FIRST SPEECH AT NANTUCKET—MUCH SENSATION—EXTRAORDINARY SPEECH OF MR.
GARRISON—AUTHOR BECOMES A PUBLIC LECTURER—FOURTEEN YEARS
EXPERIENCE—YOUTHFUL ENTHUSIASM—A BRAND NEW FACT—MATTER OF MY AUTHOR’S
SPEECH—COULD NOT FOLLOW THE PROGRAMME—FUGITIVE SLAVESHIP DOUBTED—TO
SETTLE ALL DOUBT I WRITE MY EXPERIENCE OF SLAVERY—DANGER OF RECAPTURE
INCREASED.
In the summer of 1841, a grand anti-slavery convention was held in
Nantucket, under the auspices of Mr. Garrison and his friends. Until
now, I had taken no holiday since my escape from slavery. Having worked
very hard that spring and summer, in Richmond’s brass
foundery—sometimes working all night as well as all day—and needing a
day or two of rest, I attended this convention, never supposing that I
should take part in the proceedings. Indeed, I was not aware that any
one connected with the convention even so much as knew my name. I was,
however, quite mistaken. Mr. William C. Coffin, a prominent
abolitionst(sic) in those days of trial, had heard me speaking to my
colored friends, in the little school house on Second street, New
Bedford, where we worshiped. He sought me out in the crowd, and invited
me to say a few words to the convention. Thus sought out, and thus
invited, I was induced to speak out the feelings inspired by the
occasion, and the fresh recollection of the scenes through which I had
passed as a slave. My speech on this occasion is about the only one I
ever made, of which I do not remember a single connected sentence. It
was with the utmost difficulty that I could stand erect, or that I
could command and articulate two words without hesitation and
stammering. I trembled in every limb. I am not sure that my
embarrassment was not the most effective part of my speech, if speech
it could be called. At any rate, this is about the only part of my
performance that I now distinctly remember. But excited and convulsed
as I was, the audience, though remarkably quiet before, became as much
excited as myself. Mr. Garrison followed me, taking me as his text; and
now, whether I had made an eloquent speech in behalf of freedom or not,
his was one never to be forgotten by those who heard it. Those who had
heard Mr. Garrison oftenest, and had known him longest, were
astonished. It was an effort of unequaled power, sweeping down, like a
very tornado, every opposing barrier, whether of sentiment or opinion.
For a moment, he possessed that almost fabulous inspiration, often
referred to but seldom attained, in which a public meeting is
transformed, as it were, into a single individuality—the orator
wielding a thousand heads and hearts at once, and by the simple majesty
of his all controlling thought, converting his hearers into the express
image of his own soul. That night there were at least one thousand
Garrisonians in Nantucket! A(sic) the close of this great meeting, I
was duly waited on by Mr. John A. Collins—then the general agent of the
Massachusetts anti-slavery society—and urgently solicited by him to
become an agent of that society, and to publicly advocate its
anti-slavery principles. I was reluctant to take the proffered
position. I had not been quite three years from slavery—was honestly
distrustful of my ability—wished to be excused; publicity exposed me to
discovery and arrest by my master; and other objections came up, but
Mr. Collins was not to be put off, and I finally consented to go out
for three months, for I supposed that I should have got to the end of
my story and my usefulness, in that length of time.
Here opened upon me a new life a life for which I had had no
preparation. I was a “graduate from the peculiar institution,” Mr.
Collins used to say, when introducing me, _“with my diploma written on
my back!”_ The three years of my freedom had been spent in the hard
school of adversity. My hands had been furnished by nature with
something like a solid leather coating, and I had bravely marked out
for myself a life of rough labor, suited to the hardness of my hands,
as a means of supporting myself and rearing my children.
Now what shall I say of this fourteen years’ experience as a public
advocate of the cause of my enslaved brothers and sisters? The time is
but as a speck, yet large enough to justify a pause for
retrospection—and a pause it must only be.
Young, ardent, and hopeful, I entered upon this new life in the full
gush of unsuspecting enthusiasm. The cause was good; the men engaged in
it were good; the means to attain its triumph, good; Heaven’s blessing
must attend all, and freedom must soon be given to the pining millions
under a ruthless bondage. My whole heart went with the holy cause, and
my most fervent prayer to the Almighty Disposer of the hearts of men,
were continually offered for its early triumph. “Who or what,” thought
I, “can withstand a cause so good, so holy, so indescribably glorious.
The God of Israel is with us. The might of the Eternal is on our side.
Now let but the truth be spoken, and a nation will start forth at the
sound!” In this enthusiastic spirit, I dropped into the ranks of
freedom’s friends, and went forth to the battle. For a time I was made
to forget that my skin was dark and my hair crisped. For a time I
regretted that I could not have shared the hardships and dangers
endured by the earlier workers for the slave’s release. I soon,
however, found that my enthusiasm had been extravagant; that hardships
and dangers were not yet passed; and that the life now before me, had
shadows as well as sunbeams.
Among the first duties assigned me, on entering the ranks, was to
travel, in company with Mr. George Foster, to secure subscribers to the
_Anti-slavery Standard_ and the _Liberator_. With him I traveled and
lectured through the eastern counties of Massachusetts. Much interest
was awakened—large meetings assembled. Many came, no doubt, from
curiosity to hear what a Negro could say in his own cause. I was
generally introduced as a _“chattel”—_a_“thing”_—a piece of southern
_“property”_—the chairman assuring the audience that _it_ could speak.
Fugitive slaves, at that time, were not so plentiful as now; and as a
fugitive slave lecturer, I had the advantage of being a _“brand new
fact”_—the first one out. Up to that time, a colored man was deemed a
fool who confessed himself a runaway slave, not only because of the
danger to which he exposed himself of being retaken, but because it was
a confession of a very _low_ origin! Some of my colored friends in New
Bedford thought very badly of my wisdom for thus exposing and degrading
myself. The only precaution I took, at the beginning, to prevent Master
Thomas from knowing where I was, and what I was about, was the
withholding my former name, my master’s name, and the name of the state
and county from which I came. During the first three or four months, my
speeches were almost exclusively made up of narrations of my own
personal experience as a slave. “Let us have the facts,” said the
people. So also said Friend George Foster, who always wished to pin me
down to my simple narrative. “Give us the facts,” said Collins, “we
will take care of the philosophy.” Just here arose some embarrassment.
It was impossible for me to repeat the same old story month after
month, and to keep up my interest in it. It was new to the people, it
is true, but it was an old story to me; and to go through with it night
after night, was a task altogether too mechanical for my nature. “Tell
your story, Frederick,” would whisper my then revered friend, William
Lloyd Garrison, as I stepped upon the platform. I could not always
obey, for I was now reading and thinking. New views of the subject were
presented to my mind. It did not entirely satisfy me to _narrate_
wrongs; I felt like _denouncing_ them. I could not always curb my moral
indignation for the perpetrators of slaveholding villainy, long enough
for a circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost
everybody must know. Besides, I was growing, and needed room. “People
won’t believe you ever was a slave, Frederick, if you keep on this
way,” said Friend Foster. “Be yourself,” said Collins, “and tell your
story.” It was said to me, “Better have a _little_ of the plantation
manner of speech than not; ‘tis not best that you seem too learned.”
These excellent friends were actuated by the best of motives, and were
not altogether wrong in their advice; and still I must speak just the
word that seemed to _me_ the word to be spoken _by_ me.
At last the apprehended trouble came. People doubted if I had ever been
a slave. They said I did not talk like a slave, look like a slave, nor
act like a slave, and that they believed I had never been south of
Mason and Dixon’s line. “He don’t tell us where he came from—what his
master’s name was—how he got away—nor the story of his experience.
Besides, he is educated, and is, in this, a contradiction of all the
facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves.” Thus, I was in a
pretty fair way to be denounced as an impostor. The committee of the
Massachusetts anti-slavery society knew all the facts in my case, and
agreed with me in the prudence of keeping them private. They,
therefore, never doubted my being a genuine fugitive; but going down
the aisles of the churches in which I spoke, and hearing the free
spoken Yankees saying, repeatedly, _“He’s never been a slave, I’ll
warrant ye_,” I resolved to dispel all doubt, at no distant day, by
such a revelation of facts as could not be made by any other than a
genuine fugitive.
In a little less than four years, therefore, after becoming a public
lecturer, I was induced to write out the leading facts connected with
my experience in slavery, giving names of persons, places, and
dates—thus putting it in the power of any who doubted, to ascertain the
truth or falsehood of my story of being a fugitive slave. This
statement soon became known in Maryland, and I had reason to believe
that an effort would be made to recapture me.
It is not probable that any open attempt to secure me as a slave could
have succeeded, further than the obtainment, by my master, of the money
value of my bones and sinews. Fortunately for me, in the four years of
my labors in the abolition cause, I had gained many friends, who would
have suffered themselves to be taxed to almost any extent to save me
from slavery. It was felt that I had committed the double offense of
running away, and exposing the secrets and crimes of slavery and
slaveholders. There was a double motive for seeking my
reenslavement—avarice and vengeance; and while, as I have said, there
was little probability of successful recapture, if attempted openly, I
was constantly in danger of being spirited away, at a moment when my
friends could render me no assistance. In traveling about from place to
place—often alone I was much exposed to this sort of attack. Any one
cherishing the design to betray me, could easily do so, by simply
tracing my whereabouts through the anti-slavery journals, for my
meetings and movements were promptly made known in advance. My true
friends, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, had no faith in the power of
Massachusetts to protect me in my right to liberty. Public sentiment
and the law, in their opinion, would hand me over to the tormentors.
Mr. Phillips, especially, considered me in danger, and said, when I
showed him the manuscript of my story, if in my place, he would throw
it into the fire. Thus, the reader will observe, the settling of one
difficulty only opened the way for another; and that though I had
reached a free state, and had attained position for public usefulness,
I ws(sic) still tormented with the liability of losing my liberty. How
this liability was dispelled, will be related, with other incidents, in
the next chapter.