If it be no small task for a man of the most favored antecedents and
the most fortunate surroundings to rise above mediocrity in a great
nation, it is surely a more remarkable achievement for a man of the
very humblest origin possible to humanity in any country in any age of
the world, in the face of obstacles seemingly insurmountable, to win
high honors and rewards, to retain for more than a generation the
respect of good men in many lands, and to be deemed worthy of
enrolment among his country's great men. Such a man was Frederick
Douglass, and the example of one who thus rose to eminence by sheer
force of character and talents that neither slavery nor caste
proscription could crush must ever remain as a shining illustration
of the essential superiority of manhood to environment. Circumstances
made Frederick Douglass a slave, but they could not prevent him from
becoming a freeman and a leader among mankind.
The early life of Douglass, as detailed by himself from the platform
in vigorous and eloquent speech, and as recorded in the three volumes
written by himself at different periods of his career, is perhaps the
completest indictment of the slave system ever presented at the bar of
public opinion. Fanny Kemble's _Journal of a Residence on a Georgian
Plantation_, kept by her in the very year of Douglass's escape from
bondage, but not published until 1863, too late to contribute anything
to the downfall of slavery, is a singularly clear revelation of
plantation life from the standpoint of an outsider entirely unbiased
by American prejudice. _Frederick Douglass's Narrative_ is the same
story told from the inside. They coincide in the main facts; and in
the matter of detail, like the two slightly differing views of a
stereoscopic picture, they bring out into bold relief the real
character of the peculiar institution. _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ lent to
the structure of fact the decorations of humor, a dramatic plot, and
characters to whose fate the touch of creative genius gave a living
interest. But, after all, it was not Uncle Tom, nor Topsy, nor Miss
Ophelia, nor Eliza, nor little Eva that made the book the power it
proved to stir the hearts of men, but the great underlying tragedy
then already rapidly approaching a bloody climax.
Frederick Douglass was born in February, l8l7,--as nearly as the date
could be determined in after years, when it became a matter of public
interest,--at Tuckahoe, near Easton, Talbot County, on the eastern
shore of Maryland, a barren and poverty-stricken district, which
possesses in the birth of Douglass its sole title to distinction. His
mother was a negro slave, tall, erect, and well-proportioned, of a
deep black and glossy complexion, with regular features, and manners
of a natural dignity and sedateness. Though a field hand and compelled
to toil many hours a day, she had in some mysterious way learned to
read, being the only person of color in Tuckahoe, slave or free, who
possessed that accomplishment. His father was a white man. It was in
the nature of things that in after years attempts should be made to
analyze the sources of Douglass's talent, and that the question should
be raised whether he owed it to the black or the white half of his
mixed ancestry. But Douglass himself, who knew his own mother and
grandmother, ascribed such powers as he possessed to the negro half of
his blood; and, as to it certainly he owed the experience which gave
his anti-slavery work its peculiar distinction and value, he doubtless
believed it only fair that the credit for what he accomplished should
go to those who needed it most and could justly be proud of it. He
never knew with certainty who his white father was, for the exigencies
of slavery separated the boy from his mother before the subject of
his paternity became of interest to him; and in after years his white
father never claimed the honor, which might have given him a place in
history.
Douglass's earliest recollections centered around the cabin of his
grandmother, Betsey Bailey, who seems to have been something of a
privileged character on the plantation, being permitted to live with
her husband, Isaac, in a cabin of their own, charged with only the
relatively light duty of looking after a number of young children,
mostly the offspring of her own five daughters, and providing for her
own support.
It is impossible in a work of the scope of this to go into very
elaborate detail with reference to this period of Douglass's life,
however interesting it might be. The real importance of his life to us
of another generation lies in what he accomplished toward the world's
progress, which he only began to influence several years after his
escape from slavery. Enough ought to be stated, however, to trace
his development from slave to freeman, and his preparation for the
platform where he secured his hearing and earned his fame.
Douglass was born the slave of one Captain Aaron Anthony, a man of
some consequence in eastern Maryland, the manager or chief clerk of
one Colonel Lloyd, the head for that generation of an old, exceedingly
wealthy, and highly honored family in Maryland, the possessor of a
stately mansion and one of the largest and most fertile plantations in
the State. Captain Anthony, though only the satellite of this great
man, himself owned several farms and a number of slaves. At the age of
seven Douglass was taken from the cabin of his grandmother at Tuckahoe
to his masters residence on Colonel Lloyd's plantation.
Up to this time he had never, to his recollection, seen his mother.
All his impressions of her were derived from a few brief visits made
to him at Colonel Lloyd's plantation, most of them at night. These
fleeting visits of the mother were important events in the life of the
child, now no longer under the care of his grandmother, but turned
over to the tender mercies of his master's cook, with whom he does not
seem to have been a favorite. His mother died when he was eight or
nine years old. Her son did not see her during her illness, nor learn
of it until after her death. It was always a matter of grief to him
that he did not know her better, and that he could not was one of the
sins of slavery that he never forgave.
On Colonel Lloyd's plantation Douglass spent four years of the slave
life of which his graphic description on the platform stirred humane
hearts to righteous judgment of an unrighteous institution. It is
enough to say that this lad, with keen eyes and susceptible feelings,
was an eye-witness of all the evils to which slavery gave birth. Its
extremes of luxury and misery could be found within the limits of one
estate. He saw the field hand driven forth at dawn to labor until
dark. He beheld every natural affection crushed when inconsistent with
slavery, or warped and distorted to fit the necessities and promote
the interests of the institution. He heard the unmerited strokes of
the lash on the backs of others, and felt them on his own. In the wild
songs of the slaves he read, beneath their senseless jargon or their
fulsome praise of "old master," the often unconscious note of grief
and despair. He perceived, too, the debasing effects of slavery upon
master and slave alike, crushing all semblance of manhood in the
one, and in the other substituting passion for judgment, caprice for
justice, and indolence and effeminacy for the more virile virtues of
freemen. Doubtless the gentle hand of time will some time spread
the veil of silence over this painful past; but, while we are still
gathering its evil aftermath, it is well enough that we do not forget
the origin of so many of our civic problems.
When Douglass was ten years old, he was sent from the Lloyd plantation
to Baltimore, to live with one Hugh Auld, a relative of his master.
Here he enjoyed the high privilege, for a slave, of living in the
house with his master's family. In the capacity of house boy it was
his duty to run errands and take care of a little white boy, Tommy
Auld, the son of his mistress for the time being, Mrs. Sophia Auld.
Mrs. Auld was of a religious turn of mind; and, from hearing her
reading the Bible aloud frequently, curiosity prompted the boy to ask
her to teach him to read. She complied, and found him an apt pupil,
until her husband learned of her unlawful and dangerous conduct, and
put an end to the instruction. But the evil was already done, and the
seed thus sown brought forth fruit in the after career of the orator
and leader of men. The mere fact that his master wished to prevent his
learning made him all the more eager to acquire knowledge. In after
years, even when most bitter in his denunciation of the palpable evils
of slavery, Douglass always acknowledged the debt he owed to this good
lady who innocently broke the laws and at the same time broke the
chains that held a mind in bondage.
Douglass lived in the family of Hugh Auld at Baltimore for seven
years. During this time the achievement that had the greatest
influence upon his future was his learning to read and write. His
mistress had given him a start. His own efforts gained the rest. He
carried in his pocket a blue-backed _Webster's Spelling Book_, and, as
occasion offered, induced his young white playmates, by the bribes
of childhood, to give him lessons in spelling. When he was about
thirteen, he began to feel deeply the moral yoke of slavery and to
seek for knowledge of the means to escape it. One book seems to have
had a marked influence upon his life at this epoch. He obtained,
somehow, a copy of _The Columbian Orator_, containing some of the
choicest masterpieces of English oratory, in which he saw liberty
praised and oppression condemned; and the glowing periods of Pitt and
Fox and Sheridan and our own Patrick Henry stirred to life in the
heart of this slave boy the genius for oratory which did not burst
forth until years afterward. The worldly wisdom of denying to slaves
the key to knowledge is apparent when it is said that Douglass first
learned from a newspaper that there were such people as abolitionists,
who were opposed to human bondage and sought to make all men free.
At about this same period Douglass's mind fell under religious
influences. He was converted, professed faith in Jesus Christ, and
began to read the Bible. He had dreamed of liberty before; he now
prayed for it, and trusted in God. But, with the shrewd common sense
which marked his whole life and saved it from shipwreck in more
than one instance, he never forgot that God helps them that help
themselves, and so never missed an opportunity to acquire the
knowledge that would prepare him for freedom and give him the means of
escape from slavery.
Douglass had learned to read, partly from childish curiosity and the
desire to be able to do what others around him did; but it was with a
definite end in view that he learned to write. By the slave code
it was unlawful for a slave to go beyond the limits of his own
neighborhood without the written permission of his master. Douglass's
desire to write grew mainly out of the fact that in order to escape
from bondage, which he had early determined to do, he would probably
need such a "pass," as this written permission was termed, and could
write it himself if he but knew how. His master for the time being
kept a ship-yard, and in this and neighboring establishments of
the same kind the boy spent much of his time. He noticed that the
carpenters, after dressing pieces of timber, marked them with certain
letters to indicate their positions in the vessel. By asking questions
of the workmen he learned the names of these letters and their
significance. He got up writing matches with sticks upon the ground
with the little white boys, copied the italics in his spelling-book,
and in the secrecy of the attic filled up all the blank spaces of his
young master's old copy-books. In time he learned to write, and thus
again demonstrated the power of the mind to overleap the bounds that
men set for it and work out the destiny to which God designs it.