AMERICAN CRISIS BIOGRAPHIES
Edited by
Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Ph. D.
“=”The American Crisis Biographies“=”
Edited by Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer, Ph.D. With the counsel and advice of
Professor John B. McMaster, of the University of Pennsylvania.
Each 12mo, cloth, with frontispiece portrait. Price $1.25 net; by mail,
$1.37.
These biographies will constitute a complete and comprehensive history
of the great American sectional struggle in the form of readable and
authoritative biography. The editor has enlisted the co-operation of
many competent writers, as will be noted from the list given below. An
interesting feature of the undertaking is that the series is to be
impartial, Southern writers having been assigned to Southern subjects
and Northern writers to Northern subjects, but all will belong to the
younger generation of writers, thus assuring freedom from any
suspicion of wartime prejudice. The Civil War will not be treated as a
rebellion, but as the great event in the history of our nation, which,
after forty years, it is now clearly recognized to have been.
Now ready:
=Abraham Lincoln.= By ELLIS PAXSON OBERHOLTZER.
=Thomas H. Benton.= By JOSEPH M. ROGERS.
=David G. Farragut.= By JOHN R. SPEARS.
=William T. Sherman.= By EDWARD ROBINS.
=Frederick Douglass.= By BOOKER T. WASHINGTON.
=Judah P. Benjamin.= By PIERCE BUTLER.
=Robert E. Lee.= By PHILIP ALEXANDER BRUCE.
=Jefferson Davis.= By PROF. W. E. DODD.
=Alexander H. Stephens.= By LOUIS PENDLETON.
=John C. Calhoun.= By GAILLARD HUNT.
In preparation:
=Daniel Webster.= By PROF. C. H. VAN TYNE.
=John Quincy Adams.= By BROOKS ADAMS.
=John Brown.= By W. E. BURGHARDT DUBOIS.
=William Lloyd Garrison.= By LINDSAY SWIFT.
=Charles Sumner.= By PROF. GEORGE H. HAYNES.
=William H. Seward.= By EDWARD EVERETT HALE, Jr.
=Stephen A. Douglas.= By PROF. HENRY PARKER WILLIS.
=Thaddeus Stevens.= By PROF. J. A. WOODBURN.
=Andrew Johnson.= By PROF. WALTER L. FLEMING.
=Henry Clay.= By THOMAS H. CLAY.
=Ulysses S. Grant.= By PROF. FRANKLIN S. EDMONDS.
=Edwin M. Stanton.= By EDWIN S. CORWIN.
=“Stonewall” Jackson.= By HENRY ALEXANDER WHITE.
=Jay Cooke.= By ELLIS PAXSON OBERHOLTZER.
[Illustration: Frederick Douglass]
AMERICAN CRISIS BIOGRAPHIES
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
by
BOOKER T. WASHINGTON
Author of “Up from Slavery,” “Working with the Hands,” etc.
[Illustration]
PHILADELPHIA
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1906, by
GEORGE W. JACOBS & COMPANY
_Published, February, 1907_
PREFACE
The chance or destiny which brought to this land of ours, and placed in
the midst of the most progressive and the most enlightened race that
Christian civilization has produced, some three or four millions of
primitive black people from Africa and their descendants, has created
one of the most interesting and difficult social problems which any
modern people has had to face. The effort to solve this problem has put
to a crucial test the fundamental principles of our political life and
the most widely accepted tenets of our Christian faith. Frederick
Douglass’s career falls almost wholly within the first period of the
struggle in which this problem has involved the people of this
country,—the period of revolution and liberation. That period is now
closed. We are at present in the period of construction and
readjustment. Many of the animosities engendered by the conflicts and
controversies of half a century ago still survive to confuse the
councils of those who are seeking to live in the present and the future,
rather than in the past. But changes are rapidly coming about that will
remove, or at least greatly modify, these lingering animosities. This
book will have failed of its purpose just so far as anything here said
shall serve to revive or keep alive the bitterness of those
controversies of which it gives the history; it will have attained its
purpose just so far as it aids its readers to comprehend the motives of,
and the men who entered with such passionate earnestness into, the
struggle of which it gives in part a picture—particularly the one man,
the story of whose life is here narrated.
In the succeeding chapters, an effort has been made to present an
account of the life of Frederick Douglass as a slave and as a public man
during the most eventful years of the anti-slavery movement, the Civil
War, the period of reconstruction, and the after years of comparative
freedom from sectional agitation over the “Negro problem.”
To bring this study within the plan and purposes of the American Crisis
Series of Biographies, such subjects as “The Genesis of the Anti-Slavery
Agitation,” “The Fugitive Slave Law,” “The Underground Railway,” “The
American Colonization Society,” “The Conflict in Kansas for Free Soil,”
“The John Brown Raid,” “The Civil War,” “The Enlistment of Colored
Troops,” and “Reconstruction,” have been given more space than they have
received in earlier biographies.
While it is true that Frederick Douglass would have been a notable
character in any period, it is also true that in the life of hardly any
other man was there comprehended so great a variety of incidents of what
is perhaps the most memorable epoch in our history. The mere personal
side of Douglass’s life, though romantic and interesting, is here
treated only in outline.
S. Laing Williams, of Chicago, Ill., and his wife, Fannie Barrier
Williams, have been of incalculable service in the preparation of this
volume. Mr. Williams enjoyed a long and intimate acquaintance with Mr.
Douglass, and I have been privileged to draw heavily upon his fund of
information. He and Mrs. Williams have reviewed this manuscript since
its preparation and have given it their cordial approval.
In addition to these sources of information, I wish to make grateful
acknowledgment of my indebtedness to Major Charles R. Douglass for the
use of many printed addresses, and for interesting data showing his
father’s work in the Underground Railway.
I must also acknowledge my sense of gratitude for the opportunity
afforded in this work of getting close to the heart and life of this
great leader of my race. No Negro can read and study the life of
Frederick Douglass without deriving from it courage to look up and
forward.
CONTENTS
CHRONOLOGY 11
I. FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE SLAVE 15
II. BACK TO PLANTATION-LIFE 33
III. ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY; LEARNING THE WAYS OF FREEDOM 54
IV. BEGINNING OF HIS PUBLIC CAREER 69
V. SLAVERY AND ANTI-SLAVERY 83
VI. SEEKS REFUGE IN ENGLAND 99
VII. HOME AGAIN AS A FREEMAN—NEW PROBLEMS AND NEW TRIUMPHS 116
VIII. FREE COLORED PEOPLE AND COLONIZATION 139
IX. THE UNDERGROUND RAILWAY AND THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW 157
X. DOUGLASS, HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND JOHN BROWN 174
XI. FOREBODINGS OF THE CRISIS 195
XII. DOUGLASS’S SERVICES IN THE CIVIL WAR 217
XIII. EARLY PROBLEMS OF FREEDOM 245
XIV. SHARING THE RESPONSIBILITIES AND HONORS OF FREEDOM 273
XV. FURTHER EVIDENCES OF POPULAR ESTEEM, WITH GLIMPSES INTO THE
PAST 302
XVI. FINAL HONORS TO THE LIVING AND TRIBUTES TO THE DEAD 334
BIBLIOGRAPHY 353
INDEX 355
CHRONOLOGY
1817— February. Born on a plantation at Tuckahoe, near the town of
Easton, Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland; the
exact date not known. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was the slave
of Captain Aaron Anthony, the manager of the estate of Colonel
Edward Lloyd.
1825— Sent to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld, a relative of his
master.
1833— Returns to Maryland and becomes the slave of Thomas Auld, at St.
Michaels, Talbot County; while here he has an encounter with
the Negro slave-breaker, Covey.
1836— First attempt to run away results in his being sent back to
Baltimore where he is apprenticed by Thomas Auld to William
Gardiner of Fells Point, to learn the trade of ship-calker.
1838— September 3d. Makes his escape from Baltimore, reaching New York
the next day. September 15th, according to the marriage
certificate, possibly a day earlier, he marries a free colored
woman, Anna Murray, who on receiving the news of his escape
follows him to New York. They are directed to New Bedford,
Mass., by Anti-Slavery friends where Douglass begins his life
as a freeman. He changes his name from Frederick Augustus
Washington Bailey, to Frederick Douglass.
1841— August 11th. Makes his first speech before an Anti-Slavery
convention and becomes a lecturer in the Anti-Slavery cause.
1842— Participates in the campaign for equal rights in Rhode Island
during the “Dorr Rebellion.”
1843— Takes part in the campaign of “A Hundred Anti-Slavery
Conventions”; his hand broken in a fight with a mob at
Pendleton, Indiana.
1845— Writes, in order to prove that he is what he proclaims himself,
a fugitive slave, _Narrative of Frederick Douglass_, giving
the names of his owners. This book was published by the
Anti-Slavery Society. August 16th, sails for Liverpool,
England, lest the publication of his biography should lead to
his capture and reënslavement. He is received with enthusiasm
in England and his freedom is purchased by two members of the
Society of Friends.
1846— August 7th. Addresses the “World’s Temperance Convention” at
Covent Garden Theatre, London. December 5th, the papers are
signed which grant him his freedom.
1847— April 20th. Reaches America again. December 3d, the first issue
of the _North Star_, subsequently _Frederick Douglass’s Paper_,
is published, he having first removed to Rochester, N. Y.
Following its establishment came his rupture with Garrison and
the Abolitionist wing of the Anti-Slavery party.
1848— September. Delivers an address before a colored convention at
Cleveland, O., on farming and industrial education.
1851— Announces his sympathies with the voting Abolitionists.
1852— Supports the Free Soil party and is elected a delegate from
Rochester to the Free Soil Convention at Pittsburg, Pa.
1853— Visits Harriet Beecher Stowe at Andover, Mass., with reference to
the forming of an industrial school for colored youth.
1855— _My Bondage and My Freedom_ published in New York and Auburn.
1856— Supports Frémont, the candidate of the Republican party, for
President.
1858— _Douglass’s Monthly_ is established. Its publication is continued
until 1864.
1859— August 20th. Visits John Brown at Chambersburg, Pa. This was his
last interview with the old Anti-Slavery hero before the attack
on Harper’s Ferry, three weeks later. At this interview John
Brown made a final effort to induce him to join in the
dangerous enterprise.
1859— November 12th. Sails from Quebec on his second visit to England.
This trip is undertaken because he is in danger of being
implicated in the plot to cause an uprising of the slaves for
which John Brown had already been executed.
1860— Returns to the United States, called home by the death of his
daughter, Anna.
1860— December 3d. Attempts to speak in Tremont Temple, Boston, but the
meeting is broken up.
1863— Publishes in _Douglass’s Monthly_ his address to colored men
urging them to enlist in the Federal Army. He is instrumental
in forming the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts
Regiments of colored soldiers. Subsequently he visits President
Lincoln to secure fair treatment of the colored soldiers and is
promised, by Secretary Stanton, a commission as Assistant
Adjutant to General Thomas, which, however, he does not
receive.
1866— February 7th. Interviews President Johnson to urge upon him the
wisdom of granting the suffrage to the freedmen. Issues shortly
afterward an address in reply to President Johnson’s argument
against granting the suffrage to Negroes. In September, is
elected a delegate to the “National Loyalists’ Convention” in
Philadelphia.
1869— Becomes editor of the _New National Era_ which he continued to
edit until 1872, at a pecuniary loss of about $10,000.
1871— Visits San Domingo as Secretary to the Commission, consisting of
B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe and Andrew D. White, to determine
the attitude of that country toward annexation to the United
States. He is appointed a member of the upper house of the
territorial legislature of Washington, D. C., but shortly
resigns his position in favor of his son, Lewis. May 30th, he
delivers the Decoration Day address at Arlington National
Cemetery. Becomes president of the “Freedmen’s Savings and
Trust Company.”
1872— April. Presides at the National Convention of colored citizens
held in New Orleans. Chosen elector-at-large from the State of
New York on the Presidential ticket which elected General Grant
to a second term and is afterward designated to carry the vote
of the electoral college of New York to Washington.
1876— April 14th. Delivers an address at the unveiling of the Lincoln
Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C.
1877— Appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia, which office he
held until 1881.
1878— May. Visits St. Michaels and is reconciled to his old master,
Thomas Auld.
1879— September 12th. Reads a paper before the American Social Science
Association in which he opposes the Negro exodus to Kansas.
1881— May. Appointed Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia.
June 12th, visits the Lloyd plantation.
1882— January. _Life and Times of Frederick Douglass_ published. August
4th, his first wife dies: she was the mother of five children.
1884— January 24th. Marries Miss Helen Pitts, of New York.
1889— Appointed Minister and Consul General to Hayti.
1893— Commissioner for the Haytian Republic at the World’s Fair at
Chicago. Makes an address on Negro Day at the Fair.
1895— February 20th. Dies at his home at Cedar Hill, Washington. Buried
with honors from the Metropolitan Church (African Methodist
Episcopal); public services being held subsequently in
Rochester. His body finally interred beside those of his wife
and daughter, in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, N. Y.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
CHAPTER I
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, THE SLAVE
The life of Frederick Douglass is the history of American slavery
epitomized in a single human experience. He saw it all, lived it all,
and overcame it all. What he saw and lived and suffered was not too much
to pay, however, for a great career. “It is something,” as he himself
said, “to couple one’s name with great occasions, and it was a great
thing to me to be permitted to bear some humble part in this, the
greatest that had come thus far to the American people.”
Tradition says he was of noble lineage, but of this there is no written
record. 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. The exact date of his birth was made the subject of
diligent search by him in the days of his manhood and freedom, but
nothing more definite than the month and year could be established. He
gleaned so much as this, he says, “from certain events, the date of
which I have since learned.”
In the early life of this child of slave birth, there were several
incidents that seemed to mark him for a high destiny. The very
pretentiousness of the name he bore, Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey, was a possible indication of something unusual and promising in
his appearance and demeanor. Though it is not known who was his father,
it is fortunate that, out of the many uncertainties of his lowly origin,
a reasonably clear outline of the personality of his mother has come to
light and has been preserved. We cannot know her name or pedigree. The
slave-child saw little of his slave-mother, but he made a great deal of
this little. His references to her were frequent in his writings and
public addresses, and they all indicate the pride and love of a heart
true to its primal instincts.
While he was a child, his mother was employed on a plantation, a
distance of twelve miles from Tuckahoe. Her only opportunity of seeing
her son was by walking the distance after her day’s work, to return to
the field of her labors by dawn of the next day. To use his own
language: “These little glimpses of my mother obtained under such
circumstances and against such odds, meagre as they were, are indelibly
stamped upon my memory. She was tall and finely proportioned; of dark
and glossy complexion, with regular features; and among slaves she was
remarkably sedate and dignified. She was the only slave in Tuckahoe who
could read.” That she was a woman of marked superiority, and that her
child inherited from her much that raised him above the other slaves
among whom he lived, can be easily believed. When he had grown to
manhood and while reading Prichard’s _Natural History of Man_, he found
in the features of “King Rameses the Great” a strong resemblance to his
mother. There were four other children, one boy named Perry and three
girls. So far as is known, the brother and sisters showed none of the
marks of superiority that distinguished Frederick Augustus Washington
Bailey.
Whatever training Frederick had up to eight years of age, he received
from his Grandmother Bailey. It was in her cabin that he was born, and
it was by her that he was cared for and nourished. He was very fond of
this grandmother and has paid an affectionate tribute to her memory. She
was a woman of strong character and of unusual intelligence. There were
many things that she could do uncommonly well, such as gardening, and
her good luck in fishing was proverbial. She was also famed as a
fortune-teller and as such was sought far and wide by all classes of
people. Because of her intelligence and natural gifts, she was allowed
many privileges and a great deal of liberty; in her old age she was
amply provided for by her master, and saved from hard toil. Judging from
his frequent and fond references to his grandmother, young Douglass had
better care and more attention than the ordinary slave-child; he
probably had plenty to eat, and was taught good manners. Whatever it was
possible for an impressionable mind to gain from contact with a strong
and vigorous nature, the lad received from this unusual woman.
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 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.
The owner of Fred and of his mother, grandmother, sisters, and brother,
was Captain Aaron Anthony. He was the proprietor of several plantations
and about thirty slaves near Tuckahoe. But Captain Anthony was something
more, and this fact became important in the subsequent history of young
Frederick Bailey; he had the distinction of being the manager of the
vast estate of Colonel Edward Lloyd, who belonged to one of the foremost
families of Maryland, and who owned between twenty and thirty
plantations with over one thousand slaves. His home was on a plantation
situated about thirty-five miles southeast of Baltimore and on the banks
of the Wye River, the mansion and its surroundings being typical of the
splendor and power of the wealthy slave-holder. When young Douglass
first gazed upon all these signs of wealth, he says: “I became impressed
with the baronial splendors of the Lloyd mansion and the princely mode
of living; the vast army of enslaved men, women, and children; the
completeness of the government that made it almost impossible for any of
these slaves to escape; the subordination of my own master; the great
number of mechanics that were skilled in all the trades, and the tutors
from New England that were hired to teach the Lloyd children.”
Near the mansion stood the plain but commodious home of Fred’s master,
Captain Anthony. The Anthony family consisted of Mrs. Lucretia Anthony,
the wife; Richard and Fred Anthony, sons; and an only daughter,
Lucretia, who became the wife of Captain Thomas Auld.
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.
Young Douglass had begun to feel the burden of slavery and already had a
dim consciousness of its fundamental injustice, but up to this point, he
had known no other world than this immense plantation, and no other
people than these masters, overseers, and slaves. His horizon was
further enlarged and his imagination quickened by talking with certain
Negroes on the Lloyd plantation, who could recall the event of their
being brought from far-off Africa in slave-ships. Speaking of his own
state of feeling at this time, he says: “I was already a fugitive from
slavery in spirit and purpose.”
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. He was fortunate, however, in having two friends, who
often saved him from the pangs of hunger, and who now and then gave him
a word of kindness. One was young Daniel Lloyd, of the “great house,”
and the other, Miss Lucretia, his master’s daughter. This lady seems to
have had a real fondness for the boy, and would often give him something
good to eat and at times caress him in such a way as to recall to his
mind the few blessed moments he had known with his mother. Young Lloyd
also often protected him from the impositions of other boys.
To show how far the lad had advanced in his thinking, it is well to
quote his own words on this point: “I used to contrast my condition with
that of the blackbirds, in whose world and sweet songs, I fancied them
so happy. Their apparent joy only deepened the shadows of my sorrow.
There are thoughtful days in the lives of children, at least there were
in mine, when they grapple with all the primary subjects of knowledge,
and reach in a moment conclusions which no subsequent experience can
shake. I was just as well convinced of the unjust, unnatural, and
murderous character of slavery when nine years old, as I am now (1881).
Without any appeal to books, to laws, or to authorities of any kind, I
came to regard God as our Father, and condemned slavery as a crime.”
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 an 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 streets. 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.”
But if his hopes and aspirations were excited by the vast and vague
horizon which the thought of emancipation opened to him, he was, on the
other hand, driven to something like despair when he considered how
distant and inaccessible was this “land of freedom” of which he dreamed.
The nearer and clearer appeared to him the possibility of this larger
life, the more torturing became the restraints that kept him from
seeking it. It was when thus pursuing in thought this phantom of a
greater world although at the same time in despair of ever attaining it,
that he found peace for a while in the consolation of religion. His
imagination had been aroused by the preaching of a white minister, a
Methodist, named Hanson. Feeling himself wretched and alone, he was in a
state of mind, as so many others have been before and since, to find
comfort in the thought of a kindly and overshadowing Power, a Protector
to whom he might turn, in his great distress, without reserve and
without misgiving. He surrendered himself completely to this new faith
in God. In his search for more light, he met a lasting friend and guide
in the person of a colored preacher to whom he fondly refers as “Uncle
Lawson.” This good and pious old man lived very near the home of Mr.
Auld. Young Douglass said of him: “He was my spiritual father. I loved
him intensely, and was at his house every chance I could get.”
Douglass’s master and mistress knew that he had become religious, and
though they were at that time but lukewarm in their support of the
church, they respected the piety in the young slave and seem to have
encouraged it. But unfortunately the boy’s interest in religion had
increased his desire to read, in order to become thoroughly acquainted
with the Bible. “I have gathered,” says Mr. Douglass, “scattered pages
of the Bible from the filthy street gutters, and washed and dried them,
that in moments of leisure I might get a word or two of wisdom from
them.”
Uncle Lawson could read a little and Douglass, who went frequently with
him to prayer meeting, spent much of his spare time on Sunday helping
him decipher its pages. When his master learned what he was doing, he
threatened to whip him if he went to Lawson’s again, but he stole away
whenever he could and got his needed instruction in the simple lessons
of faith.
Uncle Lawson was probably the first colored person that young Douglass
had met who appreciated his longings and powers. He was also the first
person who awakened in him a dim consciousness that he was destined for
a public career. Speaking of this, Douglass once said: “His words made a
deep impression upon me, and I verily felt that some such work was
before me, though I could not see how I could ever engage in its
performance.” The old preacher could go no further than to give
utterance to the familiar exhortations: “Trust in the Lord, the Lord can
make you free”; “Ask in faith and He will give you what you ask.” The
boy’s great respect for the honesty and piety of Uncle Lawson lent these
words a deep significance, and he never forgot the lessons that he
learned from this simple-minded man. How important was this teaching is
evidenced by Mr. Douglass’s own testimony: “Thus assisted and thus
cheered on under the inspiration of the preacher, I worked and prayed
with a light heart, believing that my life was under the guidance of a
wisdom higher than my own. I always prayed that God would in His great
good mercy and His own good time, deliver me from my bondage.” 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
slave-masters 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. This was a depressing incident in his slave-life. It
is true that Mr. and Mrs. Auld were not at this time as gentle with him
as when he first came to the city. He was under stricter discipline, was
constantly watched, and his liberties were circumscribed in many ways
that were both inconvenient and irritating. But in spite of all this he
was comparatively free from the usual severities of slavery. He had many
interests and many happy relationships that he was able to cultivate
outside of the Auld household. He had become something of a leader among
the young colored men of the city. He had taught many of them their
letters. Among the white boys of his acquaintance he also had a large
circle of friends, who loved him and were loyal to him. Most important
of all was his affection for his religious teacher, Uncle Lawson.
Through these attachments in the more complex life of the city, and the
opportunities for mental and spiritual growth which they offered, he was
able to throw off to a great degree the gloom and doubt of his earlier
youth. He had begun to feel that he was actually preparing himself for
that larger life of leadership in freedom, that had been hinted to him
by Uncle Lawson. But all these happy relations were rudely severed when
he was recalled to the plantation.
“It did seem,” he said, “that every time the young tendrils of my
affection became attached, they were rigidly broken off by some
unnatural, outside power, and I was looking away to Heaven for the rest
denied to me on earth.”