Narrative of life of Frederick Douglass, an American slave, written by himself

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Preface

SECOND DUBLIN EDITION,

In May last, the present Narrative was published in Boston, Massachusetts, and when I sailed for England in September, about 4,500 copies had been sold, I have lately heard that a fifth edition has been called for. This rapid sale may be accounted for by the fact of my being a fugitive slave, and from the circumstance that for the last four years I have been engaged in travelling as a lecturing agent of the American Antislavery Society, by which means I became extensively known in the United States.

My visit to Great Britain had a threefold object. I wished to be out of the way during the excitement consequent on the publication of my book ; lest the information I had there given as to my identity and place of abode, should induce my oivver to take measures for my restoration to his ' patriarchal care.' For it may not be generally known in Europe, that a slave who escapes from his master is liable, by the Constitution of the United States, to be dragged back into bondage, no matter in what part of the vast extent of the States and their territories he may have taken refuge.

My next inducement was a desire to increase my stock of

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IV PREFACE TO THE SECOND DUBLIN EDITION.

information, and my opportunities of self-improvement, by a visit to the land of my paternal ancestors.

My third and chief object was, by the public exposition of the contaminating and degrading influences of Slavery upon the slaveholder and his abettors, as well as the slave, to excite such an intelligent interest on the subject of American Slavery, as may react upon my own country, and may tend to shame her out of her adhesion to a system so abhorrent to Christianity and to her republican institutions.

My last object is, I am happy to say, in a fair way of beingaccomplished. I have held public meetings in Dublin, Wexford, Waterford, Cork, Youghal, Limerick, Belfast, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Perth, and Dundee, within the five months which have elapsed since I landed in England. An edition of 2000 copies of my Narrative has been exhausted, and I am in great hopes that before my visit to Great Britain shall be completed, thousands and tens of thousands of the intelligent and philanthropic will be induced to co-operate with the noble band of American abolitionists, for the overthrow of the meanest, hugest, and most dastardly system of iniquity that ever disgraced any country laying claim to the benefits of religion and civilization.

I beg to refer my reader to the Preface to the First edition, and the Letter which follows it ; to some notices of my Narrative from various sources, which will be found at the end of the book; and to the following notice of a public meeting held the evening previous to my departure from home, in the town of Lynn, Massachusetts, where I have resided for the last two years : —

"Last Friday evening a meeting was held in Lyceum Hall, for the purpose of exchanging farewells with Frederick Douglass

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Preface To The Second Dublin Edition. V

and James N. Buffum, prior to their departure, on the ensuing day, for the Old World. The spacious hall was crowded to its utmost capacity — hundreds of men and women being obliged to stand all the evening. This was a most gratifying fact, and spoke volumes for the onward progress of the antislavery movement — since but six or seven years back, the people, instead of meeting with two such anti-slavery men for the interchange of kindly feelings, would have been more likely to meet them for the purpose of inflicting some summary punishment. Hundreds of persons enjoyed on this occasion the first good opportunity they have had to judge of Frederick Douglass's ability as a speaker and a reasoner ; and unless I am much mistaken, their judgment was such as not only to increase their respect for him, but for his race, and the great movement now on foot to release it from thraldom. He spoke twice, and both times with great power. His second effort sparkled with wit from beginning to end.

" The following resolutions were adopted, nem. con.

"Resolved — As the sense of this great gathering of the inhabitants of Lynn and vicinity, that we extend to our esteemed fellow-citizens Frederick Douglass and James N. Buffum, whose proposed departure for England has brought this multitude together, our heartiest good wishes for a successful issue of their journey.

" Resolved— That we are especially desirous that Frederick Douglass, who came to this town a fugitive from slavery, should bear with him to the shores of the Old "World, our unanimous testimony to the fidelity with which he has sustained the various relations of life, and to the deep respect with which he is now regarded by every friend of liberty throughout our borders."

It gives me great pleasure to be able to add, in an Appendix to the present edition, an attempted Refutation of my Mar-

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Preface To The Second Dublin Edition

rative, lately published in the " Delaware Republican " by Mr. A. C. C. Thompson. My reply will be found along with Mr. Thompson's letter. I have thanked him there ; but I cannot refrain from repeating my acknowledgments for the testimony he bears to the substantial truth of my story. We differ in our details, to be sure. But this was to be expected. He is the friend of slave-holders ; he resides in a slave state, and is probably a slave-holder himself. He dares not speak the whole truth, if he would. I am an American slave, who have given my tyrant the slip. 1 am in a land of liberty, with no man to make mc afraid. He agrees with me at least in the important fact, that I am what I proclaim myself to be, an ungrateful fugitive from the ' patriarchal institutions ' of the Slave States ; and he certifies that many of the heroes of my Narrative are still living and doing well, as " honoured and worthy members of the Methodist Episcopal Church."

FREDERICK DOUGLASS.

Glasgow, Feb. Mi, 1816.

PREFACE

10 THE

FIRST AMERICAN EDITION.

In the month of August, 18-11, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Fkbdebiok Douglass, the writer of the following Narrative. Ho 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 cariosity 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 bis attendance, on the occasion alluded to, though at that time a resident in Now Bedford.

Fortunate, most fortunate occurence ! — 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 him ! — fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts of our republic, whose minds he has enlightened on the subject of slavery, and who have been molted to tears by his pathos, or roused to virtuous indignation

PREFACE TO THE FIRST 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 mau," 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 liever 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 byit on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and erect — in intellect richly endowed — ■ in natural eloquence a prodigy — in soul manifestly " created but a little lower than the angels," — yet a slave, aye, 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

AMERICAN EDITION.

IX 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. Their response was unanimous, and in thunder-tones — " No !" " Will you succour and protect him a3 a brother-man — a resident of the old Bay State V " 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 endeavoured 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 lie 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,

PREFACE TO THE FIRST 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 labours 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 bleedinghumanity, 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 Dona lass ; 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

AMERICAN EDITION. XI

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'Connem, the distinguished advocate of universal emancipation, relates the following anecdote, in a speech delivered by him in the Conciliation Hall, Dublin, before the Loyal National Repeal Association, on the 31st of March, 1845: "No matter," said Mr. O'Connem, "under what specious term it may disguise itself, slavery is still hideous. It has a natural, an inevitable tendency to brutalize every noble facility of man. An American sailor, who was cast away on the shores 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. Douslass 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 th» 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

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PREFACE TO THE FIRST 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 wore 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 he was 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 rjassages of great eloquence and power ; but I think the most thrilling one of them all is the description Douolass gives of his feelings, as he stood soliloquizing respecting his fate,

AMERICAN EDITION. Xlll

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 1 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 ! 0, how aeeursed 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 1 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, or 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, bloodhounds, overseers, drivers, patrols, were not all indispensible to keep the slaves down, and to give protection to

PREFACE TO THE FIBST 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 bo wielded with destructive sway. Sceptics 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 slavcholding 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 bo 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 neighbouring plantation, who had unintentionally gotten within his lordly domain in quest of fish; and in the other, an overseer blow out the brains of a slave who had fled to a stream of water to escape a bloody scourging. Mr. Dooglass states that in neither of these instances was anything clone by way of legal arrest or judicial investigation. The Baltimore American, of March 17, 1S45, 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 whoso 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

AMERICAN EDITION.

XV 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 he 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 anything 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, whoso 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-stealcrs in sympathy and purpose, or on the side of their down-trodden victims? If with the former, then you are the foe of God and man. If with the latter, what arc 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

CoMl'KOHISE WITH SLAVERY ! No UNION WITH SlAVE-HOLDEBS ! "

WM. LLOYD GARRISON.

Boston, May 1, 18-15.

LETTER PROM 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 1S38, 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 ho 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 ABC, or knew where the "white sails" of the Chesapeake wore bound, you began, I see, to guage 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

LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS.

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, Ave 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 our fa-