michaels and its inhabitants—Capt. Auld—His new wife—Sufferings from hunger—Forced to steal—Argument in vindication thereof—Southern camp-meeting—What Capt. Auld did there—Hopes—Suspicions—The result—Faith and works at variance—Position in the church—Poor Cousin Henny—Methodist preachers—Their disregard of the slaves—One exception—Sabbath-school—How and by whom broken up—Sad change in my prospects—Covey, the negro-breaker.

St. Michaels, the village in which was now my new home, compared favorably with villages in slave States generally, at this time—1833. 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 was^†Editorial Emendation: 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. Michaels had, in former years, 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 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. Michaels was an unsaintly, as well as unsightly place.

I went to St. Michaels to live in March, 1833. I know the year, because it was the one succeeding the first cholera in Baltimore, and was also the year of that strange phenomenon when the heavens seemed about to part with their^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: its. starry train. I witnessed this gorgeous spectacle, and was awestruck. The air seemed tilled 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;^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: 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,"^†Douglass cites a portion of Matt. 24:29. and they were now falling. I was suffering very 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 looking 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, Capt. Anthony, on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd. As I knew him then it was as the husband of old master's daughter; I had now to know him as my master. All my lessons concerning his temper and disposition, and the best methods of pleasing him, were yet to be learned. Slaveholders, however, were 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. Unlike Miss Lucretia, whom I remembered with the tenderness which departed blessings leave, Mrs. Rowena Auld was as cold^†Editorial Emendation: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: was cold. and cruel, as her husband was stingy, and possessed the power to make him as cruel as herself, while she could easily descend to the level of his meanness.

As long as I had lived in Mr. Hugh Auld's family, whatever changes had come over them there had been always a bountiful supply of food; and now, for the first time in seven years, I realized the pitiless pinchings of hunger. So wretchedly starved were we that we were compelled to live at the expense of our neighbors, or to steal from the home larder.^†A room where meat and other food are stored. 82.20-21 "bless them. . .His kingdom."] Douglass paraphrases Deut. 28:5, "Blessed shall be thy basket and thy store." This was a hard thing to do; but after much reflection I reasoned myself into the conviction that there

was no other way to do, and that after all there was no wrong in it. Considering that my labor and person were the property of Master Thomas, and that I was 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 his service. To be sure, this was stealing, according to the law and gospel I heard from the pulpit; but I had begun to attach less importance to what dropped from that quarter on such points. 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 a question of removal—the taking of his^†Editorial Emendation: taking his. meat out of one tub and putting it in another; the ownership of the meat was not affected by the transaction. At first he owned it in the tub, and last he owned it in me. His meat-house was not always open. There was a strict watch kept in that point, and the key was carried in Mrs. Auld's pocket. We were oftentimes severely pinched with hunger, when meat and bread were mouldering under lock and key. This was so, when she knew we were nearly half-starved; and yet with saintly air would she kneel with her husband and pray each morning that a merciful God would "bless them in basket and store, and save them at last in His kingdom." But I proceed with my argument.

It was necessary that the right to steal from others 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 some time before I arrived at this clear right. To give some idea of my train of reasoning, I will state the case as I laid it out in my mind. "I am," I thought, "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 reasoned further, that within the bounds of his just earnings the slave was fully justified in helping himself to the gold and silver, and the best apparel of his master, or that of any other slave-holder; and that such taking was not stealing, in any just sense of the word.

The morality of free society could have no application to slave society. Slaveholders made it almost impossible for the slave to commit any crime,

known either to the laws of God or to the laws of man. If he stole he but took his own; if he killed his master, he only imitated the heroes of the revolution. Slaveholders I held to be individually and collectively responsible for all the evils which grew out of the horrid relation, and I believed they would be so held in the sight of God. To make a man a slave was to rob him of moral responsibility. Freedom of choice is the essence of all accountability; but my kind readers are probably less concerned about what were my opinions than about that which more nearly touched my personal experience, albeit my opinions have, in some sort, been the outgrowth of my experience.

When I lived with Capt. Auld I thought him incapable of a noble action. His leading characteristic was intense selfishness. I think he was fully aware of this fact himself and often tried to conceal it. Capt. Auld was not a born slaveholder—not a birthright member of the slave-holding oligarchy. He was only a slaveholder by marriage-right; and of all slaveholders these were 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 enforcements weak.

Slaves were not insensible to the whole-souled qualities of a generous, dashing slaveholder, who was fearless of consequences, and they preferred 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 used the lash but at the suggestion of a love of gain.

Slaves too, readily distinguished between the birthright bearing of the original slaveholder, and the assumed attitudes of the accidental slaveholder; and while they could have no respect for either, they despised the latter more than the former.

The luxury of having slaves to wait upon him was new to Master Thomas, and for it he was wholly unprepared. He was a slaveholder, without the ability to hold or manage his slaves. Failing to command their respect, both himself and wife were ever on the alert lest some indignity should be offered him by the slaves.

It was in the month of August, 1833, when I had become almost desperate under the treatment of Master Thomas, and 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 Bayside in Talbot County, Maryland, is believed to have been a center of Methodism for the area, begin-ning 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 wor-ship 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 Thomas Auld attended 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" (Sardis Chapel, M. E. Church, St. Michaels, Md., 1894), 551, 561-62, MdAA; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:302-05, 307. (a famous place for camp-meetings) about eight miles from St. Michaels, Master Thomas came out

with a profession of religion.^†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. 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. Michaels, he was equal to the best citizen. He was strictly temperate, and there was little to do for him, to give him the appearance of piety, and to make him a pillar of the church. Well, the camp-meeting continued a week; people gathered from all parts of the country, and two steamboats came loaded from Baltimore. The ground was happily chosen; seats were arranged; a stand erected; a rude altar fenced in, fronting the preacher's stand, with straw in it, making a soft kneeling-place for the accommodation of mourners. This place would have held at least one hundred persons. In front and on the sides of the preacher's stand, and outside the long rows of seats, rose the first class of stately tents, each vying^†Editorial Emendation: vieing. with the other in strength, neatness, and capacity for accommodation. Behind this first circle of tents, was another less imposing, which reached round the camp-ground to the speaker's 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 and boiling and frying were going on, for the benefit of those who were attending to their spiritual welfare within the circle. Behind the preacher's stand, a narrow space was marked out for the use of the colored people.^†Black participation at camp meetings and similar religious services was heavily segregated in antebellum Maryland. A plank partition separated the seating arrangements between the races at camp meetings. In addition, blacks sat behind the preaching platform and whites in front. The partition was removed only on the last clay of the meeting, when blacks circled the gathering and joined whites to worship and sing in a "ring shout." J. Gordon Melton, A Will to Choose: The Origins of African American Methodism (New York, 2007), 133-34; Fields, Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground, 35, 78; Levine, Black Culture and Black Consciousness, 21-22. There were no seats provided for this class of persons, and if the preachers addressed them at all, it was in an aside. After the preaching was over, at every service, an invitation was given to mourners to come forward 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 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 preacher's stand, I ventured to take my stand at a sort of half-way place between the blacks and whites, where I could distinctly see the movements of the mourners, and especially the progress of Master Thomas. "If he has got religion," thought I, "he will emancipate his slaves; or, if he should not do so much as this, he will at any rate behave towards 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 Master Thomas 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. Standing where I did, I could see his every movement. I watched very narrowly while he remained in the 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 the 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, "Capt. Auld has come through," 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 might sometimes have had confidence^†Editorial Emendation: have confidence. in the piety of some of their slaves, but the slaves seldom had confidence in the piety of their masters. "He can't go to heaven with our blood^†Editorial Emendation: heaven without blood. on his skirts,"^†This quotation appeared in My Bondage and My Freedom as "He cant go to heaven with our blood in his skirts," which may be an adaptation of Jer. 2:34. "Also in thy skirts is found the souls of the poor innocents." Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 2:112. was a settled point in the creed of every slave: which rose superior to all teaching to the contrary, and stood forever as a fixed fact. The highest evidence the slaveholder could give the slave of his acceptance with God, was the emancipation of his slaves. This was proof to us that he was willing to give up all to God, and for the sake of God, and not to do this was, in our estimation, an evidence of hard-heartedness, and was wholly inconsistent with the idea of genuine conversion. I had read somewhere in the Methodist Discipline,^†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 actually , 191-92. the following question and answer: "Question. What shall be done for the extirpation of slavery?" "Answer. 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." 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 I have parted with my sins, I have not parted with my sense. I shall hold my slaves, and go to heaven too."

There was always a scarcity of good nature about the man; but now his whole countenance was soured all over with the seemings of piety and he became more rigid and stringent in his exactions. If religion had any effect at all on him, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways. Do I judge him harshly? God forbid. Capt. Auld made the greatest professions 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 wife joined; yet no more nor better meal was distributed at the quarters, no more attention 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 the preacher's stand on the camp-ground. Our hopes, too, founded on the discipline, soon vanished; for he was taken into the church at once, and before he was out of his term of probation, he led^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: lead. in class. He quite distinguished himself among the brethren as a fervent exhorter. His progress was almost as rapid as the growth of the fabled vine of Jack and the bean-stalk.^†An allusion to the nursery tale, 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, , 731. No man was more active in revivals, or would go more miles to assist in carrying them on, and in getting outsiders interested in religion. His house, being one of the holiest in St. Michaels, became the "preachers' home." They evidently liked to share his hospitality: for while he starved us, he stuffed them—three or four of these "ambassadors" being there not unfrequently at a time—all living on the fat of the land, while we in the kitchen were worse than hungry. Not often did we get a smile of recognition from these holy men. They seemed about as unconcerned about our getting to heaven, as about our getting out of slavery. To this general charge, I must make one exception—the Reverend George CookmanCookman, George

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. In 1821-23 he visited the United States on business and during this sojourn became convinced of his duty to preach the gos-pel. 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 Columbia. 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 in his will. 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 100 passengers who perished. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 6; Sewell, ''St. Michaels Methodism," 665-67, 675-78 , 680, 707; Matthew Simpson, ed., Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 5th rev. ed. (Philadelphia, 1882), 255-56; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 114-15, 226; ACAB, 1:722. . Unlike Rev. Messrs. StorksStorks, Levi

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; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 717, 723; William M. Marine, The British Invasion of Maryland, 1812-1815 (Baltimore, 1913), 451; Edith G. Bevan, "Maryland Bookplates," MdHM, 39:93-94 (March 1944 ). , UrieyUriey, William

In 1832 William Uriey (c. 1810-80) was a circuit preacher for the Methodist Episcopal Church's Talbot Circuit, which included St. Michaels Parish. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 717. He is sometimes referred to as Rev. Ewers or Ewery. , 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, , 114, 226. HumphreyHumphries, Joshua

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. Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 675, 730; J[ames] M. McCarter and B[enjamin] F. Jackson, eds., Historical and Biographical Encyclopaedia of Delaware (Wilmington, 1882), 410. , and CooperCooper, Ignatius Taylor

Ignatius Taylor Cooper (1806-?) was born in Dover, Delaware, and attended school there and later at 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 Reverend Joshua Humphries. In 1837 he was assigned to Philadelphia, where he remained and ministered to a number of churches until his retirement in 1860, when he removed to Camden, Delaware. McCarter and Jackson, Historical and Biographical Encylopaedia of Delaware, 249-51. (all of whom were on the St. Michaels circuit), he kindly took an interest in our temporal and spiritual welfare. Our souls and our bodies were alike sacred in his sight, and he really had a good deal of genuine anti-slavery feeling mingled with his colonization ideas.^†Antislavery moderates saw colonization as one way to phase slavery out of the United States. The American Colonization Society, organized in 1816, bought tracts of land in West Africa for the purpose of African American emigration. This idea was challenged in the late 1820s and 1830s by such writers as David Walker and William Lloyd Garrison, who spoke out in favor of the immediate emancipation of slaves. The idea of colonization ebbed and resurged during the Civil War. The idea of colonizing African Americans in the Caribbean gained some support from Abraham Lincoln as well as Democrats and conservative Republicans. Some moderate antislavery advocates saw colonization as an alternative to immediate emancipation. Gerrit Smith was at one time a colonizationist. John R. McKivigan, (Ithaca, N.Y., 1984), 29-30; Walter M. Merrill, (Cambridge, Mass., 1963), 123; Hinks and McKivigan, , 1:33-35. There was not a slave in our neighborhood who did not love and venerate Mr. Cookman. It was pretty generally believed that he had been instrumental in bringing one of the largest slave-holders in that neighborhood—Mr. Samuel HarrisonHarrison, Samuel

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 indus-try 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 were to 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, 226. —to emancipate all his slaves, and the general impression about Mr. Cookman was, that whenever he met slaveholders he labored faithfully with them, as a religious duty, to induce them to liberate their bondmen. 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 circuit. He was an eloquent preacher, and possessed what few ministers, south of Mason and Dixon's line,^†Disputes between Pennsylvania on the north and Maryland and Virginia on the south 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 (Harrisburg, Pa., 1962). possessed or dared to show; viz., a warm and philanthropic heart. This Mr. Cookman was an Englishman by birth, and perished on board the ill-fated steamship "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. while on his way to England.

But to my experience with Master Thomas after his conversion. In Baltimore I could occasionally get into a Sabbath-school,^†A school for moral and religious instruction, with the Bible as textbook, meeting on the Sabbath, under direction of the church and forming part of the regular services thereof. Joseph F. Anderson, Methodist Dictionary: A Brief Work on Methodist Terminology (New York, 1909), 77. amongst the free children, and receive lessons with the rest; but having learned to read and write already, I was more a teacher than a scholar, even there. When, however, I went back to the eastern shore and was at the house of Master Thomas, I was not allowed either to teach or to be taught. The whole community, with but one 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 WilsonWilson, Nathan

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 famous first family, who unsuccessfully attempted to open a Sabbath school for St. Michaels' slaves in 1843. Robert W. Todd, Methodism of the Peninsula; or Sketches of Notable Characters and Events (Philadelphia, 1886), 249-53; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 687; Kenneth Carroll, Quakerism on the Fastem Shore (Baltimore, 1970), 219, 245. , 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 named James MitchellMitchell, James

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-books and a few testaments, and we commenced operations, with some twenty scholars in our school. Here, thought I, is something worth living for; here is a chance for usefulness. The first Sunday passed delightfully, and I spent the week after very joyously. I could not go to Baltimore, where was the^†Editorial Emendation: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: where I and the little company of young friends who had been so much to me there, and from whom I felt parted forever, but I could make a little Baltimore here. At our second meeting I learned there were some objections to the existence of our school; and sure enough, we had scarcely got to work—good work, simply teaching a few colored children how to read the gospel of the Son of God—when in rushed a mob, headed by two class-leaders,^†Appointed by the preacher in charge, a class leader conducts meetings for prayer, self-examination, and testimony, among members of the church, to whom he may give such advice, counsel, and encouragement from time to time as the individual cases may seem to require. He is essentially a subpastor. Anderson, Methodist Dictionary, 25. Mr. Wright FairbanksFairbank, Wrightson

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 board of trustees of the parish in September 1835. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 80; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 725. and Mr. Garretson WestWest, Garretson

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 devoted himself primarily 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; Todd, Methodism of the Peninsula, 113-23; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 672-74, 680-81, 701, 707, 727; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:400-401; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 116. ,^†Editorial Emendation: Garrison. and with them Master Thomas. They were armed with sticks and other missiles, and drove us off; commanding us never to meet for such a purpose again. One of this pious crew told me that as for me, I wanted to be another Nat. Turner, and if I did not look out I should get as many balls in me as Nat. did into him.^†One of the mob of supposedly pious men who disbanded Douglass's Sabbath school meeting at St. Michaels compares Douglass to Nat Turner, leader of the 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; the remainder were transported. Turner himself was not captured until October 1831; at that point he supposedly dictated his "Confessions" to a local lawyer. Tried and sentenced to death on 5 November 1831, Turner was executed by hang-ing on 11 November 1831. Although some accounts of the revolt discuss Turner's having been shot at, none confirms that he was injured by bullets. However, Douglass himself, in an address delivered in Boston, Massachusetts, on 30 May 1848, states, most likely for rhetorical purposes, that Turner was "pierced by a hundred American bullets" after his capture. Richmond 4 November 1831; , ser. 1, 2:131; Herbert Aptheker, (New York, 1966); Henry Irving Tragle, comp., (Amherst, Mass., 1971); Oates, ; John W. Cromwell, "The Aftermath of Nat Turner's Insurrection," , 5:208-34 (April 1920); , 6:187; , 19:69-70. Thus ended the Sabbath-school; and the reader will not be surprised that this conduct, on the part of class-leaders and professedly holy men, did not serve to strengthen my religious convictions. The cloud over my St. Michaels home grew heavier and blacker than ever.

It was not merely the agency of Master Thomas in breaking up our Sabbath-school, that shook my confidence in the power of that kind of southern religion to make men wiser or better, but I saw in him all the cruelty and meanness after his conversion which he had exhibited before time. His cruelty and meanness were especially displayed in his treatment of my unfortunate cousin Henny,Bailey, Henny

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 and his mother's sister. As a child Henny suffered severe burns, which left her hands severely scarred and virtually useless and she was 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. Auld constantly abused Henny after he inherited her. 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, Distribution of Negroes, folder 71, Aaron Anthony Ledger B, 1812-26, folders 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, 225; Bondage and Freedom, 201. whose lameness made her a burden to him. I have seen him tie up this 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. He would keep this lacerated woman tied up by her wrists to a bolt in the joist,^†Timbers that stretch across a room parallel to one another to which a floor or ceiling is attached. 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 dinner repeat the castigation, laying on the rugged lash on flesh already 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)Cline, Sarah Auld

Sarah Cline (1811-?) was the fifth daughter of Hugh and Zipporah Auld and was the sister of Thomas. Auld Family Bible (courtesy of Dickson J. Preston). , but as in the case of Mr. Hugh, Henny was soon returned on his hands. Finally, upon a pretense that he could do nothing for 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, why he held slaves his reply would have been precisely that which many another slaveholder has returned to the same inquiry, viz: "I hold my slaves for their own good."

The many differences springing up between Master Thomas and myself, 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 bad. One of my greatest faults, or offences, was that of letting his horse get away and go down to the farm which belonged 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. Hambleton's^†Probably William Hambleton. Editorial Emendation: here and in the next two instances, Hamilton's or Hamilton. 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 good pasturage, and I found there plenty of bread. Mr. Hambleton had his faults, but starving his slaves was not one of them. He gave food in abundance, and of excellent quality. In Mr. Hambleton's cook—Aunt Mary—I found a 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 resolved to endure my behavior no longer; he could keep neither 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 number of severe whippings, without any visible improvement in my character or conduct, and now he was resolved to put me out, as he said, "to be broken."

There was, in the Bay-side, very near the camp-ground where my master received his religious impressions, a man named Edward CoveyCovey, Edward

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 slaveowners anxious to have their slaves taught proper discipline. Douglass was hired out to him from 1 January to 25 December 1834. Douglass said his first six months with Covey were the worst times he had experienced in slavery. Covey whipped him weekly until Douglass midway through the year fought him to a standstill. Covey's reputation as a slave breaker was apparently “an immense advantage to him.” Harriet Lucretia Anthony, the great granddaughter of Aaron Anthony, remembered that "Mr. Covey was really noted for his cruelty and meanness." His farm never wanted for prime field hands, whom Covey either rented cheaply or got the free use of from slave owners anxious to have their property taught proper discipline. Covey’s favored position in the local labor market may explain why this poor but admittedly hard-working man had managed to accumulate $23,000 in real estate by 1850. Inventory of the Estate of Edward Covey, 15 May 1875, Talbot County Inventories, TNC#3, 578, MdTCH; Douglass, Narrative. 81–109; idem, Bondage and Freedom, 203–50; Harriet Anthony's annotated copy of My Bondage and My Freedom, folder 93, 203, Dodge Collection, MdAA; 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 240 (schedule of free inhabitants); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 117-31. , who enjoyed the reputation of being a first rate hand at breaking young negroes. This Covey was a poor man, a farm renter; and his reputation of being a good hand to break in slaves was of immense pecuniary advantage to him, since it enabled him to get his farm tilled with very little expense, compared with what it would have cost him otherwise. 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 they had under his 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 well broken. Added to the natural fitness of Mr. Covey for the duties of his profession, he was said "to enjoy religion," and he was as strict in the cultivation of piety as he was in the cultivation of his farm. I was made aware of these traits in his character by some one who had been under his hand, and while I could not look forward to going to him with any degree of pleasure. I was glad to get away from St. Michaels. I believed I should get enough to eat at Covey's, even if I suffered in other respects, and this to a hungry man is not a prospect to be regarded with indifference.

CHAPTER XV.
COVEY, THE NEGRO BREAKER.

Journey to Covey's—Meditations by the way—Covey's house—Family—Awkwardness as a field hand—A cruel beating—Why given—Description of Covey—First attempt at driving oxen—Hair-breadth escape—Ox and man alike property—Hard labor more effective than the whip for breaking down the spirit—Cunning and trickery of Covey—Family worship—Shocking and indecent contempt for chastity—Great mental agitation—Anguish beyond description.

The morning of January 1, 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 towards Covey's, whither I had been imperiously ordered by Master Thomas. He had been as good as his word, and had committed me without reserve to the mastery of that hard man. 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. 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 frame as I started for 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, however, was impossible; so, heavy and sad, I paced the seven miles which lay between his house and St. Michaels, thinking much by the solitary way of my adverse condition. But thinking 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 my happiness. By a law which I can comprehend, but cannot evade or 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. Michaels; and now from the latter place I am footing my way to the home of another master, where I am given to understand that like a wild young working animal I am to he 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 northwest 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., (1952; New York, 1970), 1499; Cohen, , 3:2481. covered with a thick black pine forest, standing out amid this half ocean; and Keat 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, , 929; Cohen, , 2:1534. stretching its sandy, desert-like shores out into the foam-crested bay, were all in sight, and served to deepen the wild and desolate scene.

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 against cold as 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 wood-colored house. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Covey;^†In , Douglass gave the woman's first name as Susan, but no further biographical information is available. , ser. 2, 2:124. Miss KempKemp, Elizabeth Doyle

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; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 118; M. Florence Bourne, "Thomas Kemp, Shipbuilder, and His Home, Wades Point," MdHM, 49:271-89 (December 1954) ^†Editorial Emendation: Mrs. (a broken-backed woman), sister to Mrs. Covey; William Hughes, cousin to Mr. Covey; Caroline, the cook; Bill SmithSmith, Bill (slave)

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 be freed upon his death. Simpson, Cyclopaedia of Methodism, 225; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 119, 122-23, 128, 226. , a hired man, and myself. Bill Smith, Bill Hughes, and myself were the working force of the farm, which comprised 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 in 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,^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: begun. the better. Perhaps he thought by coming to blows at once we should mutually understand better our relations to each other. 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. 91.36-37 "in hand," and. . ."off hand" ox] In a team of harnessed animals, the in-hand one is directly under control of the driver. Harold Merton Chesley, (Dora, Mo., 1975), 22-23. were left on my back as large as my little finger. The sores 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 mornings of the whole month of January, 1834, I was ordered at daybreak 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 seemed that his breaking abilities had not been turned in that direction. In due form, and with all proper ceremony, I was introduced to this huge yoke of unbroken oxen, and was carefully made to understand which was "Buck," and which was "Darby,"— which was the "in hand," and which was the "off hand" ox. 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 been quite away from horned 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 Greek to me. 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 use of the "whoa," "back," "gee," "hither,"^†The command "hither" calls a team to or toward a place; "whoa" is a command to stop; "gee" is a command to tum right. Chesley, , 22-23.— the entire language spoken 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 or 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. I could not plead my ignorance to Mr. Covey; there was that in his manner which forbade any reply. Cold, distant, morose, with a face wearing all the marks of captious pride and malicious sternness, he repelled all advances. He was not a large man—not more than five feet ten inches in height, I should think; short-necked, round-shouldered, 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 which were constantly in motion, expressing 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. I already believed him a worse fellow than he had been represented to be. 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 wood's gate—a full mile, I should think—was passed over with 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 minutes, surveying the damage, and not without a presentiment that this trouble would draw after it others, even more distressing, I took one end of the cart body^†Part of the vehicle that holds the load. and, by an extra outlay of strength, I lifted it toward the axle-tree,^†Wheel axle. 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 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.^†The act of dancing in a frolicsome manner. The phrase is also used in a more general sense to describe odd behavior, as in "He cuts strange capers." But their spree was over for the present, and the rascals now moved off as soberly as though their behavior had been 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 runaway. But the neck of an ox is equal in strength to iron. It defies ordinary burdens. Tame and docile to a proverb, when well trained, the ox is the most sullen and intractable of animals when but half broken to the yoke, I saw in my own situation several points of similarity with that of the oxen. They were property; so was I. Covey was to break me—I was to break them. Break and be broken was the order.

Half of the day was already gone and I had not yet turned my face homeward. It required only two days' experience and observation to teach me that no such apparent waste of time would be lightly overlooked by Covey. I therefore hurried toward home; but in reaching the lane gate I met the crowning disaster of 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 so doing 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 gatepost. With these two hair-breadth escapes I thought I could successfully explain to Mr. Covey the delay and avert 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 to the woods. But in this hope 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, contrasting 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 orders, and seeming to understand them quite as well as I did myself. On reaching the woods my tormenter, who seemed all the time to be remarking to himself upon the good behavior of the 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 words, 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 ox goads,^†Rods or sticks, fitted with a spike at one end. they being exceedingly tough. Three of these goads, 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 in my apparent unconsciousness and inattention to this command I indicated very plainly a stern determination to do no such thing. "If you will beat me," thought I, "you shall do so over my clothes." After many threats, which made no impression upon 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 offences far lighter than the gate-breaking.

I remained with Mr. Covey one year (I cannot say I lived with him), and during the first six months that I was there I was whipped, either with sticks or cow-skins, 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 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 "the snake." We fancied that in his eyes and his gait we could see a snakish resemblance. 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. Michaels, and in thirty minutes afterwards 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 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 being absent several days, and before he got half way to the house he would avail himself of our inattention to his movements to turn short on his heel, conceal himself behind a fence corner or a tree, and watch us until the going

down of the sun. Mean and contemptible as is all this, it is in keeping with the character which the life of a slaveholder was calculated to produce. There was no earthly inducement in the slave's condition to incite him to labor faithfully. The fear of punishment was the sole motive of any sort of industry with him. Knowing this fact as the slaveholder did, and judging the slave by himself, he naturally concluded that the slave would be idle whenever the cause for this fear was absent. Hence all sorts of petty deceptions were practiced to inspire 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 a 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 the 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 floggings given me turned the whole thing into mockery. He was a poor singer, and relied mainly 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 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 implied that Mr. Edward Covey was a poor man. He was, in fact, just commencing to lay the foundation of his fortune, as fortune was regarded in a slave state. The first condition of wealth and respectability there being the ownership of human property, every nerve was strained by the poor man to obtain it, with little regard sometimes as to the means. In pursuit of this object, pious as Mr. Covey was, he proved himself 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 "as a breeder." But the worst of this is not told in this naked statement. This young woman (CarolineCaroline (slave)

was her name) was virtually compelled by 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 Covey and his wife were ecstatic 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 farther. No better illustration of the unchaste, demoralizing, and debasing 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 stock. It was the system of slavery which made this allowable, and which condemned the slaveholder for buying a slave woman and devoting her to this life, no more than for buying a cow and raising stock from her, and the same rules were observed, with a view to increasing the number and quality of the one, as of the other.

If at any one time in 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 this man 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 at the first but a few months of this discipline tamed me. Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me—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 out; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me, and behold a man transformed to a brute!

Sunday was my only leisure time. I spent this in a sort of beast-like stupor, between sleeping and waking, 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 tempted to take my life and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings, as I remember them now,
seem like a dream rather than a stern reality.

Our house stood within a few rods^†A rod equals sixteen and a half feet, or about five meters. of the Chesapeake bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sails from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in white, and so delightful to the eyes of free-

men, 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 bonds 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 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. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as die standing. Only think of it; one hundred miles 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 steer in a northeast course from North Point;^†North Point, on the Chesapeake Bay east of Baltimore, is located at the mouth of the Patapsco River at the tip of Patapsco River Neck. To reach northern ports from Baltimore, ships traveled around North Point and headed north on the bay to the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which opened to navigation in 1830. Scharf, , map preceding p. 13; George Rogers Taylor, (New York, 1951), 41-42. 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 he required to have a pass;^†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, (New York, 1974), 94-95; Richard C. Wade, (New York, 1964), 80-81. I will travel there without being disturbed. Let but the first opportunity offer, and come what will, I am off. Meanwhile I will try to bear 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 yet, and all boys are bound out 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."

I shall never be able to narrate half the mental experience through^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: though 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. All the kindness I had received at Baltimore, all my former hopes and aspirations for usefulness in the world, and even the happy moments spent in the exercises of religion, contrasted with my then present lot, served but to increase my anguish.

I suffered bodily as well as mentally. I had neither sufficient time in which to eat, nor^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: 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—"I am a slave—a slave for life—a slave with no rational ground to hope for freedom"—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 remaining six— Preliminaries to the change—Reasons for narrating the circumstances—Scene in the treading-yard—Author taken ill—Escapes to St. Michaels—The pursuit—Suffering in the woods—Talk with Master Thomas—His beating—Driven back to Covey's—The slaves never sick—Natural to expect them to feign sickness—Laziness of slaveholders.

The reader has but to repeat, in his 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, during the first six months of the breaking process through which he carried me. I have no heart to repeat each separate transaction. 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 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 was called the "treading-yard"—a yard upon which wheat was trodden out from the straw by the horses' feet. I was there at work feeding the "fan,"^†Supplying any of the various devices used in the winnowing process to separate the wheat from the chaff in the milling process. 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 the 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 it 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, with a feeling that the earth had fallen in 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 become my dread, 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 the 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 what the matter was. I told him as well as I could, for it was with difficulty that I could speak. He gave me a savage kick in the side which jarred my whole frame, and commanded me to get up. The monster 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. He gave me another heavy kick, and again told me to rise. I again tried, and succeeded in standing up; 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 through 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 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, "If you have got the headache I'll cure you." This done, he ordered me again to rise, but I made no effort to do so, for I had now made up my mind that it was useless, and that the heartless villain might 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, the wound was a fortunate one 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, left me to my fate, and the question was, shall I return to my work, or shall I find my way to St. Michaels 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 him, thinking that, if not animated by motives of humanity, he might be induced to interfere on my behalf from selfish considerations. "He cannot," I thought, "allow his property to be thus bruised and battered, marred and defaced, and I will go to him about the matter." In order to get to St. Michaels 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. Michaels. 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, when Covey observed me. I was still bleeding, and the exertion of running had started the blood afresh. "Come back! Come back!" he vociferated, with threats of what he would do if I did not return instantly. But disregarding his calls and threats, I pressed on toward the woods as fast as my feeble state would allow. Seeing no signs of my stopping he 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 over-hauled 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 was obliged to lie 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 in 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 over-ruling Providence of God, to the blackest atheism, I again took up my journey toward St. Michaels, more weary and sad than on the morning when I left Thomas Auld's for the home of Covey. I was barefooted, bare-headed, and in my shirt sleeves. The way was through briers and bogs, and I tore my feet often during the journey. I was full five hours in going the seven or eight miles; partly because 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 calculated 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. Had I escaped from a den of tigers, I could not have looked worse. In this plight I appeared before my professedly Christian master, humbly to invoke the interposition of his power and authority, to protect me from further abuse and violence. During the latter part of my tedious journey, I had begun to hope that my master would now show himself in a nobler light than I had

before seen him. But I was disappointed. I had jumped from a sinking ship into the sea; I had fled from a 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 sank 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. At first Master Thomas seemed somewhat affected by the story of my wrongs, but he soon repressed whatever feeling he may have had, and became as cold and hard as iron. It was impossible, at first, as I stood before him, to seem indifferent. I distinctly saw his human nature asserting its conviction against the slave system, which made cases like mine possible; 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 spectacle I presented; but soon it was his turn to talk. He began moderately by finding excuses for Covey, and ended with a full justification of him, and a passionate condemnation of me. He had no doubt 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 arousing himself by his eloquence, he fiercely demanded what I wished him to do in the case! With such a knock-down to all my hopes, and feeling as I did my entire subjection to his power, I had very little heart to reply. I must not assert my innocence of the allegations he had piled up against me, for that would be impudence. The guilt of a slave was always and everywhere presumed, and the innocence of the slaveholder, or employer, was always asserted. The word of the slave against this presumption was generally treated as impudence, worthy of punishment. "Do you dare to contradict me, you rascal?" was 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 a little touched at my forlorn and miserable appearance, he inquired again, what I wanted him to do. Thus invited a second time, I told him 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 again with Mr. Covey, I should be killed by him; that he would never forgive my coming home with complaints; that since I had lived with him he had almost crushed my spirit, and I believed he would ruin me for future service, and that my life was not safe in his hands. This Master Thomas (my brother in the church) regarded as "nonsense." There was no danger that Mr. Covey would kill 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 is but half expired, I should lose your wages for the entire year. You belong to Mr. Covey for one year, and you must go back to him, come what will; and you must not trouble me with any more stories; and if you don 't go immediately home, I'll get hold of you myself." This was just what I expected when I found he had prejudged the case against me. "But, sir," I said, "I am sick and tired, and I cannot get home to-night." At this he somewhat relented, and finally allowed me to stay the night, but said I must be off early in the morning, and concluded his directions by making me swallow a huge dose of Epsom salts, which was 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 he 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 were not, under the whole heavens, a set of men who cultivated such a dread of labor as did the slaveholders. The charge of laziness against the slaves was ever on their lips, and was the standing apology for every species of cruelty and brutality. These men did indeed literally "bind heavy burdens, grievous to be borne, and laid them upon men's shoulders, but they themselves would not move them with one of their fingers."^†Douglass slightly misquotes Matt. 23:4.

CHAPTER XVII.
THE LAST FLOGGING.

A sleepless night—Return to Covey's—Punished by him—The chase defeated—Vengeance postponed—Musings in the woods—The alternative—Deplorable spectable—Night in the woods—Expected attack—Accosted by Sandy—A friend, not a master—Sandy's hospitality—The ash-cake supper—Interview with Sandy—His advice—Sandy a conjuror 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 does not always come to the relief of the weary in body, and broken in spirit; especially is it so when past troubles only foreshadow coming disasters. My last hope had been extinguished. My master, who I did not venture to hope would protect me as a MAN, had now refused to protect me as his

property, and had cast me back, covered with reproaches and bruises, into the hands of one who was a stranger to that mercy which is the soul of the religion he professed. May the reader never know what it is to spend such a night as was that to me, which heralded my return to the den of horrors from which I had made a temporary escape.

I remained—sleep I did not—all night at St. Michaels, and in the morning (Saturday) I started off, obedient 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, true to his snakish habits, Covey darted out at me from a fence corner, in which he had secreted himself for the purpose of securing me. He was provided with a cowskin and a rope, and he evidently intended to tie me up, and 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, with the other trying circumstances, had greatly reduced my strength. I, however, darted back into the woods before the ferocious hound could reach me, and buried myself in a thicket, where he lost sight of me. The cornfield afforded me shelter in getting to the woods. But for the tall corn, Covey would have overtaken me, and made me his captive. He was much chagrined that he did not, and gave up the chase very reluctantly, as I could see by his angry movements, as he returned to the house.

Well, now I am clear of Covey and his lash, for a little time. I am in the wood, buried in its somber gloom, and hushed in its solemn silence; hidden from all human eyes, shut in with nature, and with 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 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.

Life in itself had almost become burdensome to me. All my outward relations were against me; I must stay here and starve, or go home to Covey's and have my flesh torn to pieces and my spirit humbled under the cruel lash of Covey. These were the alternatives before me. The day was long and irksome. I was weak from the toils of the previous day, and from want of food and sleep, and I 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 brutehood of an ox.

Night came. I was still in the woods, and still 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 by them during the day, I expected no disturbance from them 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, for he made no effort to catch me after the 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 friend, not an enemy, a slave of Mr. William Groomes of EastonGroomes, William H.

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 $27,000. 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 and Harrington, Talbot County, 225; Tilghman, Talbot County, 2:189. , a kind-hearted fellow named "Sandy."Jenkins, Sandy (slave)

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, 227. Sandy lived with Mr. KempKemp, John

John Kemp was a son of the shipbuilder Thomas Kemp, who inherited Thomas's 236-acre homestead upon his death in 1824. According to the federal census, Kemp had three free blacks living in his household in 1830 who probably were hired hands . It would thus he no surprise if he also hired slaves such as Sandy annually. 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. Michaels. He, like myself, had been hired out that year, but unlike myself had not been hired out to be broken. He was the husband of a free woman who lived in the lower part of "Poppie Neck,"^†Pot-pie Neck is a local name for a section of the Tilghman Peninsula west of Harris Creek in Talbot County, Maryland. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 227. 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 home to his wife—for the house and lot were hers, as she was a free woman. It was about midnight, but his wife was called up, 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 they thought I was hated for my knowledge, and persecuted because I was feared. I was the only slave in that region who could read or write. There had been one other man, belonging to Mr. Hugh HambletonHambleton, Hugh

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, but he, poor fellow, had shortly after coming into the neighborhood been sold off to the far south. I saw him ironed, in the cart, to be 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 since feasted 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 to my memory.

Supper over, Sandy and I went into a discussion of what was possible for me, under the perils and hardships which overshadowed my path. The question was, must I go back to Covey, or must I 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 Chesapeake Bay to the right, and "Pot-pie" river^†This is a local nickname for Cummings Creek. The headwaters of Cummings Creek begin at the town of Wittman, which is called Pot Pie by local residents. Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 126. to the left, and St. Michaels and its neighborhood occupied 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 said to be possessed by the 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 words 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 about 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 meant always to carry that root for protection. He knew Covey well, for Mrs. CoveyCovey, Susan

was the daughter of Mrs. Kemp; and he (Sandy) had heard of the barbarous treatment to which I had been subjected, and he wanted to do something for me.

Now all this talk about the root was to me very absurd and ridiculous, if not positively sinful. I at first rejected the idea that the simple carrying of a^†Editorial Emendation: 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 "divination." 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, I was induced to take it. He had been to me the good Samaritan, 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 on me. At any rate, I started off toward Covey's as directed. Having, the previous night, poured my griefs into Sandy's ears and enlisted him 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 dreaded Covey's. Singularly enough, just as I entered the yard gate I met him and his wife, dressed in their Sunday best, looking as smiling as angels, on their way to church. His manner perfectly 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 go to drive them out; inquired how I was, and seemed an altered man. This extraordinary conduct 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 power of the root. I suspected, however, that the Sabbath, not the root, was the real explanation of the change. His religion hindered him from breaking the Sabbath, but not from breaking my skin on any other day than Sunday. He had more respect for the day than for the man^†Douglass paraphrases Mark 2:27. for whom the day was mercifully given; for while he would cut and slash my body during the week, he would on Sunday teach me the value of my soul, and 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 I had (as was sometimes said of him), or whether he had obtained a special indulgence for his faithful Sunday's worship, it is not necessary for me to know or to inform the reader; but this much I may say, the pious and benignant smile which graced the face of Covey on Sunday wholly disappeared on Monday.

Long before daylight I was called up to go feed, rub, and curry the horses. I obeyed the call, as I should have done had it been made at an earlier hour, for I had brought my mind to a firm resolve during that Sunday's reflection 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' indifference had severed the last link. I had back-slidden from this point in the slaves' religious creed, and I soon had occasion to make my
fallen state known to my Sunday-pious brother, Covey.

While I was obeying his order to feed and get the horses ready for the field, and when I was in the act of going up to the^†Editorial Emendation: 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 way, and seizing me suddenly by the leg, he brought me to the stable-floor, giving my newly-mended body a terrible jar. I now forgot all about my roots, and remembered my pledge to stand up in my own defense. The brute was skilfully endeavoring to get a slip-knot^†A knot tied so it slips along one line. 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 days' 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 I was resolved to fight, and what was better still, I actually was hard at it. The lighting madness had come upon me, and I found my strong fingers firmly attached to the throat of the tyrant, as heedless of consequences, at the moment, as if we stood as equals before the law. The very color of the man was forgotten. I felt supple as a cat, and was ready for him at every turn. Every blow of his was parried, though I

dealt no blows in return. I was strictly on the defensive, 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, and he trembled in every limb. "Are you going to resist, you scoundrel?" said he. To which I returned a polite "yes, sir," 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 equal. Covey soon cried 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 HughesHughes, William

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 defensive toward Covey, but aggressive toward Hughes, on whom at his first approach, I dealt a blow which fairly sickened him. He went off bending over with pain, and manifesting no disposition to come again within my reach. 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 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 "I did mean to resist, come what might; that I had been 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 not over clean ground, for we were now in the cow-yard. 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'sHemsley, Philemon

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 Anne 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, 1979-1985), 1:432-33. ^†Editorial Emendation: Helmsley's. to spend Sunday with his nominal wife. Covey and I had been at skirmishing from before daybreak till now, and the sun was now shooting his beams almost over the eastern woods, and we were still at it. I could not see where the matter 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, he called upon Bill to assist him. The scene here had something comic about it. Bill, who knew precisely what Covey wished him to do, affected ignorance, and pretended he did not know what to do. "What shall I do, Master Covey?" said Bill. "Take hold of him!— take hold of him!'' cried^†Editorial Emendation: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: said. Covey. With a toss of his head, peculiar to Bill, he said, "Indeed,^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: "indeed? Master Covey, I want to go to work." "This is your work,'' said Covey; "take hold of him." Bill replied, with spirit: "My master hired me here to work, and not to help you whip Frederick." It was my turn to speak. "Bill," said I, "don't put your hands on me." To which he replied: "My God, Frederick, I ain't goin' to tech ye;" and Bill walked off leaving Covey and myself to settle our differences as best we might.

But my present advantage was threatened when I saw CarolineCaroline (slave)

(the slave woman of Covey) coming to the cow-yard to milk, for she was a powerful woman, and could have mastered me easily, exhausted as I was.

As soon as she came near, Covey attempted to rally her to his aid. Strangely, and 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 take hold of me," precisely as Bill had done, but in her it was at far greater peril for she was the slave of Covey, and he could do what he pleased with her. It was not so with Bill, and Bill knew it. Samuel Harrison,^†Originally identified by Douglass as Samuel Harris, the slaveholder to whom Douglass referred was Samuel Harrison. 112.32-33 law of Maryland. . .resisted his master] According to Maryland law, death was the punishment for any slave who refused to surrender himself or herself or resisted apprehension. The code permitted the pursuer of a resisting slave to "shoot, kill, and destroy such negro or negroes." General Public Statutory Law and Public Local Law of Maryland, 1:65. 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.

At length (two hours had elapsed) the contest was given over. Letting go of me, pulling and blowing at a great rate, Covey said: "Now, you scoundrel, go to your work; I would not have whipped you half so hard if you had not resisted." The fact was, he had not whipped me at all. He had not in all the scuffle, drawn a single drop of blood from me. I had drawn blood from him, and should even without this satisfaction have been victorious, because my aim had not been to injure him, but to prevent his injuring me.

During the whole six months I lived with Covey after this transaction, he never again laid the weight of his finger on me in anger. He would occa-

sionally 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 had better 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 "life as a slave." 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 nothing 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 free man. A man without force is without the essential dignity of humanity. Human nature is so constituted, that it cannot honor a helpless man, though it can pity him, and even this it cannot do long if 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 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 independence. I had reached the point at which I was not afraid to die. This spirit made me a freeman in fact, though I still remained a slave in form. 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 "a power on earth." From this time until my escape from slavery, I was never fairly whipped. Several attempts were made, but they were always unsuccessful. Bruises I did get, but the instance I have described was the end of the brutification to which slavery had subjected me.

The reader may like 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 assigned hanging to the slave who resisted his master, was not put in force against me; at any rate why I was not taken up, as was usual in such cases, and publicly whipped, as an example to other slaves, and as a means of deterring me from committing the same offence again. I confess that the easy manner in which I got off was always a surprise to me, and even now I cannot fully explain the cause, though the probability is that Covey was ashamed to have it known that he had been mastered by a boy of sixteen. He enjoyed the unbounded and very valuable reputation of

being a first-rate overseer and negro-breaker, and by means of this reputation he was able to procure his hands at very trifling compensation and with very great ease. His interest and his pride would mutually suggest the wisdom of passing the matter by in silence. The story that he had undertaken to whip a lad and had been resisted, would of itself be damaging to him in the estimation of slaveholders.

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 was determined on doing 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?"^†Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II, stanza LXXVI.

CHAPTER XVIII.
NEW RELATIONS AND DUTIES.

Change of masters—Benefits derived by 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—Difference between Covey and Freeland—An irreligious master preferred to a religious one—Hard life at Covey's useful to the author—Improved condition does not being contentment—Congenial society at Freeland's—Author's Sabbath-school—Secresy necessary—Affectionate relations of the tutor and pupils—Confidence and friendship among slaves—Slavery the inviter of vengeance.

My term of service with Edward Covey expired on Christmas day, 1834. I gladly enough left him, although he was by this time as gentle as a lamb. My home for the year 1835 was already secured, my next master selected. There was always more or less excitement about the changing of hands, but I had become somewhat reckless and cared little into whose hands I fell, determined to fight my way. The report got abroad that I was hard to whip, that I was guilty of kicking back, that though generally a good-natured negro, I sometimes "got the devil in me." These sayings were rife in Talbot County, and they distinguished me among my servile brethren. Slaves would sometimes fight with each other, and even die at each other's hands, but there were very few who were not held in awe by a white man. Trained from the cradle up to think and feel that their masters were superior, and invested with a sort of sacredness, there were few who could rise above the control

which that sentiment exercised. I had freed myself from it, and the thing was known. One bad sheep will spoil a whole flock. 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 slaveholders. 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 were allowed the slaves as holidays.^†In the antebellum South, many slaveholders celebrated Christmas by engaging in sensual overindulgence and encouraging it in their slaves. Typically, slaves were free from labor, free to sleep in, and free to travel. They might visit family on other plantations or attend religious revival meetings. Some owners allowed slaves to sell their labor and whatever wares they might have produced during the course of the year. Douglass believed that slaveholders encouraged dancing, sexual relations, and drinking among slaves to degrade them. However, many blacks eagerly partook in the merrymaking because drinking, dancing, and marriages were forbidden on most plantations the remainder of the year. Stephen Nissenbaum, (New York, 1996), 258-301; Penne L. Restad, (New York, 1995), 75-95. During these days all regular work was suspended, and there was nothing to do but to keep fires and look after the stock. We regarded this time 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 spend with them the entire week. The younger slaves or the unmarried ones were expected to see to the cattle, and to attend to incidental duties at home. The holidays were variously spent. The sober, thinking, industrious ones 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 whiskey; and this latter mode was generally most agreeable to their masters. A slave who would work during the holidays was thought by his master undeserving of holidays. 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.

The fiddling, dancing, and "jubilee beating"^†Because slaves seldom had the means to obtain many 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 tum while "patting" the floor. Blassingame, , 125; Genovese, , 572-73. were^†Editorial Emendation: was. carried on in all directions. This latter performance was strictly southern. It supplied the place of violin, or of other musical instruments, and was played so easily that almost every farm had its "Juba" beater. The performer improvised as he beat the instrument, marking the words as he sang so 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 was given to the meanness of slaveholders. Take the following for example:

"We raise de wheat,
Dey gib us de corn;
We bake de bread,
Dey gib us de crust;

We sif de meal,
Dey gib us de huss;
We peel de meat,
Dey gib us de skin;

And dat's de way
Dey take us in;

We skim de pot,
Dey gib^†Editorial Emendation: give us de liquor,
And say dat's good enough for nigger.
Walk over! walk over!
Your butter and de fat;
Poor nigger you can't^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: cant. 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 holidays. Judging from my own observation and experience, I believe those holidays were among the most effective means in the hands of slaveholders of keeping down the spirit of insurrection among the slaves.

To enslave men successfully and safely it is necessary to keep 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 served the purpose of keeping the minds of the slaves occupied with prospective pleasure within the limits of slavery. The young man could go wooing, the married man to see his wife, the father and mother to see their children, the industrious and money-loving could make a few dollars, the great wrestler could win laurels, the young people meet and enjoy each other's society, the drunken man could get plenty of whiskey, and the religious man could hold prayer-meetings, preach, pray, and exhort. Before the holidays there were pleasures in prospect; after the holidays they were pleasures of memory, and they served to keep out thoughts and wishes of a more dangerous character. These holidays were also sort of 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 have become too severe for endurance, and the slave would have been forced up to dangerous desperation.

Thus they became a part and parcel of the gross wrongs and inhumanity of slavery. Ostensibly they were institutions of benevolence designed to mitigate the rigors of slave life, but practically they were a fraud instituted by human selfishness, the better to secure the ends of injustice and oppression. The slave's happiness was not the end sought, but the master's safety. It was not from a generous unconcern for the slave's labor, but from a prudent regard for the slave system. I am strengthened in this opinion from the fact that most slaveholders liked to have their slaves spend the holidays in

such manner as to be of no real benefit to them. Everything like rational enjoyment was frowned upon, and only those wild and low sports peculiar to semi-civilized people were encouraged. The license allowed appeared 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. I have known slave-holders resort to cunning tricks, with a view of getting their slaves deplorably drunk. The usual plan was to make bets on a slave that he could drink more whisky than any other, and so induce a rivalry among them for the mastery in this degradation. The scenes brought about 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 asked for hours of "virtuous liberty," his cunning master took advantage of his ignorance and cheered 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 had 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 would 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 whisky and rum. When the slave was drunk the slaveholder had no fear that he would plan an insurrection, no fear that he would escape to the North. It was the sober, thoughtful slave who was dangerous, and needed 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. Michaels to Mr. William Freeland'sFreeland, William, Jr.

William Freeland, the son of William and Elizabeth Freeland of Talbot County, Maryland. He was a modestly prosperous farmer and slaveowner 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 Freelands' household had shrunk; 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 lived only three miles from St. Michaels, on an old, worn-out farm, which required much labor to render it anything like a self-supporting establishment.

I found Mr. Freeland a different man from Covey. Though not rich, he was what might have been called a well-bred Southern gentleman. Though a slaveholder and sharing in common with them many of the vices of his class, he seemed alive to the sentiment of honor, and had also some sense of justice, and some feelings of humanity. He was fretful, impulsive, and passionate, but free from the mean and selfish characteristics which distinguished the creature from which I had happily escaped. Mr. Freeland was open, frank, imperative, and practiced no concealments, and disdained to play the spy; in all these qualities the opposite of Covey.

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 "trifles light as air."^†, sc. 9, line 1774. 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 was much rivalry among slaves at times as to which could do the most work, and masters generally sought 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, becoming known to the master, it 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.^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: inproved. I was no longer the scapegoat that I was when at Covey's, where every wrong thing done was saddled upon me, and where other slaves were whipped on^†Editorial Emendation: over. my shoulders. Bill Smith was protected by a positive prohibition, made by his rich master (and the command of the rich slaveholder was law to the poor one). Hughes was favored by his relationship to Covey, and the hands hired temporarily escaped flogging. I was the general pack-horse; but Mr. Freeland held every man individually responsible for his own conduct. 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. 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 all the improvement in my relations, notwithstanding the many advantages l 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. "Howbeit, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual."^† Cor. 15:46. When entombed at Covey's, shrouded in darkness and physical

wretchedness, temporal well-being was the grand desideratum; 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 bad master, and he aspires to a good master; give him a good master and he wishes to become his own 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 LawsonLawson, Charles

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. , when in Baltimore, began to visit me again; shoots from the tree of liberty began to put forth buds, and dim hopes of the future began to dawn.

I found myself in congenial society. There were Henry HarrisHarris, Henry

, John HarrisHarris, John

, Handy CaldwellCaldwell, Charles (Handy; slave)

In 1835 Charles (Handy) Caldwell had attended a clandestine school organized by Douglass on William Freeland's Farm, located in Talbot County. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 2:150; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 131. , and Sandy JenkinsJenkins, Sandy (slave)

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, 227. (this last, of the root-preventive memory).

Henry and John Harris 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 here before I was up to my old tricks. I began to address my companions on the subject of 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^†Editorial Emendation: 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, where to exercise my gifts, and to impart the little knowledge 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 anywhere else. The thing was to get the scholars, and to have them thoroughly imbued with the desire to learn. Two such boys were quickly found 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. Michaels attempt was still fresh in the minds
of all. Our pious masters at St. Michaels 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 interruption from the saints or the sinners of St. Michaels. But to meet for the purpose of improving the mind and heart, by learning to read the sacred scriptures, was a nuisance to be instantly stopped. The slaveholders there, like slaveholders elsewhere, preferred to see the slaves engaged in degrading sports, rather than acting like moral and accountable beings. Had any one asked a religious white man in St. Michaels at that time the names of three men in that town whose lives were most after the pattern of our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, the reply would have been: Garretson^†Editorial Emendation: here and below: Garrison. West, class-leader, Wright FairbanksFairbank, Wrightson

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 board of trustees of the parish in September 1835. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 80; Sewell, "St. Michaels Methodism," 725. , and Thomas AuldAuld, Thomas

, both also class-leaders; and yet these men ferociously rushed in upon my Sabbath-school, armed with mob-like missiles, and forbade our meeting again on pain of having our backs subjected to the bloody lash. This same Garretson West was my class-leader, and I had 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 always, the tyrant's plea of necessity. If the slaves learned to read they would learn something more and something worse. The peace of slavery would be disturbed; slave rule would be endangered. I do not dispute the soundness of the reasoning. If slavery were right, Sabbath-schools for teaching slaves to read were wrong, and ought to have been put down. These Christian class-leaders were, to this extent, consistent. They had settled the question that slavery was right, and by that standard they determined that Sabbath-schools were wrong. To be sure they were Protestant,^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: protestant. and held to the great Protestant right of every man to "search the Scriptures" for himself;^*Inspired by John 5:39, popular tradition considers the "priesthood of all believers" or the "universal priesthood" as one of the three foundational points of Protestant theology, along with biblical authority and salvation through faith. The concept of universal or common priesthood has been interpreted as conveying each believer's direct access to God without the mediation of priests. While Martin Luther, in his writings between 1520 and 1533, does argue that the laity partakes in the spiritual estate to the same extent as "priests" do, he does not contend that all those baptized are able to or should preach. In fact, Luther's writings indicate that he retained a clear distinction between the office of ministry and the congregation. However, subsequent interpretations of Protestant doctrine advocate practices (Methodism's commission of lay preachers and the Quaker meeting, for example) that collapse this distinction. Norman Nagel, "Luther and the Priesthood of All Believers," , 61:277-98 (October 1997); B. A. Gerrish, "Priesthood and Ministry in the Theology of Luther," , 34:404-22 (December 1965). but then, to all general rules there are exceptions. How convenient! What crimes may not be committed under such ruling! But my dear class-leading Methodist brethren did not condescend to give me a reason for breaking up the school at St. Michaels; they had determined its destruction, and that was enough. However, I am
digressing.

After getting the school nicely started a 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 incurred much peril in doing so, for the assemblage was an unlawful one. 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 had various employments during my life, but I look back to none

with more satisfaction. An attachment, deep and permanent, sprung up between me and my persecuted pupils, which made my parting from them intensely painful.

Besides my Sunday-school, I devoted three evenings a week to my other fellow slaves during the winter. Those dear souls who came to my Sabbath-school came not because it was popular or reputable to do so, for they came with a liability of having forty stripes laid on their naked backs. In this Christian country men and women were obliged to hide in barns and woods and trees from professing Christians, in order to learn to read the Holy Bible. 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 masters'^†Editorial Emendation: master's children. I felt a delight in circumventing the
tyrants, and in blessing 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, 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 any to have truer and better friends than were the slaves on this farm. It was not uncommon to charge slaves with great treachery toward each other, but I must say I never loved, esteemed, or confided in men more than I did in these. They were as true as steel, and no band of brothers could be more loving. There were no mean advantages taken of each other, no tattling, no giving each other bad names to Mr. Freeland, and no elevating one at the expense of the other. We never undertook anything 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 have been considered incendiary had they been known by our masters. The slave-holder, were he kind or cruel, was a slaveholder still, the every-hour-violator of the just and inalienable rights of man, and he was therefore every hour silently but surely whetting the knife of vengeance for his own throat. He never lisped a syllable in commendation of the fathers of this republic without inviting the sword, and asserting the right of rebellion for his own slaves.

CHAPTER XIX.
THE RUNAWAY PLOT.

New Year's thoughts and meditations—Again hired by Freeland—Kindness no compensation for slavery—Incipient steps toward escape—Considerations leading thereto—Hostility to slavery—Solemn vow taken—Plan divulged to slaves—"Columbian Orator" again—Scheme gains favor—Danger of discovery—Skill of slave-holders—Suspicion and coercion—Hymns with double meaning—Consultation—Password^†Editorial Emendation: Pass-word.—Hope and fear—Ignorance of Geography— Imaginary difficulties—Patrick Henry—Sandy a dreamer—Route to the north mapped out—Objections—Frauds—Passes—Anxieties—Fear of failure—Strange presentiment—Coincidence—Betrayal—Arrests—Resistance—Mrs. Freeland—Prison—Brutal jests—Passes eaten—Denial—Sandy—Dragged behind horses—Slave-traders—Alone in prison—Sent to Baltimore.

I am now at the beginning of the year 1836, when the mind naturally occupies itself with the mysteries of life in all its phases—the ideal, the real, and the actual. Sober people look both ways at the beginning of a new year, surveying the errors of the past, and providing against the possible errors of the future. I, too, was thus exercised. I had little pleasure in retrospect, and the future prospect was not 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 a miserable bondage. 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 chafed and perplexed, and they rendered me gloomy and disconsolate. The anguish of my mind cannot be written.

At the close of the year, Mr. Freeland renewed the purchase of my services of Mr. Auld for the coming year. His promptness in doing so would have been flattering to my vanity had I been ambitious to win the reputation of being a valuable slave. Even as it was, I felt a slight degree of complacency at the circumstance. It showed him to be as well pleased with me as a slave as I with him as a master. But the kindness of the slave-master only gilded the chain, it detracted nothing from its weight or strength. The thought that men are made for other and better uses than slavery throve best under the gentle treatment of a kind master. Its grim visage could assume no smiles able to fascinate the partially enlightened slave into a forgetfulness of his bondage, or of the desirableness of liberty.

I was not through the first month of 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 at Mr. Freeland's. It had, however, never entirely subsided. I hated slavery always, and my desire for freedom needed only a favorable breeze to fan it to a blaze at any moment. The thought of being only a creature of the present and the past troubled me, and I longed to have a future—a future with hope in it. To be shut up entirely to the past and present 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 aspirations for freedom. I became not only ashamed to be contented in slavery, but ashamed to seem to be contented, and in my present favorable condition under the mild rule of Mr. Freeland, I am not sure that some kind reader will not condemn me for being over-ambitious, and greatly wanting in 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 intensity of my desire to be free, 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 just 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 good my own individual escape, but my friendship for my brother-slaves was so affectionate and confiding that I felt it my duty, as well as my pleasure, to give them an opportunity to share in my determination. 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 suitable 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 need not say 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 gem of a book, "The^†Editorial Emendation: the. Columbian

Orator," with its eloquent orations and spicy dialogues denouncing oppression and slavery—telling what had been dared, done, and suffered by men, to obtain the inestimable boon of liberty, was still fresh in my memory, and its nobly expressed sentiments whirled into the ranks of my speech with the aptitude of well-trained soldiers going through the drill. 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. 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 clear from slaveholding priestcraft. It was in vain that we had been taught from the pulpit at St. Michaels the duty of obedience to our masters; to recognize God as the author of our enslavement; to regard running away as an^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: 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 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 masters'^†Editorial Emendation: master's. thinking was to us. I say it was in vain that the pulpit of St. Michaels had constantly inculcated these plausible doctrines. Nature laughed them to scorn. For my part, I had become altogether too big for my chains. Father Lawson'sLawson, Charles

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. solemn words of what I ought to be, and what I might be in the providence of God, had not fallen dead on my soul. I was fast verging toward manhood, and the prophesies 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 still a slave, with chances for gaining my freedom diminished and still diminishing—was not a matter to be slept over easily. But here came a trouble. Such thoughts and purposes as I now cherished could not agitate the mind long without making themselves manifest to scrutinizing and unfriendly observers. I had reason to fear that my sable face might prove altogether too transparent for the safe concealment of my hazardous enterprise. Plans of great 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 face for the immovable countenance of an Indian, for it was far from proof against the daily searching glances of those whom I met.

It was the interest and business of slaveholders to study human nature,

and the slave nature in particular, with a view to practical results; and many of them attained astonishing proficiency in this direction. They had to deal not with earth, wood, and stone, but with men; and by every regard they had for their safety and prosperity they had need to know the material on which they were to work. So much intellect as the slaveholder had round him required watching. Their safety depended on their vigilance. Conscious of the injustice and wrong they were every hour perpetrating, and knowing what they themselves would do if they were victims of such wrongs, they were constantly looking out for the first signs of the dread retribution. They watched, therefore, with skilled and practiced eyes, and learned to read, with great accuracy, the state of mind and heart of the slave through his sable face. Unusual sobriety, apparent abstraction, sullenness, and indifference,—indeed, any mood out of the common way,—afforded ground for suspicion and inquiry. Relying on their superior position and wisdom, they would often hector the slave into a confession by affecting to know the truth of their accusations. "You have got the devil in you, and we'll whip him out of you," they would say. I have often been put thus to the torture on bare suspicion. This system had its disadvantages as well as its opposite—the slave being sometimes whipped into the confession of offenses which he never committed. It will be seen 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 1 772, "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." , 2 vols. (1797; London, 1801), 2:242. did not hold good on the slave plantation. Suspicion and torture were the approved methods of getting at the truth there. It was necessary, therefore, for me 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 did seem that he watched us more narrowly after the plan of escape had been conceived 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, with the peculiar prescience of a slaveholder, have mastered the huge thought which was disturbing our peace. As I now look back, I am the more inclined to think he suspected us, because, prudent as we were, 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 observer 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., (Hampton, Va., 1909), 62.

something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the North, and the North was our 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, , rev. ed. (Boston, 1880), 188.

was a favorite air, and had a double meaning. On^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: In. the lips of some it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but on^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: in. the lips of our company, it simply meant a speedy pilgrimage to a free State, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery.

I had succeeded in winning to my scheme a company of five young men, the very flower of the neighborhood, each one of whom would have commanded one thousand dollars in the home market. At New Orleans they would have brought fifteen hundred dollars apiece, and perhaps more. Their names were as follows: Henry HarrisHarris, Henry

, John HarrisHarris, John

, Sandy JenkinsJenkins, Sandy (slave)

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, 227. , Charles RobertsRoberts, Charles

, and Henry BaileyBailey, Henry (slave)

. 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 a great influence over them. Perhaps not one of them, left to himself, would have dreamed of escape as a possible thing. They all wanted to be 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. Michaels, I AM THE MAN. I claim to be the instigator of the high crime (as the slaveholders regarded it), and I
kept life in it till life could be kept in it no longer.

Pending the time of our contemplated departure out of our Egypt,^†An allusion to the Israelites departing Egypt under the leadership of Moses, as recounted in 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 the revolutionary conspirators in their primary condition. We were plotting against our (so-called) lawful rulers, with this difference—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 gladly have remained with him as free men. Liberty was our aim, and we had now come to think that we had a right to it 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 have conveyed no certain meaning. I hated this secresy, but where slavery was powerful, and liberty weak, the latter was driven to concealment or destruction.

The prospect was not always bright. At times we were almost tempted to abandon the enterprise, and to try 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. We were confident, bold, and determined, at times, and again doubting, timid, and wavering, whistling, like the boy in the graveyard, 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 understand, some one has said, a man must stand under. The real distance was great enough, but the imagined distance was, to our ignorance, much greater. Slaveholders sought to impress their slaves with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory, and of their own limitless power. Our notions of the geography of the country were very vague and indistinct. The distance, however, was not the chief trouble, for the nearer the lines of a slave state to the borders of a free state the greater was the trouble. Hired kidnappers infested the borders.^†The plantation aristocracies developed watch systems: during their normal correspondences and social visits, plantation owners exchanged information about how, when, where, and why their slaves escaped. Southern states established a system of patrols that guarded the borders and actively pursued slaves. These paramilitary organizations had legal authority to search almost anywhere for fugitive slaves. Several states passed complementary laws that provided lucrative rewards for the return of escapees. These complementary laws caused the kidnapping of freedmen in free states with increasing frequency. As a response, a new occupation arose: slave catcher. Typically, the slave catcher was an impoverished white nonslaveholder in great need of the substantial reward the return of a fugitive slave could afford him. John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, (New York, 1999), 149-82; Stanley W. Campbell, (1968; Chapel Hill, N.C., 1970), 10-11; Carol Wilson, (Lexington, Ky., 1994), 2, 40, 58-59, 117. Then, too, we knew that merely reaching a free state did not free us, that wherever caught we could be returned to slavery. We knew of no spot this side the ocean where we could be safe. We had heard of Canada, then the only real Canaan of the American bondman, 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. I knew something of Theology, but nothing of Geography. I really did not 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 utterly ignorant of the free states. 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 ever before, was a prospect which might well cause some hesitation. 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 be sought and the evil to be shunned were flung in the balance and weighed against each other. On the one hand stood slavery, a stern reality glaring frightfully upon us, with the blood of millions in its polluted skirts, terrible to behold, greedily devouring our hard earnings and feeding upon our flesh. This 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-capped 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 which would 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 and were drowned. Now we were hunted by dogs and over-taken, and torn to pieces by their merciless fangs. We were stung by scorpions, chased by 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, overtaken by hired kidnappers, who in the name of law and for the thrice-cursed 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 the ills we had.
Than flee to others which we knew not of."^†Slightly misquotes , sc. 8, lines 1619-20.

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, but no man can tell the intense agony which was 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 HenryHenry, Patrick

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 paraphrased 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); DAB, 7:554-59. , to a listening senate which was thrilled by his magic eloquence and ready to stand by him in his boldest flights, could say, "Give me liberty or give me death," and this saying was a sublime one, even for a free-

man; but incomparably more sublime is the same sentiment when practically 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 doubtful 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 both to the pauper and to the prince, to the slave and to his master; and yet I 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 distressing dreams. 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 noises of a swarm of angry birds that caused a roar as they passed, and which fell upon my ear like a coming gale over the tops of the trees. Looking up to see what it could mean I 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 pecking at you, while you, with your arms, seemed to be trying to protect your eyes. Passing over me, the birds flew in a southwesterly 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 did not like the dream, but I showed no concern, attributing it to the general excitement and perturbation consequent upon our contemplated plan to escape. I could not, however, shake off its effect at once. I felt that it boded no good. Sandy was unusually emphatic and oracular, and his manner had much to do with the impression made upon me.

The plan which I recommended, and to which my comrades consented, for our escape, was to take a large canoe owned by Mr. Hambleton,^†Editorial Emendation: 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. On reaching this point we were 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. In rough weather the waters of the Chesapeake are much agitated, and there would be danger, in a canoe, of being swamped by the waves. Another objection was that the canoe would soon be missed, the absent slaves would at once be suspected of having taken it, and we should be pursued by some of the fast-sailing craft out of St. Michaels. 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 hunters after us.

These and other objections were set aside by the stronger ones, which could be 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 be subjected to all manner of interruptions, and many disagreeable questions, which might give us serious trouble. Any white man, if he pleased, was authorized to stop a man of color on any road, and examine and arrest him. By this arrangement many abuses (considered such even by slaveholders) occurred. Cases have been known where freemen, being 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 the victims, were sold to^†Editorial Emendation: 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 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. MICHAELS. Talbot Co., Md."

Although we were not going to Baltimore, and were intending to land east of North Point, in the direction I had seen the Philadelphia steamers go, these passes might he useful to us in the lower part of the bay, while steering towards 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 than once 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; we were all ready to go, and impatient for Saturday morning—considering that the last of our bondage.

I cannot describe the tempest and tumult of my brain that morning. The reader will please bear in mind that in a slave State an unsuccessful runaway was not only subjected to cruel torture, and sold away to the far South, but he was frequently execrated by the other slaves. He was 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 was difficult, too, for a slave-master to believe that slaves escaping had not been aided in their flight by some one of their fellow-slaves. When, therefore, a slave was missing, every slave on the place was closely examined as to his knowledge of the undertaking.

Our anxiety grew more and more intense, as the time of our intended departure drew nigh. It was truly felt to be a matter of life and death with us, and we fully intended to fight, as well as run, if necessity should occur for that extremity. But the trial hour had 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 there should be; therefore, during the intervening time, I lost no opportunity to explain away difficulties, remove doubts, dispel fears, and inspire all with firmness. It was too late to look back, and now was the time to go forward. I appealed 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 well sit down, fold their arms, and acknowledge themselves fit only to be slaves. 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 would 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 on the appointed morning we went as usual to the field, but with hearts that beat 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: "Sandy, we are betrayed!—something has just told me so." I felt as sure of it as if the officers were 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 misgiving whatever, but from a sense of the consequences of failure.

In thirty minutes after that vivid impression came the apprehended crash. On reaching the house, and glancing my eye toward the lane gate, the worst was at once made known. The lane gate to Mr. Freeland's house was nearly 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. "It is indeed all over with us; we are surely betrayed," I thought to myself, I became composed, or at least comparatively so, and calmly awaited the result. I watched the ill-omened company entering 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 not altogether without a slight hope that things might turn differently from what I had at first feared. In a few moments in came Mr. William HambletonHambleton, William

William Hambleton (c. 1783-1855) 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 $10,000 and owned ten slaves. 1850 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 1016 (free schedule), 32 (slave schedule); Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 108-09, 130. ,^†Editorial Emendation: here and in the following five instances--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. Hambleton, 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. In a few moments Mr. Hambleton 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. Hambleton, 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 in 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 be examined; that they would have me brought before my master at St. Michaels, and if the evidence against me was not proved 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 teeth. When they had secured me, they turned to John Harris, and in a few moments succeeded in tying him as firmly as they had tied me. They next turned toward Henry Harris, who had now returned from the barn. "Cross your hands," said the constable^†Constables were the first law-enforcement officials in the American colonies. Their duties varied, but generally constables sealed weights and measures, surveyed land, announced marriages, executed warrants, meted out punishment, and kept the peace. The emergence of centralized police forces in the midnineteenth century minimized the necessity for constables. William G. Bailey, , 2d ed. (New York, 1995), 114-15. 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 GrahamGraham, Thomas

Thomas Graham was the constable for St. Michaels Parish in 1833 and the next-door neighbor 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 between 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. 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 39; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 48a; Lib., 20 February 1846; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 116, 136-37. , the constable. "No, I won't," said Henry, with increasing emphasis. Mr. Hambleton, 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. Both^†Editorial Emendation: 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, if he did not cross his hands, they would "blow his d—d heart out of him." "Shoot me, shoot me," said Henry; "you can't kill me but once. Shoot, shoot, and be damned! 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 all directions. Now came the struggle. All hands 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 saw much use of fighting where there was no reasonable probability of whipping anybody. Yet there was something almost providential in the resistance made by 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. Hambleton mildly 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 on the scuffle, and the apprehension of still further trouble, perhaps, led our captors to forego, for the time, any search for "those protections which Frederick was said to have written for his companions;" 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 purpose.

Just as we were all completely tied, and about ready to start toward St. Michaels. and thence to jail, Mrs. Betsey FreelandFreeland, Elizabeth

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 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 our breakfast that morning, and divided them between Henry and John. This done, the lady made the following parting address to me, pointing her bony finger at me: "You devil! you yellow devil! It was you who put it into the heads of Henry and John to run away. But for you, you long-legged, yellow devil, Henry and John would never have thought of running away." I gave the lady a look which called forth from her 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 riding along the main road to or from Easton that morning, his eye would have met a painful sight. He would have seen live young men, guilty of no crime save that of preferring liberty to slavery, drawn along the public highway—firmly bound together, tramping through dust and heat, bare-footed and bare-headed—fastened to three strong horses, whose riders were armed 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 round, and heartlessly made their failure to escape 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 held in their sharp talons, and was being hurried away toward Easton, in a southeasterly direction, amid the jeers of new birds of the same feather, through every neighborhood we passed. It seemed to me that everybody was out, and knew the cause of our arrest, and awaited our passing in order to feast their vindictive eyes on our misery.

Some said "I ought to be hanged;" and others, "I ought to be burned;" others I ought to have the "hide" taken off 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 one blow. The cruel injustice, the victorious crime, and the helplessness of innocence, led me to ask in my ignorance and weakness: Where is now 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, "the day of the oppressor will come at last."^†A loose paraphrase of Job 15:20. 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. Michaels. The direction concerning the passes was passed around, and executed. "Own nothing," said I. "Own nothing" was passed round, 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. Michaels 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 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,— the thing is done! but 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 who had betrayed us, that we might have something tangible on 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 one person only. 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 possible 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 full 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 GrahamGraham, Joseph

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 Bailey 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^†Children of the devil, particularly applied to fiends or evil spirits. in human shape,— the slave-traders and agents of slave-traders— who gathered in every country town of the state watching for chances to buy human flesh (as buzzards watch for 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 as if surrounded by a pack of fiends fresh from perdition. They laughed, leered, and grinned at us, saying, "Ah, boys, we have got you, haven't^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: havn't. we? So you were about to make your escape? Where were you going to?" After taunting us in this way 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^†Editorial Emendation: "how. we would like to have them for masters?" To such questions we were quite dumb (much to their annoyance). One fellow told me, "If^†Editorial Emendation: "if. he had me he would cut the devil out of me pretty quick."

These negro-buyers were very offensive to the genteel southern Christian public. They were looked upon in respectable Maryland society as necessary but detestable characters. As a class, they were hardened ruffians, made such by nature and by occupation. Yes, they were the legitimate fruit of slavery, and were second in villainy only to the slaveholders themselves who made such a class possible. They were mere hucksters of the slave produce of Maryland and Virginia—coarse, cruel, and swaggering bullies, whose very breathing was 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 them to 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 were 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 of our heads for half a dozen words with one of the waiters in Sol. Lowe'sLowe, Solomon

Solomon Lowe was a prominent tavernkeeper in Easton, Maryland, for more than thirty years. The first of several taverns he operated was across from the Easton courthouse and began operations 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 sometime later moved his operations to a larger brick hotel that boasted twenty-two rooms at the comer of Washington and Federal Streets. 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 office 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. hotel. 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. Hambleton^†Editorial Emendation: Hamilton. and Freeland came up to Easton; not to make a bargain with the "Georgia traders," nor to send us up to Austin WoolfolkWoolfolk, Austin

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. Deyle, Carry Me Back, 98-100, 179-80; 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," CWH, 23:195-211 (September 1977). ,^†Editorial Emendation: Woldfolk. as was usual in the case of runaway-slaves, but to release Charles Roberts, Henry^†Editorial Emendation: Charles Henry. Harris, Henry Bailey, and John Harris from prison, and this, too, without the infliction of a single blow. I was left 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 was almost as reluctant to leave the prison with me in

it as he had been to be tied and dragged to prison. But he and we all knew that we should, in all the likelihoods of the case, be separated, in the event of being sold; and since we were completely in the hands of our owners they 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 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 was 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 ply me with questions and 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 or mercy would have been as absurd as to reason with bears and tigers. Lead and steel were the only arguments that they were capable of appreciating, as the events of the subsequent years have proved.

After remaining in this life of misery and despair about a week, which 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 his friend would emancipate me. Besides, I had never 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 religious reputation, however unconcerned he might have been about his real Christian character. In these remarks it is possible I do him injustice. He certainly did not exert his power over me as he might have done 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^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: 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. Michaels a few days and no friend from Alabama appearing, Master Thomas decided to send me back 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 he wished me to go to Baltimore and learn a trade; and that if I behaved myself properly he would emancipate me at twenty-five. Thanks for this one beam of hope in the future! The promise had but one fault—it seemed too good to be true.

Nothing lost in my attempt to run away—Comrades at home—Reasons for sending me away—Return to Baltimore—Tommy changed—Caulking in Gardner's^†Editorial Emendation: Gardiner's. ship yard—Desperate fight—Its causes—Conflict between white and black labor—Outrage—Testimony—Master Hugh—Slavery in Baltimore—My condition improves—New associations—Slaveholder's right to the slave's wages—How to make a discontented slave.

Well, dear reader, I was^†Editorial Emendation: am not, as you have probably 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, 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's well that ends well!" My affectionate friends, Henry and John Harris, were still^†Editorial Emendation: are. with Mr. Freeland. Charles Roberts and Henry Bailey were safe^†Editorial Emendation: are. at their homes. I had not,^†Editorial Emendation: have. therefore, anything to regret on their account. Their masters had mercifully forgiven them, probably on the ground suggested in the spirited little speech of Mrs. FreelandFreeland, Elizabeth

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. made to me just before leaving for the jail. My friends had nothing to regret, either; for while they were watched more closely, they were doubtless treated more kindly than before, and got new assurances that they should some day be legally emancipated, provided their behavior from that time forward should make them deserving. Not a blow was struck any one of them. As for Master Freeland, good soul, he did not believe 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 by "Mas' Billy," as we used to call the soft-spoken but crafty and resolute

Mr. William Hambleton.^†Editorial Emendation: Hamilton (here and below). 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. He would not have one so dangerous as "Frederick" tampering with his slaves. William Hambleton was not a man whose threat might be safely disregarded. I have no doubt he would have proved as good as his word, had the warning given been disregarded. He was furious at the thought of such a piece of high-handed theft 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 leading to the destruction of slavery, which had hitherto been looked upon as a wall of security by the slaveholders. But Master Billy could not get Mr. Freeland to see matters precisely as he did, nor could he get Master Thomas excited as he was. The latter, I must say it to his credit, showed much humane feeling, and atoned for much that had been harsh, cruel, and unreasonable in his former treatment of me and of others. My "Cousin Tom"Bailey, Tom (cousin)

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-MS; Aaron Anthony Slave Distribution, 22 October 1827, Talbot County Distributions, V.JP#D, 58-59, MdTCH; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 91, 174, 206, 221, 230. 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 money could not tempt him to sell me to the far south. I can easily believe all this, 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 prejudice 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"Auld, Thomas, Jr. (1824-48)

Aaron Anthony sent Douglass to Baltimore for the purpose of caring for Thomas Auld (1824–48), the son of Hugh and Sophia Auld and the nephew of Thomas Auld, Anthony's son-in-law. It was understood at the time that when young Thomas came of age he would receive legal title to Douglass. Douglass could later recall “few persons to whom I was more sincerely attached” than his young charge. He remembered fighting Tommy‘s “battles in the street, and shielding him from harm,” until young Auld reached early manhood and learned that “his friend must become his slave” and that he must find “more suitable associates” than his childhood companion. Thomas Auld later went to sea and was lost while serving on board the brig Tweed, in an attempt to rescue the crew of a sinking British vessel. Douglass, Bondage and Freedom, 137–38, 152, 307–08; idem, Narrative, 55; Dr. T. E. Sears’s Auld Family Papers, MdHis; Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 11 September 1891, reel 6, frame 240, FD Papers, DLC. was no longer little Tommy; and I was not the slender lad who had left the Eastern Shore just three years before. The loving relations between Master Tommy and myself were broken up. He was no longer dependent on me for protection, but felt himself a man, with other and more suitable associates. In childhood he had considered me scarcely inferior to himself,— certainly quite as good as any other boy with whom he played— but the time had come when

his friend must be his slave. So we were cold to each other, and 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, had watched over him with the care of a big brother, fighting his battles in the street, and shielding him from harm to an extent which induced his mother to say, "Oh, Tommy is always safe when he is with Freddy"—I must be confined to a single condition. He had grown and become a man; I, though grown to the stature of manhood, must all my life remain a minor—a mere boy. Thomas Auld, junior, obtained a situation on board the brig "Tweed," and went to sea. I have since heard of his death.^†Thomas Auld, Jr., drowned at sea on 3 February 1848. Preston, , 148.

There were few persons to whom I was more sincerely attached than to him.

Very soon after I went to Baltimore to live. Master Hugh succeeded in getting me hired to Mr. William Gardner,^†Editorial Emendation: here and elsewhere Gardiner or Gardiner's. an extensive ship-builder on Fell's Point. I was placed there to learn to calk, a trade of which I already had some knowledge, gained while in Mr. Hugh Auld's ship-yard. Gardner's, however, proved a very unfavorable place for the accomplishment of the desired object. Mr. Gardner 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 Gardner'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 gun-ship for the Brazilian government. Scharf, , 293. These vessels were to be launched in the month of July of that year, and in failure thereof Mr. Gardner 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, seventy or eighty were regular carpenters— privileged men. There was no time for a raw hand to learn anything. Every man had to do that which he knew how to do, and in entering the yard Mr. Gardner had directed me to do whatever the carpenters told me to do. This was placing me at the beck and call of about seventy-five men. I was to regard all these as my masters. Their word was to be my law. My situation was a trying one. I was called a dozen ways in the space of a single minute. I needed a dozen pairs of hands. Three or four voices would strike my ear at the same moment. It was "Fred, come help me to cant^†To tilt or tum over. 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 crow-bar,"— "Fred, hold on the end of this fall,"—"Fred, go to the blacksmith's shop and get a new punch,"—"Halloo, Fred! run and bring me a cold-chisel,"^†A strong chisel entirely of iron or steel highly tempered, so as to cut cold iron.—"I say, Fred, bear a hand, and get up a fire under the steam-box as quick as lightning,"—

"Hullo, nigger! come turn this grindstone,"— "Come, come; move, move! and bowse^†To haul an object by means of a tackle. 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!" Such, my dear reader, is a glance at the school which was mine during the first eight months of my stay at Gardner's ship-yard. At the end of eight months Master Hugh refused longer to allow me to remain with Gardner. The circumstance which led to this refusal was the committing of an outrage upon me, by the white apprentices of the ship-yard. The fight was a desperate one, and I came out of it shockingly mangled. I was cut and bruised in sundry places, and my left eye was nearly knocked out of its socket. The facts which led to this brutal outrage upon me, illustrate a phase of slavery which was destined to become an important element in the overthrow of the slave system, and I may therefore state them with some minuteness. That phase was this— the conflict of slavery with the interests of white mechanics and laborers. In the country this conflict was not so apparent; but in cities, such as Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans, Mobile, etc., it was seen pretty clearly.^†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 strategy 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 both 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 concept was attributed to any white men or women who faced political, economic, or social constraints from the wealthy and privileged in American society. Ronald Takaki, (New York, 1990), 122-23; Roediger, , 66-67, 71-73; Berlin, , 96-97; James Sidbury, "Slave Artisans in Richmond, Virginia, 1780-1810," in , ed. Howard B. Rock, Paul A. Gilje, and Robert Asher (Baltimore, 1995), 53-54. The slaveholders, with a craftiness peculiar to themselves, by encouraging the enmity of the poor laboring white man against the blacks, succeeded 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 was this: the latter belonged to one slaveholder, and the former belonged to the slaveholders collectively. The white slave had taken from him by indirection what the black slave had taken from him directly and without ceremony. Both were plundered, and by the same plunderers. The slave was robbed by his master of all his earnings, above what was required for his bare physical necessities, and the white laboring man was robbed by the slave system, of the just results of his labor, because he was flung into competition with a class of laborers who worked without wages. The slaveholders blinded them to this competition by keeping alive their prejudice against the slaves as men—not against them as slaves. They appealed to their pride, often denouncing emancipation as tending to place the white working man on an equality with negroes, and by this means they succeeded in drawing off the minds of the poor whites from the real fact, that by the rich slave-master, they were already regarded as but a single remove from equality with the slave. The impression was cunningly made that slavery was the only power that could 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 was allowed to abuse and whip the former without hindrance. But, as I have said, this state of affairs prevailed mostly in the country. In the city of Baltimore^†Douglass was apprenticed as a ship's caulker in William Gardner's Baltimore shipyard soon after he was sent back to that city in late spring 1836 as punishment for his failed escape attempt. McFeely, , 59-60; Preston, , 143-44, 200. there were not unfrequent murmurs that educating slaves to be mechanics might, in the end, give slave-masters power to dispose altogether with the services of the poor white man. But with characteristic dread of offending the slaveholders, these poor white mechanics in Mr. Gardner's^†Editorial Emendation: here and below Gardiner or Gardiner's. ship-yard, 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 they were eating the bread which should be eaten by American freemen, and swearing that they would not work with them. The feeling was really against having their labor brought into competition with that of the colored freeman, and aimed to prevent him 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, 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 carpenters worked side by side in the ship-yards of Mr. Gardner, Mr. DunkinDunkin, Levi

Levin H. Dunkin (c. 1795-?) was a successful Fells Point shipbuilder who specialized in constructing the fleet 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 Directory for 1835-6, 75; 1840 U.S. Census, Maryland, Baltimore, 57; 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). ,^†Editorial Emendation: Duncan. Mr. Walter PricePrice, Walter

Walter Price (1794-c. 1840), 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 fast 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. Benjamin F. Auld to Douglass, 27 September 1891, General Correspondence File, reel 6, frames 257-58, FD Papers, DLC; Matchett's Baltimore Director for 1837-8, 258; Maryland, Births and Christenings Index, 1662-1911 (online); Chapelle, Speed under Sail, 297-312; Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 145-47, 228. , and Mr. RobbRobb, John A.

John A. Robb (1791-?) 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. Mattchett's Baltimore Direcror for 1831, 314; 1860 U.S. Census, Maryland, Baltimore County, 124 ( free schedule); Chapelle, Speed under Sail, 302; McGrain, "English Consul.'' 62-63, 65. . Nobody seemed to see any impropriety in it. Some of the blacks were 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 negroes. Taking advantage of the heavy contract resting upon Mr. Gardner to have the 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 in form, it did reach me in^†Editorial Emendation: fact. The spirit which it awakened was one of malice and bitterness toward colored people generally, 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 "the niggers," saying that they would take the "country," that they "ought to be killed." Encouraged by workmen who, knowing me to be a slave, made an^†Editorial Emendation: no. issue with Mr. Gardner about my being there, these young men did their utmost to make it impossible for me to stay. They seldom called me to do anything without coupling the call with a curse, and

Edward NorthNorth, Edward, Jr. ("Ned")

Edward North, Jr., was a carpenter who in 1845 lived in Fells Point at 227 Aliceanna Street. He probably is the Ned North who brutally attacked Douglass at Gardner's shipyard. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1845 (Baltimore, 1845), 87. , the biggest in everything, 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 singly, and so long as I could keep them from combining I got on very well. In the conflict which ended my stay at Mr. Gardner's I was beset by four of them at once—Ned North, Ned Hayes,^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: Hays. Bill StewartStewart, William ("Bill")

William Stewart was an apprentice carpenter in 1833 and lived near the corner of Paca and Pratt Streets. Matchett's Baltimore Directory for 1833, 174. , and Tom Humphreys. Two of them were as large as myself, and they came near killing me, in broad day-light. One came in front, armed with a brick; there was one at each side and one behind, and they closed up all 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 lists. 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 planted a blow with his boot in my left eye, which for a time seemed to have burst my eye-ball. 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 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 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: no fewer than fifty white men stood by and saw this brutal and shameful 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 battered most horribly, and no one said, "That^†Editorial Emendation: "that. is enough;" but some cried out, "Kill him! kill him! kill the d—n 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 Gardner's^†Editorial Emendation: Gardiner's 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, so murderous was the spirit which prevailed there. On two other occasions while there I came near losing my life, on one of which 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 considerable length. with Hayes.^†Editorial Emendation: here and immediately following: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: Hays. In its course the bolt bent, Hayes 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; 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 lost my life.

After the united attack of North, Stewart, Hayes,^†Editorial Emendation: 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 tern, "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 Robert W. Twyman, eds., (Baton Rouge, La., 1979), 762-64. in Gardner's^†Editorial Emendation: Gardiner's ship-yard; nor was there much of any other law toward the colored people at that time in any other part of Maryland.

After making my escape from the ship-yard I went straight home and related my story to Master Hugh; and to his credit I say it, 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 him in a somewhat similar plight, from the hands of his "Brother Edward Covey." Master Hugh listened attentively to my narration of the circumstances leading to the ruffianly assault, and gave many evidences of his strong indignation at what was done. He was a rough but manly-hearted fellow, and at this time his best nature showed itself.

The heart of my once kind mistress Sophia was again melted in pity towards me. My puffed-out eye and my scarred and blood-covered face moved the dear lady to tears. She kindly drew a chair by me. and with friendly and consoling words, she took water and washed the blood from my face. No mother's hand could have been 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 all I suffered that it occasioned 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 circumstances.

As for Master Hugh he was furious, and gave expression to his feelings in the forms of speech usual in that locality. He poured curses on the whole of the ship-yard company, and swore that he would have satisfaction. 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 perpetrated upon me as a man. I had reason to think 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'sWatson, William H.

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 for 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 be issued for the arrest of the lawless ruffians. Mr. Watson heard all he had to say, then coolly inquired, "'Mr. Auld, who saw this assault of which you speak?" "It was done, sir, in the presence of a ship-yard full of hands." "Sir," said Mr. Watson. "I am sorry, but I cannot move in this matter, except upon the oath of white witnesses."^†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, , 2:20; Miller and Smith, , 446. "But here's the boy; look at his head and face," said the excited Master Hugh; "they show what has been done." But Watson insisted that he was not authorized to do anything, unless white 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 thousand blacks, their testimony combined would have been insufficient to condemn a single murderer. Master Hugh was compelled to say, fix once, that this state of things was too bad, 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 did only what the carpenters sanctioned. They had cried with one accord, "Kill the nigger! kill the nigger! " Even those who may have pitied me, if any such were among them, lacked the moral courage to volunteer their evidence. The slightest show 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 abolitionists," and "kill the niggers," were the watch-words of the foul-mouthed ruffians of those days. Nothing was done, and probably there would not have been 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. Gardner^†Editorial Emendation: 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 to work again.

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, , 54, 59-60, 292-94; Olson, , 52-53, 85. and was now acting as foreman of Mr. Walter Price. The best he could do for me was to take me into Mr. Price's yard, and afford me the facilities there for completing the trade which I began to learn at Gardner's.^†Editorial Emendation: Gardiner's Here I rapidly became expert in the use of calkers'^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: calker's. 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 sometimes^†Editorial Emendation: 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^†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. Jeffrey R. Brackett, (Baltimore, 1889), 104-08, 174; Robert S. Starobin, (New York, 1970), 128-37; Wade, , 38-54.— giving Master Hugh no trouble in any part of the transactions to which I was a party.

Here, then, were better days for the Eastern Shore slave. I was free from the vexatious assaults of the apprentices at Mr. Gardner's,^†Editorial Emendation: Gardiner's. and free from the perils of plantation life, and once more in favorable condition to increase my little stock of education, which had been 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 here who could instruct me. Many of the young calkers could read, write, and cipher.^†To work out elementary arithmetic. Some of them had high notions about mental improvement, and the free ones on Fell's Point organized what they called the "East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society."^†The East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society was a debating club that Douglass joined in the 1830s. The group was one of several literary, or debating, societies formed by free blacks in antebellum Baltimore. These societies aimed to educate and provide 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 Improvement 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, , 72-73; Preston, , 148-49. To this society, notwithstanding it was intended that only free persons should attach themselves, 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 ill 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 it by the shortest route. I was living among freemen, and was in all respects equal to them by nature and attainments. Why should I be a slave? There was no 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, collected it; it was paid to me, and it was rightfully 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 is^†Editorial Emendation: life—slaveholder, or non slave-holder—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 who 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.

Closing incidents in my life as a slave^†Editorial Emendation: "Life ... Slave" — Discontent — Suspicions — Master's generosity — Difficulties in the way of escape — Plan to obtain money — Allowed to hire my time — A gleam of hope — Attend the camp-meeting — Anger of Master Hugh — The result — Plans of escape — Day for departure fixed — Harrassing doubts and fears — Painful thoughts of separation from friends.

My condition during the year of my escape (1838) was comparatively a free and easy one, so far, at least, as the wants of the physical man were concerned; but the reader will bear in mind that my troubles from the beginning had been less physical than mental, and he will thus be prepared to find that slave life was adding nothing to its charms for me as I grew older, and became more and more 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 indirection, but this was too open and barefaced to be endured. I could see no reason why I should, al the end of each week, pour the reward of my honest toil into the purse of my master. My obligation to do this vexed me, and the manner in which Master Hugh received my wages vexed me yet more. 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, with a view, perhaps, of kindling up my gratitude. But it had the opposite effect; it was an admission of my right to the whole sum. The fact that he gave me any part of my wages, was proof

that he suspected I had a right to the whole of them; and I always felt uncomfortable after having received anything in this way, lest his giving me a few cents might possibly ease his conscience, and make him feel himself to be 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 been entirely removed,— to accomplish my escape seemed a very difficult thing. The railroad from Baltimore to Philadelphia was under regulations so stringent that even free colored travelers were almost excluded. They must have free papers; they must be measured and carefully examined before they could enter the cars, and could go only in the day time, even when so examined. The steamboats were under regulations equally stringent.^†The antebellum practice of segregating free blacks from white passengers on all means of public transportation was common nationwide. On account of the frequency of escape attempts by slaves in the counties of Maryland closest to Pennsylvania, the state legislature and the Baltimore city council passed numerous laws and ordinances curtailing free blacks' rights and requiring them to carry " free papers" on their person while traveling. Leonard P. Curry, (Chicago, 1981), 90-91; Berlin,, 211, 317; Fields, , 34-35, 41, 79-80. And still more, and worse than all, all the great turnpikes leading northward were beset with kidnappers; a class of men who watched the newspapers for advertisements for runaway slaves, thus making their living by the accursed reward of slave-hunting.

My discontent grew upon me, and I was on a constant lookout for means to get away. With money I could easily have managed the matter, and from this consideration I hit upon the plan of soliciting the privilege of hiring my time. It was quite common in Baltimore to allow slaves this privilege, and was the practice also in New Orleans. A slave who was considered trustworthy could, by paying his master a definite sum regularly at the end of each week, dispose of his time as he liked. It so happened that I was not in very good odor, and I was far from being a trustworthy slave. Nevertheless, I watched my opportunity when Master Thomas came to Baltimore (for I was still his property, Hugh only acting 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 nowhere but he would catch 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 all Master Thomas had said, and in spite of my own efforts to the contrary, the injustice and wickedness of slavery were^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: was. always uppermost in my thoughts, strengthening my purpose to make my escape at the earliest moment possible.

About 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 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. There was hope for me in this. 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 had made enough in this way to purchase their freedom.^†Self-hiring enabled a small but significant number of slaves to gain their freedom, especially in urban areas, where skilled artisans could command a significant wage. Such self-purchase was only one avenue to manumission available to Maryland slaves. Alarmed by the increase in the state's free black population, the legislature passed numerous laws to restrict manumission and to encourage freed slaves to leave the state. An 1832 act, for example, outlawed manumission of slaves older than forty-five to prevent older free blacks from becoming a burden on the state. Opposition to manumission in Maryland steadily grew, culminating in an act in 1860 to prohibit the practice altogether. Fields, , 10, 27-28, 32, 46-48, 81-82, 84; Hinks and McKivigan, , 1:330-32, 2:456-61. It was a sharp spur to their industry; and some of the most enterprising colored men in Baltimore hired themselves in that way.

After mature reflection, as I 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, 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 the 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 ship's seam. Rain or shine, however, work or no work, at the end of each week the money must be forthcoming.

Master Hugh seemed much pleased with this arrangement for a time; 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 eflicient 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 footing by all proper industry. I was ready to work by night as by day, and being in the possession of excellent health, I was not only able 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 liberty was wrested from me.

During the week previous to this calamitous event, I had made arrangements with a few young friends to accompany them on Saturday night to a camp-meeting, to be held about twelve miles from Baltimore. On the evening of our intended start for the camp-ground, something occurred in the ship-yard where I was at work which detained me unusually late, and compelled me either to disappoint my 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 camp-ground, I was induced to remain one day longer than I had intended when I left home. But as soon as I returned I went directly to his home on Fell street to hand him his (my) money. Unhappily the fatal mistake had been made, I found him exceedingly angry. He exhibited all the signs of apprehension and wrath which a slaveholder might be surmised to exhibit on the supposed escape of a favorite slave. "You rascal! I have a great mind to give you a sound whipping. How dare you go out of the city without first asking and obtaining my permission?" "Sir," I said, "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 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 it will be seen, that taste was far from being unalloyed,—by no means enhanced my contentment with slavery. Punished by Master Hugh, it was now my turn to punish him. "Since," thought I, "you will make a slave of me, I will await your order in all things." So, 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 one who had such unlimited power to bless or blast me. Master Hugh

raved, and swore he would "get hold of me," but wisely for him, and happily for me, his wrath employed only those harmless, impalpable missiles which roll from a limber tongue. In my desperation I had fully made up my mind to measure strength with him, in case he should attempt to execute his threat.^†Editorial Emendation: Second American Edition. First Printing Hartford, Conn.: Park Publishing Co., et al., 1882: threats. I am glad there was no occasion for this, for resistance to him could not have ended so happily for me as it did in the case of Covey. Master Hugh 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. He closed his reproofs by telling me that hereafter I need give myself no uneasiness about getting work; 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 on the third day of September I would attempt to make my escape. His refusal to allow me to hire my time therefore hastened the period of my flight. I had three weeks in which to prepare for my journey.

Once resolved, I felt a certain degree of repose, and on Monday morning, instead of waiting for Master Hugh to seek employment for me, I was up by break of day, and off to the ship-yard of Mr. ButlerButler, Samuel

Samuel Butler, a Baltimore ship carpenter, established a shipyard in 1819 in partnership with Robert Lambdin. Apparently Lambdin moved to St. Michaels, Talbot 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 carpenter on Exeter Street, and Robert Lamden, a ship carpenter on City Block, appear in the 1840 city directory. Matchett's Baltimore Director for 1840-1 (Baltimore, n.d.), 86, 221; Chapelle, Speed under Sail, 302; John Philips Cranwell, ed., "Ship-Building on the Chesapeake: Recollections of 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 drawbridge. I was a favorite with Mr. Butler, and, young as I was, I had served as his foreman, on the float-stage,^†A raftlike wooden structure alongside a vessel used by seamen and shipyard workers making repairs. Rene de Kerchove, , 2d ed. (New York, 1961), 294. 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 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 my plans. The going to camp-meeting without asking his permission, the insolent answers to his reproaches, the sulky deportment of the week after being deprived of the privilege of hiring my time, had awakened 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 I again earned him my full week's wages nine dollars; 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 do so, for one of the uses to which I intended to put it was to pay my fare on the "underground railroad."^†The term "underground railroad" referred to various modes of escape from slavery to the free states of the North and to Canada. The origin of the term is unknown, but it appears to have entered common usage by the 1830s. The Underground Railroad consisted of routes and safe houses where fugitives could obtain assistance from abolitionists and other sympathizers. Contrary to popular belief, the escape routes were not underground. The term "underground" refers rather to the need for secrecy to accomplish successful flight. The number of slaves who traveled the Underground Railroad is also not certain. Census figures supported the number of 1,000 slaves escaping per year. Considered the largest example of civil disobedience since the American Revolution, the Underground Railroad also provided an opening for women to participate in a social movement and helped pave the way for women's rights. Those who participated in the Underground Railroad provided their services through delivering messages and allowed fugitives passage on ships. Even slaves who did not escape helped direct fugitives to safe havens. The Underground Railroad provided a moral check to the proslavery federal government, as participants acted on the higher authority for human rights rather than on the authority of a government of oppression. Fergus Bordewich, (New York, 2005), 4-6, 438-39; Larry Gara, (Lexington, Ky., 1967), 1, 7, 17, 18, 91, 144, 189.

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 far North or be sent to the far South. 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 friends. The thought of such a separation, where the hope of ever meeting again was excluded, and where there could be no correspondence, was very painful. It is my opinion that thousands more would have escaped from slavery but for the strong affection which bound them to their families, relatives, and friends. The daughter was hindered by the love she bore her mother, and the father by the love he bore his wife and children, and so on 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 the strongest obstacle 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.