Chapter 1 of 8

Narrative

of the

Life

of

FREDERICK DOUGLASS

AN

AMERICAN SLAVE.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

BOSTON

PUBLISHED AT THE ANTI-SLAVERY OFFICE,

NO. 25 CORNHILL

1845

ENTERED, ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS,

IN THE YEAR 1845

BY FREDERICK DOUGLASS,

IN THE CLERK’S OFFICE OF THE DISTRICT COURT

OF MASSACHUSETTS.

Note from the original file: This electronic book is being released at

this time to honor the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. [Born January

15, 1929] [Officially celebrated January 20, 1992]

Contents

PREFACE

LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II

CHAPTER III

CHAPTER IV

CHAPTER V

CHAPTER VI

CHAPTER VII

CHAPTER VIII

CHAPTER IX

CHAPTER X

CHAPTER XI

APPENDIX

A PARODY

PREFACE

In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in

Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with

_Frederick Douglass_, the writer of the following Narrative. He was a

stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made

his escape from the southern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his

curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the

abolitionists,—of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while

he was a slave,—he was induced to give his attendance, on the occasion

alluded to, though at that time a resident in New Bedford.

Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence!—fortunate for the millions of his

manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful

thraldom!—fortunate for the cause of negro emancipation, and of

universal liberty!—fortunate for the land of his birth, which he has

already done so much to save and bless!—fortunate for a large circle of

friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly

secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by his virtuous traits

of character, by his ever-abiding remembrance of those who are in

bonds, as being bound with them!—fortunate for the multitudes, in

various parts of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the

subject of slavery, and who have been melted to tears by his pathos, or

roused to virtuous indignation by his stirring eloquence against the

enslavers of men!—fortunate for himself, as it at once brought him into

the field of public usefulness, “gave the world assurance of a MAN,”

quickened the slumbering energies of his soul, and consecrated him to

the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the

oppressed go free!

I shall never forget his first speech at the convention—the

extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind—the powerful impression

it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise—the

applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous

remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment;

certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by

it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear

than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature

commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural eloquence a

prodigy—in soul manifestly “created but a little lower than the

angels”—yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,—trembling for his safety,

hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white

person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for the

love of God and humanity! Capable of high attainments as an

intellectual and moral being—needing nothing but a comparatively small

amount of cultivation to make him an ornament to society and a blessing

to his race—by the law of the land, by the voice of the people, by the

terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of

burden, a chattel personal, nevertheless!

A beloved friend from New Bedford prevailed on Mr. DOUGLASS to address

the convention. He came forward to the platform with a hesitancy and

embarrassment, necessarily the attendants of a sensitive mind in such a

novel position. After apologizing for his ignorance, and reminding the

audience that slavery was a poor school for the human intellect and

heart, he proceeded to narrate some of the facts in his own history as

a slave, and in the course of his speech gave utterance to many noble

thoughts and thrilling reflections. As soon as he had taken his seat,

filled with hope and admiration, I rose, and declared that PATRICK

HENRY, of revolutionary fame, never made a speech more eloquent in the

cause of liberty, than the one we had just listened to from the lips of

that hunted fugitive. So I believed at that time—such is my belief now.

I reminded the audience of the peril which surrounded this

self-emancipated young man at the North,—even in Massachusetts, on the

soil of the Pilgrim Fathers, among the descendants of revolutionary

sires; and I appealed to them, whether they would ever allow him to be

carried back into slavery,—law or no law, constitution or no

constitution. The response was unanimous and in thunder-tones—“NO!”

“Will you succor and protect him as a brother-man—a resident of the old

Bay State?” “YES!” shouted the whole mass, with an energy so startling,

that the ruthless tyrants south of Mason and Dixon’s line might almost

have heard the mighty burst of feeling, and recognized it as the pledge

of an invincible determination, on the part of those who gave it, never

to betray him that wanders, but to hide the outcast, and firmly to

abide the consequences.

It was at once deeply impressed upon my mind, that, if Mr. DOUGLASS

could be persuaded to consecrate his time and talents to the promotion

of the anti-slavery enterprise, a powerful impetus would be given to

it, and a stunning blow at the same time inflicted on northern

prejudice against a colored complexion. I therefore endeavored to

instil hope and courage into his mind, in order that he might dare to

engage in a vocation so anomalous and responsible for a person in his

situation; and I was seconded in this effort by warm-hearted friends,

especially by the late General Agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery

Society, Mr. JOHN A. COLLINS, whose judgment in this instance entirely

coincided with my own. At first, he could give no encouragement; with

unfeigned diffidence, he expressed his conviction that he was not

adequate to the performance of so great a task; the path marked out was

wholly an untrodden one; he was sincerely apprehensive that he should

do more harm than good. After much deliberation, however, he consented

to make a trial; and ever since that period, he has acted as a

lecturing agent, under the auspices either of the American or the

Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. In labors he has been most

abundant; and his success in combating prejudice, in gaining

proselytes, in agitating the public mind, has far surpassed the most

sanguine expectations that were raised at the commencement of his

brilliant career. He has borne himself with gentleness and meekness,

yet with true manliness of character. As a public speaker, he excels in

pathos, wit, comparison, imitation, strength of reasoning, and fluency

of language. There is in him that union of head and heart, which is

indispensable to an enlightenment of the heads and a winning of the

hearts of others. May his strength continue to be equal to his day! May

he continue to “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of God,” that he

may be increasingly serviceable in the cause of bleeding humanity,

whether at home or abroad!

It is certainly a very remarkable fact, that one of the most efficient

advocates of the slave population, now before the public, is a fugitive

slave, in the person of _Frederick Douglass_; and that the free colored

population of the United States are as ably represented by one of their

own number, in the person of _Charles Lenox Remond_, whose eloquent

appeals have extorted the highest applause of multitudes on both sides

of the Atlantic. Let the calumniators of the colored race despise

themselves for their baseness and illiberality of spirit, and

henceforth cease to talk of the natural inferiority of those who

require nothing but time and opportunity to attain to the highest point

of human excellence.

It may, perhaps, be fairly questioned, whether any other portion of the

population of the earth could have endured the privations, sufferings

and horrors of slavery, without having become more degraded in the

scale of humanity than the slaves of African descent. Nothing has been

left undone to cripple their intellects, darken their minds, debase

their moral nature, obliterate all traces of their relationship to

mankind; and yet how wonderfully they have sustained the mighty load of

a most frightful bondage, under which they have been groaning for

centuries! To illustrate the effect of slavery on the white man,—to

show that he has no powers of endurance, in such a condition, superior

to those of his black brother,—_Daniel O’Connell_, the distinguished

advocate of universal emancipation, and the mightiest champion of

prostrate but not conquered Ireland, relates the following anecdote in

a speech delivered by him in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin, before the

Loyal National Repeal Association, March 31, 1845. “No matter,” said

_Mr. O’Connell_, “under what specious term it may disguise itself,

slavery is still hideous. _It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to

brutalize every noble faculty of man._ An American sailor, who was cast

away on the shore of Africa, where he was kept in slavery for three

years, was, at the expiration of that period, found to be imbruted and

stultified—he had lost all reasoning power; and having forgotten his

native language, could only utter some savage gibberish between Arabic

and English, which nobody could understand, and which even he himself

found difficulty in pronouncing. So much for the humanizing influence

of _The Domestic Institution_!” Admitting this to have been an

extraordinary case of mental deterioration, it proves at least that the

white slave can sink as low in the scale of humanity as the black one.

_Mr. Douglass_ has very properly chosen to write his own Narrative, in

his own style, and according to the best of his ability, rather than to

employ some one else. It is, therefore, entirely his own production;

and, considering how long and dark was the career he had to run as a

slave,—how few have been his opportunities to improve his mind since he

broke his iron fetters,—it is, in my judgment, highly creditable to his

head and heart. He who can peruse it without a tearful eye, a heaving

breast, an afflicted spirit,—without being filled with an unutterable

abhorrence of slavery and all its abettors, and animated with a

determination to seek the immediate overthrow of that execrable

system,—without trembling for the fate of this country in the hands of

a righteous God, who is ever on the side of the oppressed, and whose

arm is not shortened that it cannot save,—must have a flinty heart, and

be qualified to act the part of a trafficker “in slaves and the souls

of men.” I am confident that it is essentially true in all its

statements; that nothing has been set down in malice, nothing

exaggerated, nothing drawn from the imagination; that it comes short of

the reality, rather than overstates a single fact in regard to _slavery

as it is_. The experience of _Frederick Douglass_, as a slave, was not

a peculiar one; his lot was not especially a hard one; his case may be

regarded as a very fair specimen of the treatment of slaves in

Maryland, in which State it is conceded that they are better fed and

less cruelly treated than in Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana. Many have

suffered incomparably more, while very few on the plantations have

suffered less, than himself. Yet how deplorable was his situation! what

terrible chastisements were inflicted upon his person! what still more

shocking outrages were perpetrated upon his mind! with all his noble

powers and sublime aspirations, how like a brute was he treated, even

by those professing to have the same mind in them that was in Christ

Jesus! to what dreadful liabilities was he continually subjected! how

destitute of friendly counsel and aid, even in his greatest

extremities! how heavy was the midnight of woe which shrouded in

blackness the last ray of hope, and filled the future with terror and

gloom! what longings after freedom took possession of his breast, and

how his misery augmented, in proportion as he grew reflective and

intelligent,—thus demonstrating that a happy slave is an extinct man!

how he thought, reasoned, felt, under the lash of the driver, with the

chains upon his limbs! what perils he encountered in his endeavors to

escape from his horrible doom! and how signal have been his deliverance

and preservation in the midst of a nation of pitiless enemies!

This Narrative contains many affecting incidents, many passages of

great eloquence and power; but I think the most thrilling one of them

all is the description _Douglass_ gives of his feelings, as he stood

soliloquizing respecting his fate, and the chances of his one day being

a freeman, on the banks of the Chesapeake Bay—viewing the receding

vessels as they flew with their white wings before the breeze, and

apostrophizing them as animated by the living spirit of freedom. Who

can read that passage, and be insensible to its pathos and sublimity?

Compressed into it is a whole Alexandrian library of thought, feeling,

and sentiment—all that can, all that need be urged, in the form of

expostulation, entreaty, rebuke, against that crime of crimes,—making

man the property of his fellow-man! O, how accursed is that system,

which entombs the godlike mind of man, defaces the divine image,

reduces those who by creation were crowned with glory and honor to a

level with four-footed beasts, and exalts the dealer in human flesh

above all that is called God! Why should its existence be prolonged one

hour? Is it not evil, only evil, and that continually? What does its

presence imply but the absence of all fear of God, all regard for man,

on the part of the people of the United States? Heaven speed its

eternal overthrow!

So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that

they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any

recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims. They

do not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible

fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to

outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of

mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the

banishment of all light and knowledge, and they affect to be greatly

indignant at such enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements,

such abominable libels on the character of the southern planters! As if

all these direful outrages were not the natural results of slavery! As

if it were less cruel to reduce a human being to the condition of a

thing, than to give him a severe flagellation, or to deprive him of

necessary food and clothing! As if whips, chains, thumb-screws,

paddles, blood-hounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, were not all

indispensable to keep the slaves down, and to give protection to their

ruthless oppressors! As if, when the marriage institution is abolished,

concubinage, adultery, and incest, must not necessarily abound; when

all the rights of humanity are annihilated, any barrier remains to

protect the victim from the fury of the spoiler; when absolute power is

assumed over life and liberty, it will not be wielded with destructive

sway! Skeptics of this character abound in society. In some few

instances, their incredulity arises from a want of reflection; but,

generally, it indicates a hatred of the light, a desire to shield

slavery from the assaults of its foes, a contempt of the colored race,

whether bond or free. Such will try to discredit the shocking tales of

slaveholding cruelty which are recorded in this truthful Narrative; but

they will labor in vain. _Mr. Douglass_ has frankly disclosed the place

of his birth, the names of those who claimed ownership in his body and

soul, and the names also of those who committed the crimes which he has

alleged against them. His statements, therefore, may easily be

disproved, if they are untrue.

In the course of his Narrative, he relates two instances of murderous

cruelty,—in one of which a planter deliberately shot a slave belonging

to a neighboring plantation, who had unintentionally gotten within his

lordly domain in quest of fish; and in the other, an overseer blew out

the brains of a slave who had fled to a stream of water to escape a

bloody scourging. _Mr. Douglass_ states that in neither of these

instances was any thing done by way of legal arrest or judicial

investigation. The Baltimore American, of March 17, 1845, relates a

similar case of atrocity, perpetrated with similar impunity—as

follows:—“_Shooting a slave._—We learn, upon the authority of a letter

from Charles county, Maryland, received by a gentleman of this city,

that a young man, named Matthews, a nephew of General Matthews, and

whose father, it is believed, holds an office at Washington, killed one

of the slaves upon his father’s farm by shooting him. The letter states

that young Matthews had been left in charge of the farm; that he gave

an order to the servant, which was disobeyed, when he proceeded to the

house, _obtained a gun, and, returning, shot the servant._ He

immediately, the letter continues, fled to his father’s residence,

where he still remains unmolested.”—Let it never be forgotten, that no

slaveholder or overseer can be convicted of any outrage perpetrated on

the person of a slave, however diabolical it may be, on the testimony

of colored witnesses, whether bond or free. By the slave code, they are

adjudged to be as incompetent to testify against a white man, as though

they were indeed a part of the brute creation. Hence, there is no legal

protection in fact, whatever there may be in form, for the slave

population; and any amount of cruelty may be inflicted on them with

impunity. Is it possible for the human mind to conceive of a more

horrible state of society?

The effect of a religious profession on the conduct of southern masters

is vividly described in the following Narrative, and shown to be any

thing but salutary. In the nature of the case, it must be in the

highest degree pernicious. The testimony of _Mr. Douglass_, on this

point, is sustained by a cloud of witnesses, whose veracity is

unimpeachable. “A slaveholder’s profession of Christianity is a

palpable imposture. He is a felon of the highest grade. He is a

man-stealer. It is of no importance what you put in the other scale.”

Reader! are you with the man-stealers in sympathy and purpose, or on

the side of their down-trodden victims? If with the former, then are

you the foe of God and man. If with the latter, what are you prepared

to do and dare in their behalf? Be faithful, be vigilant, be untiring

in your efforts to break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free.

Come what may—cost what it may—inscribe on the banner which you unfurl

to the breeze, as your religious and political motto—“NO COMPROMISE

WITH SLAVERY! NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS!”

WM. LLOYD GARRISON BOSTON,

_May_ 1, 1845.

LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

BOSTON, _April_ 22, 1845.

My Dear Friend:

You remember the old fable of “The Man and the Lion,” where the lion

complained that he should not be so misrepresented “when the lions

wrote history.”

I am glad the time has come when the “lions write history.” We have

been left long enough to gather the character of slavery from the

involuntary evidence of the masters. One might, indeed, rest

sufficiently satisfied with what, it is evident, must be, in general,

the results of such a relation, without seeking farther to find whether

they have followed in every instance. Indeed, those who stare at the

half-peck of corn a week, and love to count the lashes on the slave’s

back, are seldom the “stuff” out of which reformers and abolitionists

are to be made. I remember that, in 1838, many were waiting for the

results of the West India experiment, before they could come into our

ranks. Those “results” have come long ago; but, alas! few of that

number have come with them, as converts. A man must be disposed to

judge of emancipation by other tests than whether it has increased the

produce of sugar,—and to hate slavery for other reasons than because it

starves men and whips women,—before he is ready to lay the first stone

of his anti-slavery life.

I was glad to learn, in your story, how early the most neglected of

God’s children waken to a sense of their rights, and of the injustice

done them. Experience is a keen teacher; and long before you had

mastered your A B C, or knew where the “white sails” of the Chesapeake

were bound, you began, I see, to gauge the wretchedness of the slave,

not by his hunger and want, not by his lashes and toil, but by the

cruel and blighting death which gathers over his soul.

In connection with this, there is one circumstance which makes your

recollections peculiarly valuable, and renders your early insight the

more remarkable. You come from that part of the country where we are

told slavery appears with its fairest features. Let us hear, then, what

it is at its best estate—gaze on its bright side, if it has one; and

then imagination may task her powers to add dark lines to the picture,

as she travels southward to that (for the colored man) Valley of the

Shadow of Death, where the Mississippi sweeps along.

Again, we have known you long, and can put the most entire confidence

in your truth, candor, and sincerity. Every one who has heard you speak

has felt, and, I am confident, every one who reads your book will feel,

persuaded that you give them a fair specimen of the whole truth. No

one-sided portrait,—no wholesale complaints,—but strict justice done,

whenever individual kindliness has neutralized, for a moment, the

deadly system with which it was strangely allied. You have been with

us, too, some years, and can fairly compare the twilight of rights,

which your race enjoy at the North, with that “noon of night” under

which they labor south of Mason and Dixon’s line. Tell us whether,

after all, the half-free colored man of Massachusetts is worse off than

the pampered slave of the rice swamps!

In reading your life, no one can say that we have unfairly picked out

some rare specimens of cruelty. We know that the bitter drops, which

even you have drained from the cup, are no incidental aggravations, no

individual ills, but such as must mingle always and necessarily in the

lot of every slave. They are the essential ingredients, not the

occasional results, of the system.

After all, I shall read your book with trembling for you. Some years

ago, when you were beginning to tell me your real name and birthplace,

you may remember I stopped you, and preferred to remain ignorant of

all. With the exception of a vague description, so I continued, till

the other day, when you read me your memoirs. I hardly knew, at the

time, whether to thank you or not for the sight of them, when I

reflected that it was still dangerous, in Massachusetts, for honest men

to tell their names! They say the fathers, in 1776, signed the

Declaration of Independence with the halter about their necks. You,

too, publish your declaration of freedom with danger compassing you

around. In all the broad lands which the Constitution of the United

States overshadows, there is no single spot,—however narrow or

desolate,—where a fugitive slave can plant himself and say, “I am

safe.” The whole armory of Northern Law has no shield for you. I am

free to say that, in your place, I should throw the MS. into the fire.

You, perhaps, may tell your story in safety, endeared as you are to so

many warm hearts by rare gifts, and a still rarer devotion of them to

the service of others. But it will be owing only to your labors, and

the fearless efforts of those who, trampling the laws and Constitution

of the country under their feet, are determined that they will “hide

the outcast,” and that their hearths shall be, spite of the law, an

asylum for the oppressed, if, some time or other, the humblest may

stand in our streets, and bear witness in safety against the cruelties

of which he has been the victim.

Yet it is sad to think, that these very throbbing hearts which welcome

your story, and form your best safeguard in telling it, are all beating

contrary to the “statute in such case made and provided.” Go on, my

dear friend, till you, and those who, like you, have been saved, so as

by fire, from the dark prison-house, shall stereotype these free,

illegal pulses into statutes; and New England, cutting loose from a

blood-stained Union, shall glory in being the house of refuge for the

oppressed,—till we no longer merely “_hide_ the outcast,” or make a

merit of standing idly by while he is hunted in our midst; but,

consecrating anew the soil of the Pilgrims as an asylum for the

oppressed, proclaim our _welcome_ to the slave so loudly, that the

tones shall reach every hut in the Carolinas, and make the

broken-hearted bondman leap up at the thought of old Massachusetts.

God speed the day!

_Till then, and ever,_

Yours truly,

WENDELL PHILLIPS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington

Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. He was not sure of the

exact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. As a

young boy he was sent to Baltimore, to be a house servant, where he

learned to read and write, with the assistance of his master’s wife. In

1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New York City, where he

married Anna Murray, a free colored woman whom he had met in Baltimore.

Soon thereafter he changed his name to Frederick Douglass. In 1841 he

addressed a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in

Nantucket and so greatly impressed the group that they immediately

employed him as an agent. He was such an impressive orator that

numerous persons doubted if he had ever been a slave, so he wrote

_Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass_. During the Civil War he

assisted in the recruiting of colored men for the 54th and 55th

Massachusetts Regiments and consistently argued for the emancipation of

slaves. After the war he was active in securing and protecting the

rights of the freemen. In his later years, at different times, he was

secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, marshall and recorder of

deeds of the District of Columbia, and United States Minister to Haiti.

His other autobiographical works are _My Bondage And My Freedom_ and

_Life And Times Of Frederick Douglass_, published in 1855 and 1881

respectively. He died in 1895.

CHAPTER I

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from

Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my

age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the

larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know

of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to

keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a

slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it

than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or

fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of

unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell

their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same

privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master

concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave

improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The

nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and

twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say,

some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.

My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and

Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker

complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather.

My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever

heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my

master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know

nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I

were separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother.

It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away,

to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently,

before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken

from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and

the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field

labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to

hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and

to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child.

This is the inevitable result.