In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty
years ago, and in various writings since, I have given the public what I
considered very good reasons for withholding the manner of my escape. In
substance these reasons were, first, that such publication at any time
during the existence of slavery might be used by the master against the
slave, and prevent the future escape of any who might adopt the same
means that I did. The second reason was, if possible, still more binding
to silence: the publication of details would certainly have put in peril
the persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was not
more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland than that
of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave. Many colored men, for
no other crime than that of giving aid to a fugitive slave, have, like
Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison. The abolition of slavery in my
native State and throughout the country, and the lapse of time, render
the caution hitherto observed no longer necessary. But even since the
abolition of slavery, I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle
curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons
for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery had ceased to
exist, there was no reason for telling it. I shall now, however, cease
to avail myself of this formula, and, as far as I can, endeavor to
satisfy this very natural curiosity. I should, perhaps, have yielded to
that feeling sooner, had there been anything very heroic or thrilling
in the incidents connected with my escape, for I am sorry to say I
have nothing of that sort to tell; and yet the courage that could risk
betrayal and the bravery which was ready to encounter death, if need be,
in pursuit of freedom, were essential features in the undertaking. My
success was due to address rather than courage, to good luck rather than
bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by the very men who
were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery.
It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require the free colored
people to have what were called free papers. These instruments they were
required to renew very often, and by charging a fee for this writing,
considerable sums from time to time were collected by the State. In
these papers the name, age, color, height, and form of the freeman were
described, together with any scars or other marks upon his person which
could assist in his identification. This device in some measure defeated
itself--since more than one man could be found to answer the same
general description. Hence many slaves could escape by personating the
owner of one set of papers; and this was often done as follows: A
slave, nearly or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the
papers, would borrow or hire them till by means of them he could escape
to a free State, and then, by mail or otherwise, would return them to
the owner. The operation was a hazardous one for the lender as well as
for the borrower. A failure on the part of the fugitive to send back the
papers would imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the papers
in possession of the wrong man would imperil both the fugitive and his
friend. It was, therefore, an act of supreme trust on the part of a
freeman of color thus to put in jeopardy his own liberty that another
might be free. It was, however, not unfrequently bravely done, and was
seldom discovered. I was not so fortunate as to resemble any of my free
acquaintances sufficiently to answer the description of their papers.
But I had a friend--a sailor--who owned a sailor's protection, which
answered somewhat the purpose of free papers--describing his person,
and certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor. The
instrument had at its head the American eagle, which gave it the
appearance at once of an authorized document. This protection, when in
my hands, did not describe its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called
for a man much darker than myself, and close examination of it would
have caused my arrest at the start.
In order to avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of railroad officials,
I arranged with Isaac Rolls, a Baltimore hackman, to bring my baggage to
the Philadelphia train just on the moment of starting, and jumped upon
the car myself when the train was in motion. Had I gone into the station
and offered to purchase a ticket, I should have been instantly and
carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested. In choosing this plan
I considered the jostle of the train, and the natural haste of the
conductor, in a train crowded with passengers, and relied upon my skill
and address in playing the sailor, as described in my protection, to do
the rest. One element in my favor was the kind feeling which prevailed
in Baltimore and other sea-ports at the time, toward "those who go
down to the sea in ships." "Free trade and sailors' rights" just then
expressed the sentiment of the country. In my clothing I was rigged out
in sailor style. I had on a red shirt and a tarpaulin hat, and a black
cravat tied in sailor fashion carelessly and loosely about my neck. My
knowledge of ships and sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for
I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and
could talk sailor like an "old salt." I was well on the way to Havre de
Grace before the conductor came into the negro car to collect tickets
and examine the papers of his black passengers. This was a critical
moment in the drama. My whole future depended upon the decision of this
conductor. Agitated though I was while this ceremony was proceeding,
still, externally, at least, I was apparently calm and self-possessed.
He went on with his duty--examining several colored passengers before
reaching me. He was somewhat harsh in tome and peremptory in manner
until he reached me, when, strange enough, and to my surprise and
relief, his whole manner changed. Seeing that I did not readily produce
my free papers, as the other colored persons in the car had done, he
said to me, in friendly contrast with his bearing toward the others:
"I suppose you have your free papers?"
To which I answered:
"No sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me."
"But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with the American Eagle on it,
and that will carry me around the world."
With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection, as
before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him, and he
took my fare and went on about his business. This moment of time was one
of the most anxious I ever experienced. Had the conductor looked closely
at the paper, he could not have failed to discover that it called for
a very different-looking person from myself, and in that case it would
have been his duty to arrest me on the instant, and send me back to
Baltimore from the first station. When he left me with the assurance
that I was all right, though much relieved, I realized that I was still
in great danger: I was still in Maryland, and subject to arrest at any
moment. I saw on the train several persons who would have known me in
any other clothes, and I feared they might recognize me, even in my
sailor "rig," and report me to the conductor, who would then subject me
to a closer examination, which I knew well would be fatal to me.
Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt perhaps quite
as miserable as such a criminal. The train was moving at a very high
rate of speed for that epoch of railroad travel, but to my anxious mind
it was moving far too slowly. Minutes were hours, and hours were days
during this part of my flight. After Maryland, I was to pass through
Delaware--another slave State, where slave-catchers generally awaited
their prey, for it was not in the interior of the State, but on its
borders, that these human hounds were most vigilant and active. The
border lines between slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones for the
fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail
in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did mine
from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia. The passage
of the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that time made by
ferry-boat, on board of which I met a young colored man by the name of
Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a "hand" on the boat,
but, instead of minding his business, he insisted upon knowing me, and
asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going, when I was coming
back, etc. I got away from my old and inconvenient acquaintance as soon
as I could decently do so, and went to another part of the boat. Once
across the river, I encountered a new danger. Only a few days before,
I had been at work on a revenue cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard in
Baltimore, under the care of Captain McGowan. On the meeting at this
point of the two trains, the one going south stopped on the track just
opposite to the one going north, and it so happened that this Captain
McGowan sat at a window where he could see me very distinctly, and
would certainly have recognized me had he looked at me but for a second.
Fortunately, in the hurry of the moment, he did not see me; and the
trains soon passed each other on their respective ways. But this was not
my only hair-breadth escape. A German blacksmith whom I knew well was on
the train with me, and looked at me very intently, as if he thought he
had seen me somewhere before in his travels. I really believe he knew
me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate, he saw me escaping and
held his peace.
The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most,
was Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steam-boat for
Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest, but
no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware,
speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the
afternoon, I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York.
He directed me to the William-street depot, and thither I went, taking
the train that night. I reached New York Tuesday morning, having
completed the journey in less than twenty-four hours.
My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the morning of
the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe
journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a FREE MAN--one
more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves of the
troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway.
Though dazzled with the wonders which met me on every hand, my thoughts
could not be much withdrawn from my strange situation. For the moment,
the dreams of my youth and the hopes of my manhood were completely
fulfilled. The bonds that had held me to "old master" were broken. No
man now had a right to call me his slave or assert mastery over me. I
was in the rough and tumble of an outdoor world, to take my chance with
the rest of its busy number. I have often been asked how I felt when
first I found myself on free soil. There is scarcely anything in my
experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A
new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath and the "quick
round of blood," I lived more in that one day than in a year of my slave
life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely
describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York,
I said: "I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry
lions." Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain, may be depicted; but
gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or pencil.
During ten or fifteen years I had been, as it were, dragging a heavy
chain which no strength of mine could break; I was not only a slave, but
a slave for life. I might become a husband, a father, an aged man, but
through all, from birth to death, from the cradle to the grave, I had
felt myself doomed. All efforts I had previously made to secure my
freedom had not only failed, but had seemed only to rivet my fetters the
more firmly, and to render my escape more difficult. Baffled, entangled,
and discouraged, I had at times asked myself the question, May not my
condition after all be God's work, and ordered for a wise purpose, and
if so, Is not submission my duty? A contest had in fact been going on
in my mind for a long time, between the clear consciousness of right and
the plausible make-shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me
an abject slave--a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression
in which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled me to manly
endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my chains
were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy.
But my gladness was short-lived, for I was not yet out of the reach and
power of the slave-holders. I soon found that New York was not quite so
free or so safe a refuge as I had supposed, and a sense of loneliness
and insecurity again oppressed me most sadly. I chanced to meet on the
street, a few hours after my landing, a fugitive slave whom I had once
known well in slavery. The information received from him alarmed me. The
fugitive in question was known in Baltimore as "Allender's Jake," but in
New York he wore the more respectable name of "William Dixon." Jake, in
law, was the property of Doctor Allender, and Tolly Allender, the son
of the doctor, had once made an effort to recapture MR. DIXON, but
had failed for want of evidence to support his claim. Jake told me the
circumstances of this attempt, and how narrowly he escaped being sent
back to slavery and torture. He told me that New York was then full
of Southerners returning from the Northern watering-places; that the
colored people of New York were not to be trusted; that there were hired
men of my own color who would betray me for a few dollars; that there
were hired men ever on the lookout for fugitives; that I must trust
no man with my secret; that I must not think of going either upon the
wharves or into any colored boarding-house, for all such places were
closely watched; that he was himself unable to help me; and, in fact, he
seemed while speaking to me to fear lest I myself might be a spy and
a betrayer. Under this apprehension, as I suppose, he showed signs of
wishing to be rid of me, and with whitewash brush in hand, in search of
work, he soon disappeared.
This picture, given by poor "Jake," of New York, was a damper to my
enthusiasm. My little store of money would soon be exhausted, and since
it would be unsafe for me to go on the wharves for work, and I had no
introductions elsewhere, the prospect for me was far from cheerful. I
saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship-yards, for, if pursued, as
I felt certain I should be, Mr. Auld, my "master," would naturally seek
me there among the calkers. Every door seemed closed against me. I was
in the midst of an ocean of my fellow-men, and yet a perfect stranger
to every one. I was without home, without acquaintance, without money,
without credit, without work, and without any definite knowledge as to
what course to take, or where to look for succor. In such an extremity,
a man had something besides his new-born freedom to think of. While
wandering about the streets of New York, and lodging at least one
night among the barrels on one of the wharves, I was indeed free--from
slavery, but free from food and shelter as well. I kept my secret to
myself as long as I could, but I was compelled at last to seek some
one who would befriend me without taking advantage of my destitution
to betray me. Such a person I found in a sailor named Stuart, a
warm-hearted and generous fellow, who, from his humble home on Centre
street, saw me standing on the opposite sidewalk, near the Tombs prison.
As he approached me, I ventured a remark to him which at once enlisted
his interest in me. He took me to his home to spend the night, and in
the morning went with me to Mr. David Ruggles, the secretary of the New
York Vigilance Committee, a co-worker with Isaac T. Hopper, Lewis and
Arthur Tappan, Theodore S. Wright, Samuel Cornish, Thomas Downing,
Philip A. Bell, and other true men of their time. All these (save Mr.
Bell, who still lives, and is editor and publisher of a paper called the
"Elevator," in San Francisco) have finished their work on earth. Once in
the hands of these brave and wise men, I felt comparatively safe. With
Mr. Ruggles, on the corner of Lispenard and Church streets, I was hidden
several days, during which time my intended wife came on from Baltimore
at my call, to share the burdens of life with me. She was a free woman,
and came at once on getting the good news of my safety. We were
married by Rev. J. W. C. Pennington, then a well-known and respected
Presbyterian minister. I had no money with which to pay the marriage
fee, but he seemed well pleased with our thanks.
Mr. Ruggles was the first officer on the "Underground Railroad" whom I
met after coming North, and was, indeed, the only one with whom I had
anything to do till I became such an officer myself. Learning that my
trade was that of a calker, he promptly decided that the best place
for me was in New Bedford, Mass. He told me that many ships for whaling
voyages were fitted out there, and that I might there find work at my
trade and make a good living. So, on the day of the marriage ceremony,
we took our little luggage to the steamer JOHN W. RICHMOND, which, at
that time, was one of the line running between New York and Newport,
R. I. Forty-three years ago colored travelers were not permitted in the
cabin, nor allowed abaft the paddle-wheels of a steam vessel. They were
compelled, whatever the weather might be,--whether cold or hot, wet or
dry,--to spend the night on deck. Unjust as this regulation was, it
did not trouble us much; we had fared much harder before. We arrived at
Newport the next morning, and soon after an old fashioned stage-coach,
with "New Bedford" in large yellow letters on its sides, came down to
the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare, and stood hesitating
what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two Quaker gentlemen who were
about to take passage on the stage,--Friends William C. Taber and
Joseph Ricketson,--who at once discerned our true situation, and, in a
peculiarly quiet way, addressing me, Mr. Taber said: "Thee get in." I
never obeyed an order with more alacrity, and we were soon on our way to
our new home. When we reached "Stone Bridge" the passengers alighted
for breakfast, and paid their fares to the driver. We took no breakfast,
and, when asked for our fares, I told the driver I would make it right
with him when we reached New Bedford. I expected some objection to this
on his part, but he made none. When, however, we reached New Bedford, he
took our baggage, including three music-books,--two of them collections
by Dyer, and one by Shaw,--and held them until I was able to redeem them
by paying to him the amount due for our rides. This was soon done, for
Mr. Nathan Johnson not only received me kindly and hospitably, but, on
being informed about our baggage, at once loaned me the two dollars
with which to square accounts with the stage-driver. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan
Johnson reached a good old age, and now rest from their labors. I am
under many grateful obligations to them. They not only "took me in
when a stranger" and "fed me when hungry," but taught me how to make an
honest living. Thus, in a fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I
was safe in New Bedford, a citizen of the grand old commonwealth of
Massachusetts.
Once initiated into my new life of freedom and assured by Mr. Johnson
that I need not fear recapture in that city, a comparatively unimportant
question arose as to the name by which I should be known thereafter in
my new relation as a free man. The name given me by my dear mother was
no less pretentious and long than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.
I had, however, while living in Maryland, dispensed with the Augustus
Washington, and retained only Frederick Bailey. Between Baltimore and
New Bedford, the better to conceal myself from the slave-hunters, I had
parted with Bailey and called myself Johnson; but in New Bedford I
found that the Johnson family was already so numerous as to cause some
confusion in distinguishing them, hence a change in this name seemed
desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, placed great emphasis upon
this necessity, and wished me to allow him to select a name for me. I
consented, and he called me by my present name--the one by which I have
been known for three and forty years--Frederick Douglass. Mr. Johnson
had just been reading the "Lady of the Lake," and so pleased was he with
its great character that he wished me to bear his name. Since reading
that charming poem myself, I have often thought that, considering the
noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson--black man
though he was--he, far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the
Douglas of Scotland. Sure am I that, if any slave-catcher had entered
his domicile with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have shown
himself like him of the "stalwart hand."
The reader may be surprised at the impressions I had in some way
conceived of the social and material condition of the people at the
North. I had no proper idea of the wealth, refinement, enterprise, and
high civilization of this section of the country. My "Columbian Orator,"
almost my only book, had done nothing to enlighten me concerning
Northern society. I had been taught that slavery was the bottom fact
of all wealth. With this foundation idea, I came naturally to the
conclusion that poverty must be the general condition of the people of
the free States. In the country from which I came, a white man holding
no slaves was usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man, and men
of this class were contemptuously called "poor white trash." Hence I
supposed that, since the non-slave-holders at the South were ignorant,
poor, and degraded as a class, the non-slave-holders at the North must
be in a similar condition. I could have landed in no part of the
United States where I should have found a more striking and gratifying
contrast, not only to life generally in the South, but in the condition
of the colored people there, than in New Bedford. I was amazed when Mr.
Johnson told me that there was nothing in the laws or constitution of
Massachusetts that would prevent a colored man from being governor of
the State, if the people should see fit to elect him. There, too, the
black man's children attended the public schools with the white man's
children, and apparently without objection from any quarter. To impress
me with my security from recapture and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson
assured me that no slave-holder could take a slave out of New Bedford;
that there were men there who would lay down their lives to save me from
such a fate.
The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common
laborer, and went upon the wharves in search of work. On my way down
Union street I saw a large pile of coal in front of the house of Rev.
Ephraim Peabody, the Unitarian minister. I went to the kitchen door and
asked the privilege of bringing in and putting away this coal. "What
will you charge?" said the lady. "I will leave that to you, madam." "You
may put it away," she said. I was not long in accomplishing the
job, when the dear lady put into my hand TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To
understand the emotion which swelled my heart as I clasped this money,
realizing that I had no master who could take it from me,--THAT IT WAS
MINE--THAT MY HANDS WERE MY OWN, and could earn more of the precious
coin,--one must have been in some sense himself a slave. My next job was
stowing a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland's wharf with a cargo of oil for
New York. I was not only a freeman, but a free working-man, and no
"master" stood ready at the end of the week to seize my hard earnings.
The season was growing late and work was plenty. Ships were being fitted
out for whaling, and much wood was used in storing them. The sawing
this wood was considered a good job. With the help of old Friend Johnson
(blessings on his memory) I got a saw and "buck," and went at it. When
I went into a store to buy a cord with which to brace up my saw in the
frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord. The man behind the counter
looked rather sharply at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't
belong about here." I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself.
A fip in Maryland was six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in
Massachusetts. But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I
confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new
business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same
space of time on the plantation for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did
for myself in these earliest years of my freedom.
Notwithstanding the just and humane sentiment of New Bedford three and
forty years ago, the place was not entirely free from race and color
prejudice. The good influence of the Roaches, Rodmans, Arnolds,
Grinnells, and Robesons did not pervade all classes of its people. The
test of the real civilization of the community came when I applied for
work at my trade, and then my repulse was emphatic and decisive. It so
happened that Mr. Rodney French, a wealthy and enterprising citizen,
distinguished as an anti-slavery man, was fitting out a vessel for
a whaling voyage, upon which there was a heavy job of calking and
coppering to be done. I had some skill in both branches, and applied
to Mr. French for work. He, generous man that he was, told me he would
employ me, and I might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon
reaching the float-stage, where others [sic] calkers were at work, I
was told that every white man would leave the ship, in her unfinished
condition, if I struck a blow at my trade upon her. This uncivil,
inhuman, and selfish treatment was not so shocking and scandalous in
my eyes at the time as it now appears to me. Slavery had inured me to
hardships that made ordinary trouble sit lightly upon me. Could I have
worked at my trade I could have earned two dollars a day, but as a
common laborer I received but one dollar. The difference was of great
importance to me, but if I could not get two dollars, I was glad to
get one; and so I went to work for Mr. French as a common laborer. The
consciousness that I was free--no longer a slave--kept me cheerful under
this, and many similar proscriptions, which I was destined to meet
in New Bedford and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts. For
instance, though colored children attended the schools, and were treated
kindly by their teachers, the New Bedford Lyceum refused, till several
years after my residence in that city, to allow any colored person to
attend the lectures delivered in its hall. Not until such men as Charles
Sumner, Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Horace Mann refused
to lecture in their course while there was such a restriction, was it
abandoned.
Becoming satisfied that I could not rely on my trade in New Bedford to
give me a living, I prepared myself to do any kind of work that came to
hand. I sawed wood, shoveled coal, dug cellars, moved rubbish from back
yards, worked on the wharves, loaded and unloaded vessels, and scoured
their cabins.
I afterward got steady work at the brass-foundry owned by Mr. Richmond.
My duty here was to blow the bellows, swing the crane, and empty the
flasks in which castings were made; and at times this was hot and heavy
work. The articles produced here were mostly for ship work, and in the
busy season the foundry was in operation night and day. I have often
worked two nights and every working day of the week. My foreman, Mr.
Cobb, was a good man, and more than once protected me from abuse that
one or more of the hands was disposed to throw upon me. While in this
situation I had little time for mental improvement. Hard work, night and
day, over a furnace hot enough to keep the metal running like water,
was more favorable to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a
newspaper to the post near my bellows, and read while I was performing
the up and down motion of the heavy beam by which the bellows was
inflated and discharged. It was the pursuit of knowledge under
difficulties, and I look back to it now, after so many years, with some
complacency and a little wonder that I could have been so earnest and
persevering in any pursuit other than for my daily bread. I certainly
saw nothing in the conduct of those around to inspire me with such
interest: they were all devoted exclusively to what their hands found
to do. I am glad to be able to say that, during my engagement in this
foundry, no complaint was ever made against me that I did not do my
work, and do it well. The bellows which I worked by main strength was,
after I left, moved by a steam-engine.