Frederick Douglass - Read By Ossie Davis (1966)

I was born a slave in Tuckahoe near Hillsboro and about 12 miles from Easton and Tobit County Maryland I have no accurate knowledge of my age by far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses nor of theirs and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves the Cygnet I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell his birthday they seldom come nearer to it than planting time harvest time cherry time springtime or fall time from various enquiries I have made I have determined that I was born sometime in February in the year 1817 my mother was named Harriet Bailey and she was a slave she was of a very dark complexion of my father I know nothing slaver has no recognition of follows as none of families that the mother is a slave is enough for its deadly purpose by its laws the child follows the condition of its mother the father may be a freeman and the child a slave I do not recollect ever seeing my mother by the light of day she was with me in the night she would lie down with me and get me to sleep but long before I waked she was gone once she walked 12 miles to see me and had the same distance to travel again before the morning sunrise death soon ended what little communication we had between us and with it her hardships and suffering she died when I was but seven years old on one of my Master's farms I was not allowed to be present during her illness at her death or her burial she was gone long before I knew anything about it I've had two masters my first master's name with Anthony I do not remember his first name he was generally called Captain Anthony a title which I presume he acquired by sailing a craft on the Chesapeake Bay he owned two or three farms and about 30 slaves want of food was my chief trouble under captain Anthony I've often been so pinched with hunger as to dispute with old Knepp the dog for the crumbs which fell from the kitchen table many times have I followed with eager step the waiting girl when she shook the tablecloth to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the dogs and cats it was a great thing to have the privilege of dipping a piece of bread into the water in which meat had been boiled and the skin taken from the rusty bacon was a positive luxury I suffered all so much from cold and hottest summer and coldest winter I was kept almost naked no shoes no stockings no jacket no trousers nothing but a coarse tow-linen shirt reaching only to my knees I had no bed I must have perished with cold but that the coldest nights I used to steal a bag which was used for carrying corn to the mill I would crawl into this bag and there sleep on the cold damp clay floor with my head in and feet out my feet have been so cracked with the frost that a pin might be laid in the gashes my Master's farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer the overseers name was plumber mr. plumber was a miserable drunkard a profane swearer and a savage monster he always went armed with a cow skin and a heavy cudgel I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly that even master would be enraged at his cruelty and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself master however was not a humane slave holder it required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him he was a cruel man hardened by a long life of slaveholding slaves were expected to sing as well as to work a silent slave was not liked either by masters or overseers make a noise there make a noise there and bare a hand the words usually addressed to slaves when they were silent the remark was often made that slaves were the most contented and happy labourers in the world and their singing was referred to and proof of this alleged fact but it was a great mistake to suppose them happy because they sometime made these joyful noises the songs of the slaves represented their sorrows rather than Joy's they told a tale of woe they breathed the prayer and complained of souls boiling over with bitterest anguish every tone was a testimony against slavery and a prayer to God for deliverance from chains to these songs I traced my first glimmering conception of the dehumanizing character of slavery I was probably between 7 & 8 years old when I left Captain Anthony to live in Baltimore with mr. Hugh auld my second master mrs. auld was a woman of the kindest heart and finest feeling but slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these excellent qualities very soon after I went to live with mr. and mrs. auld she very kindly commenced to teach me the ABC after I learned these she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters just at this point of my progress mr. all found out what was going on and at once for bad mrs. old to instruct me further telling her among other things that it was unlawful as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read it will forever unfit him to be a slave he said he will at once become unmanageable and of no value to his master these words sank deep into my heart from that moment I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom though conscious with the difficulty of learning without a teacher I set out with high hope and a fixed purpose at whatever cost of trouble to learn how to read but now my former teacher became my greatest enemy she became even more violent in her opposition to my learning to read than her husband him she was not satisfied with simply halting my lessons as her husband had commanded nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper I have had her rush at me with a face made up all of fury and snatched from me a newspaper in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension the plan which I adopted was that of making friends of the little white boys I met in the street as many of these as I could I converted into teachers with their kindly Aid obtained at different times and in different places I finally succeeded in learning to read when I was sent on errands I always took my book with me and by going one part of my errands quickly I found time to get a lesson before my return I was now about twelve years old and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart I resolved to run away I looked forward to a time when it would be safe for me to escape I was too young to think of doing so immediately besides I wish to learn how to write as I might have occasion to write my own pass I consoled myself that I should one day find a good chance meanwhile I would learn to write the ideas as to how I might learn to write was suggested to me by being in Durgan and Bailey's shipyard and frequently seeing the ship's carpenter after hewing and getting a piece of timber ready for use right on the timber the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended when a piece of timber was intended for the law but side it would be marked thus L when a piece was for the starboard side it would be marked at thus s a piece for the lob at side forward would be marked thus L F when a piece was for the starboard side forward it would be marked thus l a for starboard aft it would be marked thus s eight I soon learned the names of these letters and for what they were intended when placed upon a piece of timber in the shipyard I immediately began copying them and in a short time was able to make the four letters named after that when I met with any boy who I knew could write I would tell him I could write as well as he the next word would be I don't believe you let me see you try it I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn and ask him to beep that in this way I got a good many lessons in writing which is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way during this time my copybook was the board fence brick wall and pavement my pen and ink was a lump of chalk with these I learned mainly how to write I then began and continued copying the letters in Webster spelling book until I could make them all out without looking at the book thus after a long tedious effort for years I finally succeeded in learning how to write in March 1832 I left Baltimore to live with Thomas auld a brother of my master Hugh auld my new master and I had quite a number of differences he found me unsuitable to his purpose my city life in Baltimore he said had had a very pernicious effect upon me it had almost ruined me he claimed for use as a slave during the first nine months I lived with him he gave me a number of severe clippings to break my spirit all to no good purpose finally he resolved to put me out as he said to be broken and for this purpose he hired me for one year to a man named Edward Covey who enjoyed the reputation of being a first-rate hand at breaking young Negroes some slaveholders started an advantage to allow mr. cover to have their slaves for one year or two almost free of charge for the sake of the excellent training they had under his management I left master Thomas's house and went to live with mr. Covey on the 1st of January 1833 I was now for the first time in my life a field hand I had been at my new home but one week before mr. Covey gave me a very severe whipping cutting my back causing the blood to run and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger I lived with mr. Covey one year during the first six months of that year scarce a week passed without his whipping me I was seldom free from a sore back if at any one time of my life more than another I was made to drink the bitterest dregs of slavery that time was during the first six months of my stay with mr. Covey then suddenly my situation changed how did this happen one morning long before daylight I was called to go and rub curry and feed the horses I obeyed and was glad to obey but while thus engaged while in the act of throwing down some blades from the loft mr. Covey entered the stable with the long rope and just as I was half out of the law he caught hold of my legs and was about to tie me as soon as I found what he was up to a sudden determination to resist seized me I gave a quick spring and as I did so he holding to my legs I was brought sprawling on the stable floor mr. kovitch seemed not to think he had me and could do what he pleased but at this moment from whence came the spirit I don't know I resolved to fight and suiting my action to the resolution I seized cover hard by the throat and as I did so I rose he held on to me and I to him we were at it for nearly two hours Kavi at length let me go puffing and blowing in a great rate saying that if I had not resisted he would not have whipped me half so much the truth was that he had not whipped me at all I considered him as getting entirely the worst end of the bargain for he had drawn no blood from me but I had from him the whole six months afterwards that I spent with mr. Kovic he never laid the weight of his finger upon me in anger he would occasionally say he didn't want to get hold of me again no thought I you need not for you will come off worse than you did before this battle with mister covey was the turning point in my career as a slave it rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom and revived within me a sense of my own manhood it recalled the departed self-confidence and inspired me again with the determination to be free the gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow even death itself he only can understand the deep satisfaction I experienced who has himself repelled by force the bloody arm of slavery I felt as I never felt before it was a glorious resurrection from the tomb of slavery to the heaven of freedom my lung crushed spirit rose cowardice departed bold defiance took its place and I now resolved that however long I might remain a slave in form the day had passed forever when I could be a slave in fact I did not hesitate to let it be known of me that the white man who expected to succeed and whipping must also succeed in killing me from this time I was never again what might be called fairly whipped though I remained a slave for years afterwards I had several fights but was never whipped as I became more difficult to manage as a slave it was decided to send me back to my old home in Baltimore it was from this city in the year 1838 that I escaped from slavery in the early part of that year I became quite Restless my master had hired me out as a ship corker for which work I was paid wages which I had to turn over to my master I could see no reason why I should at the end of each week pour the reward of my toil into the purse of my master when I care it to him my weekly wage he after counting the money look me in the face with a robber like fierceness and ask is that all he was satisfied with nothing less than the last cent he would however when I made him $6.00 sometimes give me six cents to encourage me it had the opposite effect I regarded it as a sort of admission of my right to the whole the fact that he gave me any part of my wages was proof to my mind that he believed me entitled to the whole of them I always felt worse for having received anything for I feared that the giving me a few cents would ease his conscience and make him feel himself to be a pretty honorable sort of robber my discontent grew upon me I was ever on the lookout for means of escape from slavery to thoughts kept me from acting immediately to carry out my resolution one was the thought of leaving my friends fellow slaves and free Negroes whom I knew this was decidedly the most painful thought with which I had to contend the love of them was my tender point and shook my decision more than all things else besides the pain of separation there was the dread and apprehension of failure I felt sure that if I failed in the attempt my case would be a hopeless one it would seal my fate as a slave forever I could not hope to get off with anything less than the severus punishment and being placed beyond the means of escape it required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass in case I failed but the wretchedness of slavery and the blessedness of freedom were perpetually before me it was life and death with me therefore I remained firm and according to my resolution on the third day of September 1838 I left my chains for many is after I escaped from slavery I refrain from revealing to the public demands of my escape there were two reasons why I did so first to reveal this at any time during the existence of slavery might be used by the master against the slave and prevent the future escape of any who might adopt the same means that I did the second reason was if possible still more binding to silence for publication of details would certainly have put in peril the persons and property of those who assisted murder itself was not more Stern and certainly punished in the state of Maryland than was the aiding and abetting the escape of a slave my means of escape were provided for me by the very men who were making laws to hold and mind me more securely in slavery it was the custom in the state of Maryland to require of the free Negro people to have what were called free papers in these papers the name age color height and form of the freemen were described together with any scars or other marks upon his person which could assist in his identification this device of slave holding ingenuity like other devices of wickedness and some measure defeated itself since more than one man could be found to answer the same general description hence many slaves could escape by prison aiding the owner of one set of papers and this was often done as follows a slave nearly or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the papers would borrow them till he could buy their means escape to a free state and then by mail or otherwise return them to the owner I was not so fortunate as to sufficiently resemble any of my free acquaintances as to answer the description of their papers but I had one friend a sailor who owned a sailor's protection which answered somewhat the purpose of free papers describing his prison and certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor unfortunately this protection called for a man much darker than myself and close examination of it would have caused my arrest but I decided to use it for I considered the jostle of the Train and the natural haste of the conductor a train crowded with passengers and relied upon my skill and address and playing the sailor at described in my protection to do the rest I had on a red shirt and a toppling hat and black cravat tired in sailor fashion carelessly and loosely about my neck my knowledge of ships and sailors talk came to my assistance for I knew a ship from stem to stern and could talk sailor like an old salt I was well on the way from Baltimore before the conductor came into the Negro car to collect fares and examine the papers of his black passengers this was a critical moment my whole future depended upon the decision of this conductor I suppose you have your free papers the conductor asked me no sir I never carry my free papers to sea with me I replied in a calm and self-possessed manner but you have something to show that you were free man have you not yes sir I answered I have a paper with the American Eagle on it that will carry me around the world with this I drew for my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection as before described the merest glance of the papers satisfied him and he took my fare and went about his business after that no one disturbed me and I was soon speeding away to the Quaker City of Philadelphia on reaching Philadelphia in the afternoon I inquired of a colored man how I could get to New York he directed me to the depot and thither I went taking the train that night I reached New York the next morning having completed the journey from slavery to freedom and less than 24 hours on the fourth day of September 1838 after an anxious and most perilous but safe journey I found myself in the big city of New York a free man I felt a joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe but this gladness was short-lived for I was not yet out of the reach of the power of the slaveholders thank heaven I remain but a short time in this distress situation a sailor warm-hearted and generous fellow saw me standing on the opposite side walk wondering what next to do as he approached me I vented a remark to him which had once enlisted his interest in me he took me to his home to spend the night and in the morning went with me to mr. David Ruggles the Negro secretary of the New York vigilance committee an organization of free Negroes and white abolitionists which assisted fugitive slaves I was hidden with mr. Ruggles several days during which Anna my intended wife came on from Baltimore on my call to share the burdens of life with me she was a free woman of color and came at once on getting the good news of my safety we were married after which we left for New Bedford Massachusetts where mr. Ruggles thought I could find work at my trade as a corker upon reaching New Bedford we were directed to the house of mr. and mrs. Nathan Johnson but whom we were kindly received on the morning after our arrival the question arose as to what name I should be called by the name given me by my mother was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey I however had dispensed with the two middle names long before I left Maryland so that I was generally known by the name of Frederick Bailey when I left Baltimore I changed my name to Stanley and then on reaching New York to Johnson but there were so many chances in New Bedford that it was thought advisable for me to have a different name I gave mr. Johnson the privilege of choosing me a name but told him that he must not take from in the name of Frederick I must hold on to that to preserve my sense of identity mr. Johnson had just been reading walter scott's Lady of the lake and that once suggested that my name be Douglass after the great character in that point from that time on I was called Frederick Douglass I found employment the third day after my arrival and stowing a sloop with a load of oil it was new dirty and hard work for me but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing hand it was a happy moment the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves it was the first work the reward of which was to be entirely my own there was no master standing ready the moment I earned the money to rob me of it I work that day with a pleasure I had never before experienced I was at work for myself and a newly married wife it was to me the starting point of a new existence I have been living four or five months in New Bedford when there came a young man to me with a copy of The Liberator the paper edited by William Lloyd Garrison and asked me to subscribe to it I told him I had just escaped from slavery and and was of course very poor and had no money than to pay for it he was very willing to take me as a subscriber notwithstanding and I read the paper from week to week it soon took a place in my heart second only to the Bible it did tested slavery and made no truth with traffickers in the bodies and souls of men it preached human Brotherhood it denounced oppression and with all the solemnity of thus saith the LORD demanded the complete emancipation of my race the paper became my meat and my drink my soul was set on fire it's sympathy for my brethren in bonds its scathing denunciation of slaveholders and its powerful attacks upon the upholders of the institution set a thrill of joy through my soul such as I had never felt before all the anti-slavery meetings held in New Bedford I promptly attended my heart bounding at every true utterance against the slave system and every rebuke of its friends and supporters in the summer of 1841 a grand anti-slavery convention was held in Nantucket under the auspices of mr. garrison and his friends I determined on attending the meeting though I had no thought of taking in part in any of its proceedings but once there I felt strongly moved to speak and though I trembled in every limb I spoke a few moments describing my life as a slave at the close of this great meeting I was approached by mr. John a Collins then the general agent of the Massachusetts answer slavery society and urged to become an agent of that society and publicly advocate its principles I was reluctant to accept the position I had not been quite three years from slavery and was honestly distrustful of my ability besides publicity might discover me too my master but mr. Collins was not to be refused and I finally consented to go out for three months I traveled in the company of white abolitionists and lectured to large meetings 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 as a fugitive slave lecturer I faced many hostilities my treatment in the use of public conveyances was extremely rough on the railroads there was a mean dirty and uncomfortable car set apart for Negro travelers called the Jim Crow car regarding this is the fruit of slaveholding prejudice and being determined to fight the spirit of slavery wherever I might find it I resolved to avoid this car though it sometimes required some courage to do so I sometimes was soundly beaten by conductors and brakeman at several of our meetings my fellow abolitionists and I were mobbed and several of us had our good clothes spoiled by evil smelling eggs on one occasion we had barely begun to speak from a mob of about sixty of the roughest characters I had ever looked upon ordered us through its leader to be silent threatening us if we were not with violence we attempted to dissuade them but they had not come to parley but to fight and were well-armed they tore down the platform on which we stood and assaulted us undertaking to fight my way through the crowd with a stick which I caught up in the melee I attracted the fury of the mob which laid me prostrate on the ground under a torrent of blows leaving me thus with my right hand broken and in a state of unconsciousness the mob ik rats hastily mounted their horses and rode off I was soon raised up and nursed and bandaged but as the bones broken were not properly set my hand has never recovered its natural strength and dexterity during the first three or four months of my work as an anti-slavery agent 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 but I was now reading and thinking new views of the subject were being presented to my mind it did not entirely satisfy me to narrate wrongs I felt like denouncing them I could not always curve my moral indignation for the perpetrators of slaveholding villainy long enough for a circumstantial statement of the facts which I felt almost sure everybody know people won't believe you ever were a slave Frederick if you keep on this way my friends told me it is not best that you seem to learn it these friends were not altogether wrong in their advice and still I must speak just the word that seemed to me to be 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 or act like a slave and that they believed I had never been south of Mason and Dickson's line I decided to ride 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 this book entitled narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass an American slave was published in Boston in 1845 William Lloyd Garrison wrote the preface to my book my book soon became known in Maryland and I had reason to believe that an effort would be made to recapture me I was persuaded by my friends to leave the country and was sent as an agent to Great Britain the object of my Labor's in Great Britain was the concentration of the marled and religious sentiment of its people against American slavery to this end I visited and lectured and nearly all the large towns and cities of the United Kingdom and enjoyed many favourable opportunities for observation and information some notion may be formed of the difference in my feelings and circumstances while abroad from a letter I wrote to mr. garrison On January 1st 1846 I live a new life the warm and generous cooperation extended me by the Friends of my despised race the prompt and liberal manners with which the press has rendered me its aid the glorious enthusiasm with which thousands have flocked to hear the cruel wrongs of my downtrodden and long and slaved fellow countrymen portrayed the deep sympathy for the slave and the strong abhorrence of the slaveholders every way evinced the cordiality with which members and ministers of various religious bodies and a various shades of religious opinion have embraced me and let me their aid the kind hospitality constantly profited me by persons of the highest rank in society the spirit of freedom that seems to animate all with whom I come in contact and the entire absence of everything that looks like prejudiced against me on account of the color of my skin contrasts so strongly with my long and bitter experience in the United States that I looked with Wonder and amazement on the transition to my friends in England I owe my freedom in the United States they learned through correspondence that captain auld my master would take 150 pounds sterling for me and this sum they promptly raised and paid for my liberation placing the papers of my manumission into my hands before they would tolerate the idea of my return to my native land to this commercial transaction to this Blood Money I owe my immunity from the operation of the Fugitive Slave Law having remained abroad for nearly two years and being about to return to America not as I left it a slave but a free man prominent friend of the cause of emancipation in England offered to make me a testimonial both on the grounds of personal regard to me and also to the cause to which they were so ardently devoted I suggested that my friends should simply give me the means of obtaining a printing press and materials to enable me to start a paper advocating the interest of my enslaved and oppressed people I told him that perhaps the greatest hindrance to the adoption of abolition principles by the people of the United States was the low estimate everywhere in that country placed upon the Negro as a man that because of his assumed natural inferiority people reconciled themselves to his enslavement and oppression as being inevitable if not desirable the grand thing to be done therefore was to change this estimation by disproving his inferiority and demonstrating his capacity for a more exalted civilization than slavery and Prejudice had assigned him in my judgment a newspaper and the hands of persons of the despised race would by calling out and making them acquainted with their own latent powers by intending their hope of a future and developing their moral force proved a most powerful means of removing prejudice and awaking an interest in them these views I laid before my friends the result was that nearly $2,500 was speedily raised toward my establishing such a paper as I had indicated on December 3rd 1847 I launched my own newspaper the North Star in Rochester New York I chose this name because a slave followed the North Star when he escaped North to freedom on the masthead I inscribed as the papers motto the words right is of no sex truth is of no color God is the father of us all and we are all brethren in a message to my oppressed countrymen I wrote we solemnly dedicate the North Star to the cause of our long oppressed and plundered fellow countrymen may God bless the undertaking to your good it shall fearlessly assert your rights faithfully proclaim your wrongs and earnestly demand for you instant and even-handed justice giving no quarter to slavery in the South it will hold no truce with oppressors in the north while it shall boldly advocate emancipation for our enslaved brethren it shall omit no opportunity to gain for the nominally free complete enfranchisement every effort to injure or degrade you or your cause originating wheresoever or with whomsoever shall find in it a constant unswerving and inflexible foe remember that we are one that our cause is one and that we must help each other if we would succeed we have drunk to the dregs the bitter cup of slavery we have worn the heavy yoke we have sighed beneath our bonds and writhed beneath the bloody lash cruel mementos of our oneness are indelibly marked on our living flesh we are one with you under the ban of prejudice and prescription one with you under the slander of inferiority one with you and social and political disfranchisement what you suffer we suffer what you endure we endure we are indiscernibly united and must fall or flourish together I had resolved that whatever power I had should be devoted to the freeing of my people from slavery and that once free they should enjoy all the rights privileges and immunities enjoyed by any other members of American society to the achievement of these goals I dedicated the rest of my life

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Published: Tue Oct 23 2018