Frederick Douglass
Whilst on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, I was fortunate to encounter one of the most significant historical figures in American slavery, reinforcing the knowledge gained from his book, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845).
An abolitionist, writer and orator, Frederick Douglass (1818-95) was the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Washington Bailey in Maryland’s, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master. He escaped slavery at age 20, adopted the name Douglass, and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist. His three autobiographies are considered important works of the slave narrative tradition as well as classics of American autobiography.
Douglass’s life as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For 16 years he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame as an inspiring and persuasive speaker and writer. In thousand of speeches and editorials, he levied a powerful indictment against slavery and racism, provided a profound voice of hope for his people, embraced antislavery politics and preached his own brand of American ideals.
During the Civil War Douglass tried to persuade President Abraham Lincoln that former slaves should be allowed to join the Union Army. After the war he campaigned for full civil rights for former slaves and was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage.
Brilliant and heroic, Douglass became a symbol of his age and a unique voice for humanism and social justice. His life will always speak profoundly to the meaning of being black in America, as well as the human calling to resist oppression. Douglass died in 1895 after years of trying to preserve a black abolitionist’s meaning and memory of the great events he has witnessed and helped to shape, many of which he shared with me to now recount.
An abolitionist, writer and orator, Frederick Douglass (1818-95) was the most important black American leader of the nineteenth century. Born Frederick Washington Bailey in Maryland’s, he was the son of a slave woman and, probably, her white master. He escaped slavery at age 20, adopted the name Douglass, and went on to become a world-renowned anti-slavery activist. His three autobiographies are considered important works of the slave narrative tradition as well as classics of American autobiography.
Douglass’s life as a reformer ranged from his abolitionist activities in the early 1840s to his attacks on Jim Crow and lynching in the 1890s. For 16 years he edited an influential black newspaper and achieved international fame as an inspiring and persuasive speaker and writer. In thousand of speeches and editorials, he levied a powerful indictment against slavery and racism, provided a profound voice of hope for his people, embraced antislavery politics and preached his own brand of American ideals.
During the Civil War Douglass tried to persuade President Abraham Lincoln that former slaves should be allowed to join the Union Army. After the war he campaigned for full civil rights for former slaves and was a strong supporter of women’s suffrage.
Brilliant and heroic, Douglass became a symbol of his age and a unique voice for humanism and social justice. His life will always speak profoundly to the meaning of being black in America, as well as the human calling to resist oppression. Douglass died in 1895 after years of trying to preserve a black abolitionist’s meaning and memory of the great events he has witnessed and helped to shape, many of which he shared with me to now recount.
“The time came when I must go to work on the plantation. I was less than seven years old and was left to the mercies of Aunt Katy, a slave woman who was often guilty of starving me and other children. One day I offended her and she made me go all day without food. Sundown came, but no bread. I was too hungry to sleep, when who but my own dear mother should come in. 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. My mother had walked twelve miles to see me, and had the same distance to travel before the morning sunrise. I do not remember seeing her again.
Mr Plummer, my first overseer, was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened by the most heart-rending shrieks of an aunt, whom he used to tie up and whip upon her naked body till she was literally covered in blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest.
The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn meal. Their yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen trousers, one jacket, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes; all of which could not have cost six dollars.
There were no beds given the slaves. They find, however, less difficulty from the want of beds, than from the want of time to sleep; for when their day’s work in the field is done, the most of them having their washing, mending, and cooking to do, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day; and when this is done, old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down side by side, on one common bed - the cold, damp floor – and here they slept till they are summoned to the field by the driver’s horn.
At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation now seem like a dream.
Mr Plummer, my first overseer, was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened by the most heart-rending shrieks of an aunt, whom he used to tie up and whip upon her naked body till she was literally covered in blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest.
The men and women slaves received, as their monthly allowance of food, eight pounds of pork and one bushel of corn meal. Their yearly clothing consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen trousers, one jacket, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes; all of which could not have cost six dollars.
There were no beds given the slaves. They find, however, less difficulty from the want of beds, than from the want of time to sleep; for when their day’s work in the field is done, the most of them having their washing, mending, and cooking to do, very many of their sleeping hours are consumed in preparing for the field the coming day; and when this is done, old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down side by side, on one common bed - the cold, damp floor – and here they slept till they are summoned to the field by the driver’s horn.
At times I would rise up, a flash of energetic freedom would dart through my soul, accompanied with a faint beam of hope that flickered for a moment, and then vanished. I sank down again, mourning over my wretched condition. I was sometimes prompted to take my life but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear. My sufferings on this plantation now seem like a dream.
When I started from slavery I was seized with great insecurity and loneliness and adopted the motto, “Trust no man!” I saw in every white man an enemy, and in almost every coloured man cause for distrust. It was a most painful situation, and to understand it one must imagine himself in similar circumstances. Let him be a fugitive slave in a strange land, a land given up to be the hunting ground for slaveholders, whose inhabitants are legalised kidnappers, where he is every moment subject to the terrible liability of being seized upon by his fellow man, as the hideous crocodile seizes upon his prey! Say, let him place himself in my situation, without home or friends, without money or credit, wanting shelter and no one to give it, wanting bread and no money to buy it, and at the same time let him feel that he is pursued by merciless men-hunters, and in total darkness as what to do, where to go, or where to stay.”
In his book, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), Douglass explained how he was asked to be a lecturer for the Anti-Slavery Society in 1841. “I had not been quite three years from slavery and was distrustful of my ability, and wished to be excused. Besides publicity might discover me to my master, and many other objections presented themselves. I finally, however, consented to go out for three months.
Many came, no doubt from curiosity to see what a Negro could say in his own cause. Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer I was the first one out. Up to that time a coloured man was deemed a fool who confessed himself a runaway slave, not only because of the danger to which he exposed himself of being retaken, but because it was a confession of a very low origin. Some of my friends thought very badly of my wisdom in thus exposing and degrading myself.”
I found further interesting facts in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass:
“One important branch of my anti-slavery work in Rochester was as station master and conductor of the Underground Railway passing through this goodly city. Secrecy and concealment were necessary conditions to the successful operation of this railroad, hence its prefix ‘underground’. My agency was exciting and dangerous. I could take no step in it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment, for these were the penalties imposed by the fugitive slave law for feeding, harbouring, or otherwise assisting a slave to escape from his master. In the face of this fact, however, I never did more congenial, attractive, fascinating and satisfactory work. The thought that there was one less slave, and one more freeman, brought to my heart unspeakable joy.”
In his book, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), Douglass explained how he was asked to be a lecturer for the Anti-Slavery Society in 1841. “I had not been quite three years from slavery and was distrustful of my ability, and wished to be excused. Besides publicity might discover me to my master, and many other objections presented themselves. I finally, however, consented to go out for three months.
Many came, no doubt from curiosity to see what a Negro could say in his own cause. Fugitive slaves were rare then, and as a fugitive slave lecturer I was the first one out. Up to that time a coloured man was deemed a fool who confessed himself a runaway slave, not only because of the danger to which he exposed himself of being retaken, but because it was a confession of a very low origin. Some of my friends thought very badly of my wisdom in thus exposing and degrading myself.”
I found further interesting facts in Life and Times of Frederick Douglass:
“One important branch of my anti-slavery work in Rochester was as station master and conductor of the Underground Railway passing through this goodly city. Secrecy and concealment were necessary conditions to the successful operation of this railroad, hence its prefix ‘underground’. My agency was exciting and dangerous. I could take no step in it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment, for these were the penalties imposed by the fugitive slave law for feeding, harbouring, or otherwise assisting a slave to escape from his master. In the face of this fact, however, I never did more congenial, attractive, fascinating and satisfactory work. The thought that there was one less slave, and one more freeman, brought to my heart unspeakable joy.”
Finally, I stumbled across a speech given by Douglass at the Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia during the American Civil War (December 4, 1863):
“I am one of those who believes that it is the mission of this war to free every slave state in the United States. I am one of those who believes that we should consent to no peace which shall not be an Abolition peace. I am, moreover, one of those who believe that the work of the American Anti-Slavery Society will not have been completed until the black men of the South, and the black men of the North, shall have been admitted, fully and completely, into the body politic of America. I look upon slavery as going the way of all the earth. It is the mission of the war to put it down.
I know it will be said that I ask you to make the black man a voter in the South. It is said that the coloured man is ignorant and, therefore, he shall not vote. In saying this, you lay down a rule for the black man that you apply to no other class of your citizens. If he knows enough to be hanged, he knows enough to vote. If he knows an honest man from a thief, he knows much more than some of our white voters. If he knows enough to take up defence of this Government and bare his breast to the storm of rebel artillery, he knows enough to vote.
All I ask, however, in regard to the blacks, is that whatever rule you adopt, whether of intelligence or wealth, as the condition of voting for whites, you shall apply to equally to the black man. Do that, and I am satisfied, and eternal justice is satisfied; liberty, fraternity, equality are satisfied, and the country will move on harmoniously.”
“I am one of those who believes that it is the mission of this war to free every slave state in the United States. I am one of those who believes that we should consent to no peace which shall not be an Abolition peace. I am, moreover, one of those who believe that the work of the American Anti-Slavery Society will not have been completed until the black men of the South, and the black men of the North, shall have been admitted, fully and completely, into the body politic of America. I look upon slavery as going the way of all the earth. It is the mission of the war to put it down.
I know it will be said that I ask you to make the black man a voter in the South. It is said that the coloured man is ignorant and, therefore, he shall not vote. In saying this, you lay down a rule for the black man that you apply to no other class of your citizens. If he knows enough to be hanged, he knows enough to vote. If he knows an honest man from a thief, he knows much more than some of our white voters. If he knows enough to take up defence of this Government and bare his breast to the storm of rebel artillery, he knows enough to vote.
All I ask, however, in regard to the blacks, is that whatever rule you adopt, whether of intelligence or wealth, as the condition of voting for whites, you shall apply to equally to the black man. Do that, and I am satisfied, and eternal justice is satisfied; liberty, fraternity, equality are satisfied, and the country will move on harmoniously.”