FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
The Opportunity for Every Man in a Republic--The Depth Below a
White Man's Poverty--The Starting Point whence Fred Douglass
Raised Himself--His Mother--Her Noble Traits--Her Self-Denial
for the sake of Seeing him--She Defends him against Aunt Katy
--Her Death--Col. Loyd's Plantation--The Luxury of his own
Mansion--The Organization of his Estate--"Old Master"--How
they Punished the Women--How Young Douglass Philosophized on
Being a Slave--Plantation Life--The Allowance of Food--The
Clothes--An Average Plantation Day--Mr. Douglass' Experience as
a Slave Child--The Slave Children's Trough--The Slave Child's
Thoughts--The Melancholy of Slave Songs--He Becomes a House
Servant--A Kind Mistress Teaches him to Read--How he completed
his Education--Effects of Learning to Read--Experiences
Religion and Prays for Liberty--Learns to Write--Hires his
Time, and Absconds--Becomes a Free Working-Man in New Bedford
--Marries--Mr. Douglass on Garrison--Mr. Douglass' Literary
Career.
The reader will perceive, in reading the memoirs which we have
collected in the present volume, that although they give a few
instances of men who have risen to distinction from comfortable worldly
circumstances, by making a good use of the provision afforded them by
early competence and leisure, yet by far the greater number have raised
themselves by their own unaided efforts, in spite of every disadvantage
which circumstances could throw in their way.
It is the pride and the boast of truly republican institutions that
they give to every human being an opportunity of thus demonstrating
what is in him. If a man is a man, no matter in what rank of society he
is born, no matter how tied down and weighted by poverty and all its
attendant disadvantages, there is nothing in our American institutions
to prevent his rising to the very highest offices in the gift of
the country. So, though a man like Charles Sumner, coming of an old
Boston family, with every advantage of Boston schools and of Cambridge
college, becomes distinguished through the country, yet side by side
with him we see Abraham Lincoln, the rail splitter, Henry Wilson, from
the shoemaker's bench, and Chase, from a New Hampshire farm. But there
have been in our country some three or four million of human beings
who were born to a depth of poverty below what Henry Wilson or Abraham
Lincoln ever dreamed of. Wilson and Lincoln, to begin with, owned
nothing but their bare hands, but there have been in this country four
or five million men and women who did not own even their bare hands.
Wilson and Lincoln, and other brave men like them, owned their own
souls and wills--they were free to say, "Thus and thus I will do--I
will be educated, I will be intelligent, I will be Christian, I will
by honest industry amass property to serve me in my upward aims." But
there were four million men and women in America who were decreed by
the laws of this country not to own even their own souls. The law
said of them--They shall be taken and held as chattels personal to
all intents and purposes. This hapless class of human beings might be
sold for debt, might be mortgaged for real estate, nay, the unborn
babe might be pledged or mortgaged for the debts of a master. There
were among these unfortunate millions, in the eye of the law, neither
husbands nor wives, nor fathers nor mothers; they were only chattels
personal. They could no more contract a legal marriage than a bedstead
can marry a cooking-stove, or a plough be wedded to a spinning wheel.
They were week after week advertised in public prints to be sold in
company with horses, cows, pigs, hens, and other stock of a plantation.
They were forbidden to learn to read. The slave laws imposed the same
penalty on the man who should teach a slave to read as on the man who
wilfully put out his eyes. They had no legal right to be Christians,
or enter the kingdom of heaven, because the law regarded them simply
as personal property, subject to the caprice of an owner, and when the
owner did not choose to have his property be a Christian, he could
shut him out from the light of the gospel as easily as one can close a
window shutter.
Now if we think it a great thing that Wilson and Lincoln raised
themselves from a state of comparatively early disadvantage to high
places in the land, what shall we think of one who started from this
immeasureable gulf below them?
Frederick Douglass had as far to climb to get to the spot where the
poorest free white boy is born, as that white boy has to climb to be
president of the nation, and take rank with kings and judges of the
earth.
There are few young men born to competence, carried carefully through
all the earlier stages of training, drilled in grammar school, and
perfected by a four years' college course, who could stand up on
a platform and compete successfully with Frederick Douglass as an
orator. Nine out of ten of college educated young men would shrink even
from the trial, and yet Frederick Douglass fought his way up from a
nameless hovel on a Maryland plantation, where with hundreds of others
of the young live stock he shivered in his little tow shirt, the only
garment allowed him for summer and winter, kept himself warm by sitting
on the sunny side of out buildings, like a little dog, and often was
glad to dispute with the pigs for the scraps of what came to them to
satisfy his hunger.
From this position he has raised himself to the habits of mind, thought
and life of a cultivated gentleman, and from that point of sight has
illustrated exactly what slavery WAS, (thank God we write in the past
tense,) in an autobiography which most affectingly presents what it is
to be born a slave. Every man who struck a stroke in our late great
struggle--every man or woman who made a sacrifice for it--every one
conscious of inward bleedings and cravings that never shall be healed
or assuaged, for what they have rendered up in this great anguish,
ought to read this autobiography of a slave man, and give thanks to God
that even by the bitterest sufferings they have been permitted to do
something to wipe such a disgrace and wrong from the earth.
The first thing that every man remembers is his mother. Americans
all have a mother at least that can be named. But it is exceedingly
affecting to read the history of a human being who writes that during
all his childhood he never saw his mother more than two or three times,
and then only in the night. And why? Because she was employed on a
plantation twelve miles away. Her only means of seeing her boy were
to walk twelve miles over to the place where he was, spend a brief
hour, and walk twelve miles back, so as to be ready to go to work at
four o'clock in the morning. How many mothers would often visit their
children by such an effort? and yet at well remembered intervals the
mother of Frederick Douglass did this for the sake of holding her child
a little while in her arms, lying down a brief hour with him.
That she was a woman of uncommon energy and strength of affection this
sufficiently shows, because as slave mother she could do him no earthly
good--she owned not a cent to bring him. She could not buy him clothes.
She could not even mend or wash the one garment allotted to him.
Only once in his childhood did he remember his mother's presence as
being to him anything of that comfort and protection that it is to
ordinary children. He, with all the other little live stock of the
plantation, were dependent for a daily allowance of food on a cross
old woman whom they called Aunt Katy. For some reason of her own, Aunt
Katy had taken a pique against little Fred, and announced to him that
she was going to keep him a day without food. At the close of this
day, when he crept shivering in among the other children, and was
denied even the coarse slice of corn bread which all the rest had,
he broke out into loud lamentations. Suddenly his mother appeared
behind him--caught him in her arms, poured out volumes of wrathful
indignation on Aunt Katy, and threatened to complain to the overseer
if she did not give him his share of food--produced from her bosom
a sweet cake which she had managed to procure for him, and sat down
to wipe away his tears and see him enjoy it. This mother must have
been a woman of strong mental characteristics. Though a plantation
field hand, she could read, and if we consider against what superhuman
difficulties such a knowledge must have been acquired, it is an
evidence of wonderful character. Douglass says of her that she was tall
and finely proportioned. With affecting simplicity he says: "There is
in Pritchard's Natural History of Man, p. 157, the head of a figure the
features of which so resemble those of my mother, that I often recur to
it with something of the feeling which I suppose others to experience
when looking on the pictures of dear departed ones."
The face alluded to is copied from a head of Rameses the great
Egyptian king of the nineteenth dynasty. The profile is European in
its features, and similar in class to the head of Napoleon. From all
these considerations, we have supposed that the mother of Douglass must
have been one of that Mandingo tribe of Africans who were distinguished
among the slaves for fine features, great energy, intelligence and
pride of character. The black population of America is not one race. If
slaveholders and kidnappers had been busy for years in Europe stirring
up wars in the different countries, and sending all the captives to
be sold in America, the mixture of Swedes, Danes, Germans, Russians,
Italians, French, might all have gone under the one head of _Whitemen_,
but they would have been none the more of the same race. The negroes
of this country are a mixture torn from tribes and races quite as
dissimilar. The Mandingo has European features, a fine form, wavy, not
woolly hair, is intelligent, vigorous, proud and brave. The Guinea
negro has a coarse, animal head, is stupid, dirty, cunning. Yet the
argument on _negro_ powers is generally based on some such sweeping
classification as takes the Guinea negro for its type.
The father of Frederick Douglass was a white man, who, he never
knew--it would have been of no advantage to him had he known--but there
is reason to think that those fine intellectual gifts, that love of
liberty, and hatred of slavery which have led him to the position he
now occupies among freemen, were due to the blood of his mother. That
silent, noble black woman, whose wrongs were borne in such patience,
whose soul must so often have burned within her, whose affections were
stronger than weariness, and whose mind _would_ possess the key of
knowledge even though she gained it at such terrible sacrifices and
hazards, she is to be honored as the mother of Garrison is, as having
lived in her son and being the true author and inspirer of all that is
good and just in him.
After a few short interviews the communication between Douglass and his
mother ceased. She was taken sick, had a long illness and died without
a word or message, or any token passing between her and her child. He
running wild, a dirty little animal on the distant plantation, she
suffering, wasting, dying in silence--going into the great Invisible
where so many helpless mothers have gone to plead for their children
before God.
The plantation of Col. Loyd, on which Fred Douglass was raised, was a
representative fact illustrating what may be known of slavery. _There_
might be seen a large airy elegant house, filled with every luxury and
comfort, the abode of hospitality and leisure. Company always coming
and going--bountiful tables spread with every delicacy of sea and
land--choice cookery, old wines, massive plate, splendid curtains and
pictures, all combined to give the impression of a joyous and abundant
life. Fifteen well dressed, well trained servants, chosen for good
looks and good manners, formed an obsequious army of attendants behind
the chairs of guests at the dinner hour, or waited on them in their
private apartments.
The shrubbery, the flower gardens, the ample lawns, were laid out with
European taste, the stables had studs of the finest blood horses at the
disposal of guests--all was cultivation, elegance and refinement.
Col. Loyd was supposed to own a thousand slaves, and what the life
was on which all this luxury and elegance was built, the history of
Douglass and his mother may show. Col. Loyd owned several contiguous
farms or plantations, each one under an overseer, and all were under
the general supervision of an agent who lived on the central plantation
and went by the name among the slaves of Old Master. Between this
man and his family, and Col. Loyd and his family, there was none of
the intercourse of equals. No visits were ever exchanged, and no
intercourse except of a necessary business character ever took place.
The owner and his family had nothing to do with the management of
the estates any further than to enjoy and dispense the revenues they
brought; in all the rest was left to "Old Master and the Overseers."
The estate was as secluded from all influence of public opinion, and
the slaves were as completely in the power of the overseers, as the
serfs in the feudal ages. Even the vessels which carried the produce of
the plantation to Baltimore, were owned by Col. Loyd. Every man and boy
by whom these vessels were worked, excepting the captains, were Col.
Loyd's property. All the artizans on all the places, the blacksmiths,
wheelwrights, shoe makers, weavers and coopers, also were pieces of
property belonging to Col. Loyd. What chance was there for laws or
for public sentiment, or any other humanizing influence, to restrain
absolute power in a district so governed?
One of the earliest lessons in the practical meaning of slavery was
taught to the child by hearing the shrieks and groans of a favorite
Aunt Esther, under the lash of Old Master. She was a finely formed,
handsome woman, and had the presumption to prefer a young slave man to
her master, and for this she was made the victim of degradation and
torture.
On another occasion he saw a young girl who came from one of the
neighboring plantations, with her head cut and bleeding from the
brutality of the overseer, to put herself under the protection of Old
Master. Though the brutality of her treatment was perfectly evident, he
heard her met only with reproaches and oaths and ordered to go back at
once or expect even severer treatment. This was a part of an unvarying
system. It was a fixed rule, never to listen to complaints of any kind
from a slave, and even when they were evidently well founded, to affect
to disregard them. That the slave was to have no appeal in any case
from the absolute power of the overseer, was a fundamental maxim of the
system.
Endowed by his mother with an intelligent and thoughtful organization,
young Douglass began early to turn in his mind the dark question, "_Why
am I a slave?_" On this subject he pushed enquiries among his little
play-fellows and the elderly negroes, but could get no satisfactory
solution, except that some remembered that their fathers and mothers
were stolen from Africa. When not more than seven or eight years old
these thoughts burned in him, whenever he wandered through the woods
and fields, and a strong determination to become a freeman in future
life took possession of him. It may have been inspired by the invisible
guardianship of that poor mother, who, unable to help him in life, may
have been permitted higher powers in the world of spirits.
The comments which Douglass makes on many features of slave life, as
they affected his childish mind, are very peculiar, and show slavery
entirely from an inside point of view.
In regard to the physical comforts of plantation life, he gives the
following account:
"It is the boast of slaveholders that their slaves enjoy 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. Loyd's plantation received as their monthly allowance, eight
pounds of pickled pork or their equivalent in fish. The pork was often
tainted and the fish of the poorest quality. With this, they had one
bushel of unbolted Indian meal, of which quite fifteen per cent. was
fit only for pigs; 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 of the month,
except Sundays. This was living on a fraction more than a quarter of a
pound of poor meat per day, and less than a peck of corn meal per week,
and there is no work requiring more abundant supply of food to prevent
physical exhaustion, than the field work of a slave.
"So much for food. Now as for raiment. The yearly allowance of clothing
for slaves on this plantation, consisted of two linen shirts, one pair
of tow trowsers for summer, a pair of trowsers and jacket of slazy
workmanship for winter, one pair of yarn stockings, and one pair of
coarse shoes. The slave's entire apparel could not have cost more
than eight dollars a year. Children not yet able to work in the field
had neither shoes, stockings, jackets or trowsers given them. Their
clothing consisted of two coarse tow linen shirts per year, and when
these failed, they went literally naked till next allowance day. Flocks
of children from five to ten years old might be seen on Col. Loyd's
plantations as destitute of clothing as any little heathen in Africa
and this even in the frosty month of March.
"As to beds to sleep on, none were given--nothing but a coarse blanket,
such as is used in the North to cover horses--and these were not
provided for little ones.
"The children cuddled in holes and corners about the quarters, often in
the corners of the huge chimneys with their feet in the ashes to keep
them warm."
An average day of plantation life is thus given:
"Old and young, male and female, married and single, drop down together
on the clay floor of the cabin each evening with his or her blanket.
The night however is shortened at both ends. The slaves work often
as long as they can see, and are late in cooking and mending for the
coming day, and at the first grey streak of morning are summoned to the
field by the driver's horn.
"More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault. The
overseer stands at the quarter door, armed with his cowhide, ready to
whip any who may be a few minutes behind time. When the horn is blown,
there is a rush for the door, and the hindermost one is sure to get a
blow from the overseer. Young mothers working in the field were allowed
about ten o'clock to go home and nurse their children. Sometimes they
are obliged to take their children with them and leave them in the
corners of the fences, to prevent loss of time. The overseer rides
round the field on horseback. A cowskin and a hickory stick are his
constant companions. The slaves take their breakfast with them and
eat it in the field. The dinner of the slave consists of a huge piece
of ash cake, that is to say, unbolted corn meal and water, stirred up
and baked in the ashes. To this a small slice of pork or a couple of
salt herring were added. A few moments of rest is allowed at dinner,
which is variously spent. Some lie down on the "turning row" and go to
sleep. Others draw together and talk, others are at work with needle
and thread mending their tattered garments; but soon the overseer
comes dashing in upon them. Tumble up--tumble up is the word, and
now from twelve o'clock till dark, the human cattle are in motion,
wielding their clumsy hoes, inspired by no hope of reward, no sense
of gratitude, no love of children, no prospect of bettering their
condition, nothing save the dread and terror of the driver's lash. So
goes one day and so comes another." This is slavery as remembered by a
cultivated, intelligent man who was born and bred a slave.
In regard to his own peculiar lot as a child on this plantation, he
says: "I was seldom whipped, and never severely, by my old master. I
suffered little from any treatment I received, except from hunger and
cold. I could get enough neither of food or clothing, but suffered more
from cold than hunger. In the heat of summer or cold of winter alike
I was kept almost in a state of nudity--no shoes, stockings, jacket,
trowsers--nothing but a coarse tow linen shirt reaching to the knee.
This I wore night and day. In the daytime I could protect myself pretty
well by keeping on the sunny side of the house, and in bad weather in
the corner of the kitchen chimney. The great difficulty was to keep
warm at night. I had no bed. The pigs in the pen had leaves, and horses
in the stable had straw, but the children had nothing. In very cold
weather I sometimes got down the bag in which corn was carried to the
mill, and got into that. My feet have been so cracked by the frost that
the pen with which I am writing might be laid in the gashes.
"The manner of taking our meals at old master's, indicated but little
refinement. Our corn-meal mush, when sufficiently cooled, was placed in
a large wooden tray, or trough, like those used in making maple sugar
here in the north. This tray 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 they would come, and literally
devour the mush--some with oyster shells, some with pieces of shingles,
and none with spoons. He that ate fastest got most, and he that was
strongest got the best place; and few left the trough really satisfied.
I was the most unlucky of any, for Aunt Katy had no good feeling for
me; and if I pushed any of the other children, or if they told her
anything unfavorable of me, she always believed the worst, and was sure
to whip me."
The effect of all this on his childish mind is thus told:
"As I grew older and more thoughtful, I was more and more filled with
a sense of my wretchedness. The cruelty of Aunt Katy, the hunger and
cold I suffered, and the terrible reports of wrong and outrage which
came to my ear, together with what I almost daily witnessed, led me,
when yet but eight or nine years old, to wish I had never been born. I
used to contrast my condition with 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, it was enough to accept God as a father, to
regard slavery as a crime."
Douglass' remarks on the singing of slaves are very striking. Speaking
of certain days of each month when the slaves from the different farms
came up to the central plantation to get their monthly allowances of
meal and meat, he says that there was always great contention among the
slaves as to who should go up with the ox team for this purpose. He
says:
"Probably the chief motive of the competitors for the place, was a
desire to break the dull 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 his cart, with no overseer to look after him,
the slave was comparatively free; and, if thoughtful, he had time to
think. Slaves are generally expected to sing as well as to work. A
silent slave is not liked by masters or overseers. '_Make a noise_,'
'_make a noise_,' and '_bear a hand_,' are the words usually addressed
to the slaves when there is silence amongst them. This may account
for the almost constant singing heard in the southern states. There
was generally more or less singing among the teamsters, as it was one
means of letting the overseer know where they were, and that they were
moving on with the work. But on allowance day, those who visited the
great house farm were peculiarly excited and noisy. While on their way,
they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate
with their wild notes. These were not always merry because they were
wild. On the contrary, they were mostly of a plaintive cast, and
told a tale of grief and sorrow. In the most boisterous outbursts of
rapturous sentiment, there was ever a tinge of deep melancholy. I have
never heard any songs like those anywhere since I left slavery, except
when in Ireland. There I heard the same _wailing notes_, and was much
affected by them. It was during the famine of 1845-6. In all the songs
of the slaves there was ever some expression in praise of the great
house farm; something which would flatter the pride of the owner and
possibly, draw a favorable glance from him.
"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!
* * * * *
"I did not, when a slave, understand the deep meanings of those rude,
and apparently incoherent songs. I was myself within the circle, so
that I neither saw nor heard as those without might see and hear. They
told a tale which was then altogether beyond my feeble comprehension;
they were tones, loud, long and deep, breathing the prayer and
complaint of souls boiling over with the bitterest anguish. Every tone
was a testimony against slavery, and a prayer to God for deliverance
from chains. The hearing of those wild notes always depressed my
spirits, and filled my heart with ineffable sadness. The mere
recurrence, even now, afflicts my spirit, and while I am writing these
lines, my tears are falling. To those songs I trace my first glimmering
conceptions of the dehumanizing character of slavery. I can never
get rid of that conception. Those songs still follow me, to deepen my
hatred of slavery, and quicken my sympathies for my brethren in bonds."
When Douglass was ten years old a great change took place in his
circumstances. His old master sent him to Baltimore to be a family
servant in the house of a family connection.
He speaks with great affection of his new mistress, Miss Sophia Auld.
It is the southern custom for the slave to address a young married
lady always by this maiden title. She had never before had to do with
a slave child, and seemed to approach him with all the tender feelings
of motherhood. He was to have the care of her own little son, some
years younger, and she seemed to extend maternal tenderness to him. His
clothing, lodging, food were all now those of a favored house boy, and
his employment to run of errands and take care of his little charge,
of whom he was very fond. The kindness and benignity of his mistress
led the little boy to beg her to teach him to read, and the results are
thus given:
"The dear woman began the task, and very soon, by her assistance, I was
master of 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, of her intention to persevere in
teaching me, and of the duty which she felt it to teach me at least
to read _the Bible_. Here arose the first cloud over my Baltimore
prospects, the precursor of drenching rains and chilling blasts.
"Master Hugh was amazed at the simplicity of his spouse, and probably
for the first time, he unfolded to her the true philosophy of
slavery, and the peculiar rules necessary to be observed by masters
and mistresses, in the management of their human chattels. Mr. Auld
promptly forbade the continuance of her instruction; telling her,
in the first place, that the thing itself was unlawful; that it was
also unsafe, and could only lead to mischief. To use his own words,
further, he said, 'If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell;
he should know nothing but the will of his master, and learn to obey
it. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world; if you teach
that nigger'--speaking of myself--'how to read the Bible, there will be
no keeping him; it would forever unfit him for the duties of a slave,
and as to himself, learning would do him no good, but probably a great
deal of harm--making him disconsolate and unhappy. If you learn him now
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 of the true philosophy of training a human chattel;
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 his remarks; and,
like an obedient wife, began to shape her course in the direction
indicated by her husband. The effect of his words _on me_ was neither
slight nor transitory. His iron sentences, cold and harsh, sunk deep
into my heart, and stirred up not only my feelings into a sort of
rebellion, but awakened within me a slumbering train of vital thought.
It 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."
But the desire of learning, once awakened, could not be hushed, and
though Douglass' mistress forebore his teaching, and even became
jealously anxious to prevent his making further progress, he found
means to continue the instruction. With a spelling-book hid away in
his bosom, and a few crackers in his pocket, he continued to get daily
lessons from the street boys at intervals when he went back and forth
on errands. Sometimes the tuition fee was a cracker, and sometimes the
lesson was given in mere boyish good will. At last he made money enough
to buy for himself, secretly, a reading book, "The Columbian Orator."
This book was prepared for schools during the liberty-loving era
succeeding the American revolution, when southern as well as northern
men conspired to reprobate slavery. There consequently young Fred found
most inspiring documents. There was a long conversation between a
master and a slave where a slave defended himself for running away by
quoting the language of the Declaration of Independence. Douglass also
says of this book:
"This, however, was not all the fanaticism which I found in this
Columbian Orator. I met there one of Sheridan's mighty speeches on
the subject of Catholic Emancipation, Lord Chatham's speech on the
American war, and speeches by the great William Pitt and by Fox. These
were all choice documents to me, and I read them over and over again,
with an interest that was 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 frequently flashed through my soul, and died away for want of
utterance."
All this knowledge and expansion of mind, of course produced at first
intellectual gloom and misery. All the results of learning to read,
predicted by the master, had come to pass. He was so morose, so
changed, that his mistress noticed it, and showered reproaches upon him
for his ingratitude. "Poor lady," he says, "she did not know my trouble
and I dared not tell her--her abuse felt like the blows of Balaam on
his poor ass, she did not know that an _angel_ stood in the way."
"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_--that 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 treated them as robbers and
deceivers. The feeding and clothing me well, could not atone for taking
my liberty from me."
About this time Douglass became deeply awakened to religious things,
by the prayers and exhortations of a pious old colored slave who was
a drayman. He could read and his friend could not, but Douglass, now
newly awakened to spiritual things, read the Bible to him, and received
comfort from him. He says, "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, his simple
reply was, '_trust in the Lord_.' When I told him that I was a _slave_
FOR LIFE, he said: 'The Lord can make you free, my dear. All things are
possible with him, only have faith in God. If you want your liberty,
ask the Lord for it in faith, and HE WILL GIVE IT TO YOU.'" Cheered
by this advice, Douglass began to offer daily and earnest prayers for
liberty.
With reference to this he began to turn his thoughts towards acquiring
the art of writing. He was employed as waiter in a ship yard, and
watching the initial letters by which the carpenters marked the
different parts of the ship, and thus in time acquired a large part
of the written alphabet. This knowledge he supplemented by getting
one and another boy of his acquaintance on one pretence or other, to
write words or letters on fences or boards. Then he surreptitiously
copied the examples in his little master's copy-book at home, when
his mistress was safely out of the house, and finally acquired the
dangerous and forbidden gift of writing a fluent, handsome current hand.
He had various reverses after this as he grew in age and developed in
manliness. He was found difficult to manage, and changed from hand
to hand like a vicious intractable horse. Once a celebrated negro
breaker had a hand upon him, meaning to break his will and reduce him
to the condition of a contented animal, but the old story of Pegasus
in harness came to pass. The negro breaker gave him up as a bad case,
and finally his master made a virtue of necessity, and allowed him to
hire his own time. The bargain was that Douglass should pay him three
dollars a week, and make his own bargains, find his own tools, board
and clothe himself. The work was that of caulker in a ship yard. This,
he says, was a hard bargain; for the wear and tear of clothing, the
breakage of tools and expenses of board made it necessary to earn at
least six dollars a week, to keep even with the world, and this per
centage to the master left him nothing beyond a bare living.
But it was a freeman's experience to be able to come and go unwatched,
and before long it enabled him to mature a plan of escape, and the
time at last came when he found himself a free colored citizen of New
Bedford, seeking employment, with the privilege of keeping his wages
for himself. Here, it was that reading for the first time the Lady of
the Lake, he gave himself the name of Douglass, and abandoned forever
the family name of his old slaveholding employer. Instead of a lazy
thriftless young man to be supported by his earnings, he took unto
himself an affectionate and thrifty wife, and became a settled family
man.
He describes the seeking for freeman's work as rapturous excitement.
The thought "I can work, I can earn money, I have no master now to rob
me of my earnings," was a perfect joyous stimulus whenever it arose,
and he says, "I sawed wood, dug cellars, shoveled coal, rolled oil
casks on the wharves, helped to load and unload vessels, worked in
candle works and brass foundries, and thus supported myself for three
years. I was, he says, now living in a new world, and wide awake to its
advantages. I early began to attend meetings of the colored people, in
New Bedford, and to take part in them, and was amazed to see colored
men making speeches, drawing up resolutions, and offering them for
consideration."
His enthusiasm for self-education was constantly stimulated. He
appropriated some of his first earnings to subscribing for the
Liberator, and was soon after introduced to Mr. Garrison. How Garrison
appeared to a liberated slave may be a picture worth preserving, and we
give it in Douglass' own words.
"Seventeen years ago, few men possessed a more heavenly countenance
than William Lloyd Garrison, and few men evinced a more genuine or a
more exalted piety. The Bible was his text book--held sacred, as the
word of the Eternal Father--sinless perfection--complete submission to
insults and injuries--literal obedience to the injunction, if smitten
on one side to turn the other also. Not only was Sunday a Sabbath, but
all days were Sabbaths, and to be kept holy. All sectarism false and
mischievous--the regenerated, throughout the world, members of one
body, and the HEAD Jesus Christ. Prejudice against color was rebellion
against God. Of all men beneath the sky, the slaves, because most
neglected and despised, were nearest and dearest to his great heart.
Those ministers who defended slavery from the Bible, were of their
'father the devil;' and those churches which fellowshipped slaveholders
as Christians, were synagogues of Satan, and our nation was a nation
of liars. Never loud or noisy--calm and serene as a summer sky, and as
pure. 'You are the man, the Moses, raised up by God, to deliver his
modern Israel from bondage,' was the spontaneous feeling of my heart,
as I sat away back in the hall and listened to his mighty words; mighty
in truth--mighty in their simple earnestness."
From this time the course of Douglass is upward. The manifest talents
which he possessed, led the friends of the Anti-Slavery cause to feel
that he could serve it better in a literary career than by manual labor.
In the year 1841, a great anti-slavery convention was held at
Nantucket, where Frederick Douglass appeared on the stage and before a
great audience recounted his experiences. Mr. Garrison followed him,
and an immense enthusiasm was excited--and Douglass says: "That night
there were at least a thousand Garrisonians in Nantucket." After this
the general agent of the Anti-Slavery Society came and offered to
Douglass the position of an agent of that society, with a competent
support to enable him to lecture through the country. Douglass,
continually pursuing the work of self-education, became an accomplished
speaker and writer. He visited England, and was received with great
enthusiasm. The interest excited in him was so great that several
English friends united and paid the sum of one hundred and fifty pounds
sterling, for the purchase of his liberty. This enabled him to pursue
his work of lecturer in the United States, to travel unmolested, and to
make himself every way conspicuous without danger of recapture.
He settled himself in Rochester, and established an Anti-Slavery paper,
called Frederick Douglass' Paper, which bore a creditable character for
literary execution, and had a good number of subscribers in America and
England.
Two of Frederick Douglass' sons were among the first to answer to the
call for colored troops, and fought bravely in the good cause. Douglass
has succeeded in rearing an intelligent and cultivated family, and in
placing himself in the front rank among intelligent and cultivated men.
Few orators among us surpass him, and his history from first to last,
is a comment on the slavery system which speaks for itself.
[Illustration: Phil. H Sheridan]