To Booker T. Washington, the teller of the tale which follows,
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation brought freedom when he was but
three years old. But Mr. Washington's struggles, first for an
education, later in behalf of his black brethren, have endowed him with
understanding and warm sympathy for Douglass, the man who, in his own
generation, preceded Washington as the foremost colored citizen of the
United States.
In later days, when the Underground Railway was in full operation, the
slave who ran away could be sure of aid and comfort at any one of its
many stations that he might find it possible to reach. But
Douglass--pioneer among these dark-skinned adventurers for
freedom--must needs rely almost wholly upon his own wit and courage in
making his escape.
From "Frederick Douglass," by Booker T. Washington. Copyright, 1906,
by George W. Jacobs & Company.
Frederick Douglass was born in the little town of Tuckahoe, in Talbot
County, on the eastern shore of Maryland, supposedly in the month of
February, 1817. . . .
Until he was seven years of age, young Fred felt few of the privations
of slavery. In these childhood days he probably was as happy and
carefree as the white children in the "big house." At liberty to come
and go and play in the open sunshine, his early life was typical of the
happier side of the negro life in slavery. What he missed of a
mother's affection and a father's care was partly made up to him by the
indulgent kindness of his good grandmother.
When Fred was between seven and eight years of age his grandmother was
directed by her master to take her grandson to the Lloyd plantation.
After the boy arrived at his new home, he was put in charge of a
slave-woman for whom the only name we know is "Aunt Katy." This change
brought him the first real hardship of his life. As an early
consequence of it, he lost the care and guidance of his grandmother,
his freedom to play, good food, and that affection which means so much
to a child. When he came under the care of Aunt Katy, he began to feel
for the first time the sting of unkindness. He has given a very
disagreeable picture of this foster-mother. She was a woman of a
hateful disposition, and treated the little stranger from Tuckahoe with
extreme harshness. Her special mode of punishment was to deprive him
of food. Indeed he was forced to go hungry most of the time, and if he
complained was beaten without mercy. He has described his misery on
one particular night. After being sent supperless to bed, his
suffering very soon became more than he could bear, and when everybody
else in the cabin was asleep he quietly took some corn and began to
parch it before the open fireplace. While thus trying to appease his
hunger by stealth, and feeling dejected and homesick, "who but my own
dear mother should come in?" The friendless, hungry, and sorrowing
little boy found himself suddenly caught up in her strong and
protecting arms.
"I shall never forget," he says, "the indescribable expression of her
countenance when I told her that Aunt Katy had said that she would
starve the life out of me. There was a deep and tender glance at me,
and a fiery look of indignation for Aunt Katy at the same moment, and
when she took the parched corn from me and gave me, instead, a large
ginger-cake, she read Aunt Katy a lecture which was never forgotten.
That night I learned, as never before, that I was not only a child, but
somebody's child. I was grander on 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 find my mother gone, and myself again at the
mercy of the virago in my master's kitchen."
There is no record of another meeting between mother and son. She
probably died shortly afterward, because if she had been within walking
distance, he certainly would have seen her again. Her memory in his
child's mind was always that of a real and near personality. When he
became older, and conscious of his superiority to his fellows, he was
wont to say: "I am proud to attribute my love of letters, such as I may
have, not to my presumed Anglo-Saxon father, but to my sable,
unprotected, and uncultivated mother." Thus, after his mother died,
his vivid imagination kept before him her image, as she appeared to him
that last time he saw her, through all his struggles for a fuller and
freer life for himself and his race.
With the loss of his mother and grandmother, he came more and more to
realize the peculiar relation in which he and those about him stood to
Colonel Lloyd and Captain Anthony. His active mind soon grasped the
meaning of "master" and "slave." While still a lad, longing for a
mother's care, he began to feel himself within the grasp of the curious
thing that he afterward learned to know as "slavery." As he grew older
in years and understanding, he came also to see what manner of man his
master was. He described Captain Anthony as a "sad man." At times he
was very gentle, and almost benevolent. But young Douglass was never
able to forget that this same kindly slave-holder had refused to
protect his cousin from a cruel beating by her overseer. The spectacle
he had witnessed, when this beautiful young slave was whipped, had made
a lasting and painful impression upon him. Vaguely he began to
recognize the outlines of the institution which at once permitted, and
to a certain degree made necessary, these cruelties. It was at this
point that he began to speculate on the origin and nature of slavery.
Meanwhile he became, in the course of his life on the plantation, the
witness of other scenes quite as harrowing, and the memory mingled with
his reflections, and embittered them.
During this time an event occurred which gave a new direction and a new
impetus to the thoughts and purposes slowly taking form within him.
This event was the successful escape of his Aunt Jennie and another
slave. It caused a great commotion on the plantation. Nothing could
happen in a Southern community that excited so many and such varied
emotions as the escape of a slave from bondage: terror and revenge,
hope and fear, mingled with the images of the pursued and the pursuers,
with speculation in regard to the capture of the fugitive, and with
prayers for his success in the minds of the slaves. . . .
From now on his quick and comprehending mind saw and suffered things
that formerly never affected him. The hard and sometimes cruel
discipline, toil from sunrise to sunset, scant food, the stifling of
ambitions--all these began now to be perceived and felt, and the
impression they left sank into the soul of this rebellious boy. He saw
a slave killed by an overseer, on no other charge than that of being
"impudent." "Crimes" of this nature were committed, as far as he could
see, with impunity, and the memory of them haunted him by day and by
night.
Thus far Douglass had not felt the overseer's whip. He was too small
for anything except to run errands and to do light chores. Of course,
he had been cuffed about by Aunt Katy; he says he seldom got enough to
eat, and he suffered continually from cold, since his entire wardrobe
consisted of a tow sack. . . .
When Fred became nine years old the most important event in his life
occurred. His master determined to send him to Baltimore to live with
Hugh Auld, a brother of Thomas Auld. Baltimore at this time was little
more than a name to young Douglass. When he reached the residence of
Mr. and Mrs. Auld and felt the difference between the plantation cabin
and this city home, it was to him, for a time, like living in Paradise.
Mrs. Auld is described as a lady of great kindness of heart, and of a
gentle disposition. She at once took a tender interest in the little
servant from the plantation. He was much petted and well fed,
permitted to wear boy's clothes and shoes, and for the first time in
his life had a good soft bed to sleep in. His only duty was to take
care of and play with Tommy Auld, which he found both an easy and
agreeable task.
Young Douglass yet knew nothing about reading. A book was as much of a
mystery to him as the stars at night. When he heard his mistress read
aloud from the Bible, his curiosity was aroused. He felt so secure in
her kindness that he had the boldness to ask her to teach him.
Following her natural impulse to do kindness to others, and without,
for a moment, thinking of the danger, she at once consented. He
quickly learned the alphabet and in a short time could spell words of
three syllables. But alas, for his young ambition! When Mr. Auld
discovered what his wife had done, he was both surprised and pained.
He at once stopped the perilous practice, but it was too late. The
precocious young slave had acquired a taste for book learning. He
quickly understood that these mysterious characters called letters were
the keys to a vast empire from which he was separated by an enforced
ignorance. In discussing the matter with his wife, Mr. Auld said: "If
you teach him to read, he will want to know how to write, and with this
accomplished, he will be running away with himself." Mr. Douglass,
referring to this conversation in later years, said: "This was
decidedly the first anti-slavery speech to which I had ever listened.
From that moment, I understood the direct pathway from slavery to
freedom."
During the subsequent six years that he lived in Baltimore in the home
of Mr. Auld he was more closely watched than he had been before this
incident, and his liberty to go and come was considerably curtailed.
He declares that he was not allowed to be alone, when this could be
helped, lest he would attempt to teach himself. But these were unwise
precautions, since they but whetted his appetite for learning and
incited him to many secret schemes to elude the vigilance of his master
and mistress. Everything now contributed to his enlightenment and
prepared him for that freedom for which he thirsted. His occasional
contact with free colored people, his visit to the wharves where he
could watch the vessels going and coming, and his chance acquaintance
with white boys on the street, all became a part of his education and
were made to serve his plans. He got hold of a blue-back speller and
carried it with him all the time. He would ask his little white
friends in the street how to spell certain words and the meaning of
them. In this way he soon learned to read. The first and most
important book owned by him was called the "Columbian Orator." He
bought it with money secretly earned by blacking boots on the street.
It contained selected passages from such great orators as Lord Chatham,
William Pitt Fox, and Sheridan. These speeches were steeped in the
sentiments of liberty, and were full of references to the "rights of
man." They gave to young Douglass a larger idea of liberty than was
included in his mere dream of freedom for himself, and in addition they
increased his vocabulary of words and phrases. The reading of this
book unfitted him longer for restraint. He became all ears and all
eyes. Everything he saw and read suggested to him a larger world lying
just beyond his reach. The meaning of the term "Abolition" came to him
by a chance look at a Baltimore newspaper.
Slavery and Abolition! The distance between these two points of
existence seemed to have lessened greatly after he had comprehended
their meaning. "When I heard the Word 'Abolition,' I felt the matter
to be my personal concern. There was hope in this word." As he
afterward went about the city on his ordinary errands, or when at the
wharf, even performing tasks that were not set for him to do, he was
like another being. That word "Abolition" seemed to sing itself into
his very soul, and when he permitted his thoughts to dwell on the
possibilities that it opened to him, he was buoyed up with joyous
expectations. He tried to find out something from everybody. He
learned to write by copying letters on fences and walls and challenging
his white playmates to find his mistakes; and at night, when no one
suspected him of being awake, he copied from an old copy-book of his
young friend Tommy. Before he had formulated any plans for freedom for
himself, he learned the important trick of writing "free passes" for
runaway slaves.
Notwithstanding his progress in gaining knowledge, his considerate
master and kind mistress, his loving companion in Tommy, his good home,
food, and clothes, he was not happy or contented. None of these things
could stifle his yearning to be free. He has aptly described his own
feelings at this time in speaking of Mrs. Auld: "Poor lady, she did not
understand my trouble, and I could not tell her. Nature made us
friends, but slavery made us enemies. She aimed to keep me ignorant,
but 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. It was slavery, not its mere incidents, I hated. Their
feeding and clothing me well could not atone for taking my liberty from
me. The smiles of my master could not remove the deep sorrow that
dwelt in my young bosom. We were both victims of the same
overshadowing evil--she as mistress, I as slave. I will not censure
her too harshly. . . ."
After Douglass learned how to write with tolerable ease, he began to
copy from the Bible and the Methodist hymn books at night when he was
supposed to be asleep. He always regarded this religious experience as
the most important part of his education; it had the effect, not only
of enlarging his mind, but also of restraining his impatience, and
softening a disposition that was growing hard and bitter with brooding
over the disadvantages suffered by himself and his race. He greatly
needed something that would help him to look beyond his bondage and
encourage him to hope for ultimate freedom.
While he was undergoing this, to him, novel religious experience, and
while he was gradually being adjusted to the situation in which he
found himself, there came one of those dreaded changes in the fortunes
of slavemasters that made the status of the slave painfully uncertain.
His real master, Captain Anthony, died, and this event, complicated
with some family quarrel, resulted in Douglass being recalled from
Baltimore to the plantation. . . .
A man named Edward Covey, living at Bayside, at no great distance from
the campground where Thomas Auld was converted, had a wide reputation
for "breaking in unruly niggers." Covey was a "poor white" and a farm
renter. To this man Douglass was hired out for a year. In the month
of January, 1834, he started for his new master, with his little bundle
of clothes. From what we have already seen of this sensitive,
thoughtful young slave of seventeen years, it is not difficult to
understand his state of mind. Up to this time he had had a
comparatively easy life. He had seldom suffered hardships such as fell
to the lot of many slaves whom he knew. To quote his own words: "I was
now about to sound profounder depths in slave-life. 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. The picture of the
"slave-driver," painted in the lurid colors that Mr. Douglass's
indignant memories furnished him, shows the dark side of slavery in the
South. During the first six weeks he was with Covey he was whipped,
either with sticks or cowhides, every week. With his body one
continuous ache from his frequent floggings, he was kept at work in
field or woods from the dawn of day until the darkness of night. He
says: "Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me in body, soul, and spirit.
The overwork and the cruel chastisements of which I was the victim,
combined with the ever-growing and soul-devouring thought, 'I am a
slave--a slave for life, a slave with no rational ground to hope for
freedom,' had done their worst."
He confesses that at one time he was strongly tempted to take his own
life and that of Covey. Finally, his sufferings of body and soul
became so great that further endurance seemed impossible. While in
this condition he determined upon the daring step of returning to his
master, Thomas Auld, in order to lay before him the story of abuse. He
felt sure that, if for no other reason than the protection of property
from serious impairment, his master would interfere in his behalf. He
even expected sympathy and assurances of future protection. In all
this he was grievously disappointed. Auld not only refused sympathy
and protection, but would not even listen to his complaints, and
immediately sent him back to his dreaded master to face the added
penalty of running away. The poor, lone boy was plunged into the
depths of despair. A feeling that he had been deserted by both God and
man took possession of him.
Covey was lying in wait for him, knowing full well that he must return
as defenseless as he went away. As soon as Douglass came near the
place where the white man was hiding, the latter made a leap at Fred
for the purpose of tying him for a flogging. But Douglass escaped and
took to the woods, where he concealed himself for a day and a night.
His condition was desperate. He felt that he could not endure another
whipping, and yet there seemed to him no alternative. His first
impulse was to pray, but he remembered that Covey also prayed.
Convinced, at length, that there was no appeal but to his own courage,
he resolved to go back and face whatever must come to him. It so
happened that it was a Sunday morning and, much to his surprise, he met
Covey, who was on his way to church, and who, when he saw the runaway,
greeted him with a pleasant smile. "His religion," says Douglass,
"prevented him from breaking the Sabbath, but not from breaking my
bones on any other day of the week."
On Monday morning Douglass was up early, half hoping that he would be
permitted to resume his work without punishment. Covey was astir
betimes, too, and had laid aside his Sunday mildness of manner. His
first business was to carry out his fixed purpose of whipping the young
runaway. In the meantime Fred had likewise fully decided upon a course
of action. He was ready to submit to any kind of work, however hard or
unreasonable, but determined to defend himself against any attempt at
another flogging. In the cold passion that took possession of him, the
slave-boy became utterly reckless of consequences, reasoning to himself
that the limit of suffering at the hands of this relentless
slave-breaker had already been reached. He was resolved to fight and
did fight. He began his morning work in peace, obeying promptly every
order from his master, and while he was in the act of going up to the
stable-loft for the purpose of pitching down some hay, he was caught
and thrown by Covey, in an attempt to get a slip knot about his legs.
Douglass flew at Covey's throat recklessly, hurled his antagonist to
the ground, and held him firmly. Blood followed the nails of the
infuriated young slave. He scarcely knew how to account for his
fighting strength, and his daredevil spirit so dumfounded the master
that he gaspingly said: "Are you going to resist me, you young
scoundrel?" "Yes, sir," was the quick reply.
Finding himself baffled, Covey called for assistance. His cousin
Hughes came to aid him, but as he was attempting to put a noose over
the unruly slave's foot, Douglass promptly gave him a blow in the
stomach which at once put him out of the combat and he fled. After
Hughes had been disabled, Covey called on first one and then another of
his slaves, but each refused to assist him. Finding himself fairly
outdone by his angry antagonist, Covey quit; with the discreet remark:
"Now, you young scoundrel, you go to work; I would not have whipped you
half so hard if you had not resisted."
Douglass had thus won his first victory, and was never again threatened
or flogged by his master. The effect of this encounter, as far as he
himself was concerned, was to increase his self-respect, and to give
him more courage for the future. He said that, "when a slave cannot be
flogged, he is more than half free." To the other slaves he became a
hero, and Covey was not anxious to advertise his complete failure to
break in this "unruly nigger." It speaks well for the natural dignity
and good sense of young Douglass that he neither boasted of his triumph
nor did anything rash as a consequence of it, as might have been
expected from a boy of his age and spirit. . . .
[A carefully planned attempt at escape failed dismally, but he remained
undaunted.]
Ever since the first trouble with Auld, he had been pushing his plans
to redeem his pledge to himself that he would run away on Monday,
September 3, 1838. These were anxious days, and many small details had
to be mastered. He must carefully avoid anything in manner or word
which could excite the slightest suspicion. He had to test the
fidelity of a number of free colored people whose aid, in secret ways,
was very essential to him. Who these persons were has never been
revealed, and, in fact, it was not until many years after emancipation
that Mr. Douglass disclosed to the public how he succeeded in making
his daring escape. "Murder itself," he says, "was not more severely
and surely punished in the State of Maryland than aiding and abetting
the escape of a slave."
Young Douglass's flight had no outward semblance of dramatic incident
or thrilling episode, and yet, as he modestly says, "the courage that
could risk betrayal and the bravery which was ready to encounter death,
if need be, in pursuit of freedom, were features in the undertaking.
My success was due to address rather than to courage, to good luck
rather than bravery. My means of escape were provided by the very
means which were making laws to hold and bind me more securely to
slavery."
By the laws of the State of Maryland, every free colored person was
required to have what were called "free papers," which must be renewed
frequently, and, of course, a fee was always charged for renewal. They
contained a full and minute description of the holder, for the purpose
of identification. This device, in some measure, defeated itself,
since more than one man could be found to answer the general
description; hence many slaves could get away by impersonating the real
owners of these passes, which were returned by mail after the borrowers
had made good their escape. To use these papers in this manner was
hazardous both for the fugitives and for the lenders. Not every
freeman was willing to put in jeopardy his own liberty that another
might be free. It was, however, often done, and the confidence that it
necessitated was seldom betrayed. Douglass had not many friends among
the free colored people in Baltimore who resembled him sufficiently to
make it safe for him to use their papers. Fortunately, however, he had
one who owned a "sailor's protection," a document describing the holder
and certifying to the fact that he was a "free American sailor." This
"protection" did not describe its bearer very accurately. But it
called for a man very much darker than himself, and a close examination
would have betrayed him at the start. In the face of all these
conditions young Douglass Was relying upon something besides a dubious
written passport. This something was his desperate courage. He had
learned to act the part of a freeman so well that no one suspected him
of being a slave. He had early acquired the habit of studying human
nature. As he grew to understand men, he no longer dreaded them. No
one knew better than he the kind of human nature that he had to deal
with in this perilous undertaking. He knew the speech, manner, and
behavior that would excite suspicion; hence he avoided asking for a
ticket at the railway station, because this would subject him to
examination. He so managed that just as the train started he jumped
on, his bag being thrown after him by some one in waiting. He knew
that scrutiny of him in a crowded car en route would be less exacting
than at the station. He had borrowed a sailor's shirt, tarpaulin, cap,
and black cravat, tied in true sailor fashion, and he acted the part of
an "old salt" so perfectly that he excited no suspicion. When the
conductor came to collect his fare and inspected his "free papers,"
Douglass, in the most natural manner, said that he had none, but
promptly showed his "sailor's protection," which the railway official
merely glanced at and passed on without further question. Twice on the
trip he thought he was detected. Once when his car stood opposite a
south-bound train, Douglass observed a well-known citizen of Baltimore,
who knew him well, sitting where he could see him distinctly. At
another time, while still in Maryland, he was noticed by a man who had
met him frequently at the shipyards. In neither of these cases,
however, was he interfered with or molested. When he got into the free
State of Pennsylvania, he felt more joy than he dared express. He had
by his cool temerity and address passed every sentinel undetected, and
no slave, to his knowledge, he afterward said, ever got away from
bondage on so narrow a margin of safety.