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The Text: Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave, Written by Himself (1845)
Text
The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was
that of making friends of all the little white boys whom 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 on one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a
lesson before my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which
was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; for I was much
better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our
neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins,
who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge. I am
strongly tempted to give the names of two or three of those little boys, as a
testimonial of the gratitude and affection I bear them; but prudence
forbids;—not that it would injure me, but it might embarrass them; for it is
almost an unpardonable offence to teach slaves to read in this Christian
country. It is enough to say of the dear little fellows, that they lived on
Philpot Street, very near Durgin and Bailey’s ship-yard.
Vocabulary
1. Why is Douglass specific about making friends with
“little white boys”?
chore (singular)
2. How did Douglass learn to read when running
errands?
give
to show of
thankfulness;
state of being wise
and careful
place where ships are
repaired or built
I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them. I would sometimes say
to them, I wished I could be as free as they would be when they got to be
men. “You will be free as soon as you are twenty-one, but I am a slave for
life! Have not I as good a right to be free as you have?” These words used to
trouble them; they would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and
console me with the hope that something would occur by which I might be
free.
I was now about twelve years old, and the thought of being a slave for life
began to bear heavily upon my heart. Just about this time, I got hold of a
book entitled “The Columbian Orator.” Every opportunity I got, I used to
read this book. Among much of other interesting matter, I found in it a
dialogue between a master and his slave. The slave was represented as
having run away from his master three times. The dialogue represented the
conversation which took place between them, when the slave was retaken
the third time. In this dialogue, the whole argument in behalf of slavery was
Guiding Questions
3. In what ways does Douglass’s life differ from
the white boys’ lives?
4. Douglass is describing events from the past.
These “boys” are now adult men, so why would
he avoid giving their names?
5. What does Douglass mean when he uses the word
“trouble”? Why did he choose this word? How
would the meaning have changed if he had chosen
the word “anger”?
speaker
brought forward by the master, all of which was disposed of by the slave.
The slave was made to say some very smart as well as impressive things in
reply to his master—things which had the desired though unexpected effect;
for the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave on
the part of the master.
thrown out
release
6. Why does Douglass describe the master’s response
as both “desired” and “unexpected”? Why the
contrast between these two words?
In the same book, I met with one of Sheridan’s mighty speeches on and in
behalf of Catholic emancipation. These were choice documents to me. I read
them over and over again with unabated interest. They gave tongue to
interesting thoughts of my own soul, which had frequently flashed through
my mind, and died away for want of utterance. The moral which I gained
from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a
slaveholder. What I got from Sheridan was a bold denunciation of slavery,
and a powerful vindication of human rights. The reading of these documents
enabled me to utter my thoughts, and to meet the arguments brought
forward to sustain slavery; but while they relieved me of one difficulty, they
brought on another even more painful than the one of which I was relieved.
The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers. I
could regard them in no other light than a band of successful robbers, who
had left their homes, and gone to Africa, and stolen us from our homes, and
in a strange land reduced us to slavery. I loathed them as being the meanest
as well as the most wicked of men. As I read and contemplated the subject,
behold! that very discontentment which Master Hugh had predicted would
follow my learning to read had already come, to torment and sting my soul
to unutterable anguish. As I writhed under it, I would at times feel that
learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It had given me a
view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to
the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out. In moments of
agony, I envied my fellow-slaves for their stupidity. I have often wished
myself a beast. I preferred the condition of the meanest reptile to my own.
Any thing, no matter what, to get rid of thinking! It was this everlasting
thinking of my condition that tormented me. There was no getting rid of it. It
was pressed upon me by every object within sight or hearing, animate or
inanimate. The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal
wakefulness. Freedom now appeared, to disappear no more forever. It was
heard in every sound, and seen in every thing. It was ever present to
torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without
seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling
it. It looked from every star, it smiled in every calm, breathed in every wind,
and moved in every storm.
a movement to allow
Catholics to have full
rights
speaking out loud
7. When
Douglass says, “They have tongue to
interesting thoughts,” how is he using the word
“tongue”?
8. Why moral did Douglass learn from these books?
publicly condemn
keep alive
hate
9. How does the work “enable” change the meaning
of the line it appears in? How can documents “enable”
him to “utter [his] thoughts” or write?
10. In what ways us Douglas saying that
slaveholders are like robbers?
squirmed or
struggled
miserable
11. What prediction did Douglass’s owner make about
what would happen if he learned to read? Did it come
true? Why or why not?
alive
resource or
advantage more
important than any
other (short for
trumpet)
12. What is the horrible pit? Why does Douglass envy
someone’s stupidity?
13. Why is freedom tormenting Douglass?
Writing Extension:
How does Douglass’s feelings change over the course of this piece? What is Douglass trying to show about how slavery makes people feel? Write a paragraph in
which you should how his feelings change and what you believe he is trying to show the reader. Please use EVIDENCE FROM THE TEXT to support your response.
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FREDERICK DOUGLASS
FROM The Liberator, 30 May 1845.
My readers will be delighted to learn that Frederick Douglass—the fugitive slave—has at last concluded his narrative. All who know the wonderful gifts of friend
Douglass know that his narrative must, in the nature of things, be written with great power. It is so indeed. It is the most thrilling work which the American press
ever issued—and the most important. If it does not open the eyes of this people, they must be petrified into eternal sleep.
The picture it presents of slavery is too horrible to look upon, and yet it is but a faint picture of what to millions is a vivid life. It is evidently drawn with a nice
eye, and the coloring is chaste and subdued, rather than extravagant or overwrought. Thrilling as it is, and full of the most burning eloquence, it is yet simple and
unimpassioned. Its eloquence is the eloquence of truth, and so is as simple and touching as the impulses of childhood. There are passages in it which would
brighten the reputation of any living author,—while the book, as a whole, judged as a mere work of art, would widen the fame of Bunyan or De Foe. A spirit of
the loftiest integrity, and a vein of the purest religious sentiment, runs through its pages, and it must leave on every mind a deep conviction of the author's
strength of mind and purity of heart. I predict for it a sale of at least twenty thousand in this country, and equally great in Europe. It will leave a mark upon this
age which the busy finger of time will deepen at every touch. It will generate a public sentiment in this nation, in the presence of which our pro-slavery laws and
constitutions shall be like chaff in the presence of fire. It contains the spark which will kindle up the smouldering embers of freedom in a million souls, and light
up our whole continent with the flames of liberty. Great efforts will be made in the name of the Constitution and the Bible, of James Polk and the Apostle Paul,
to suppress it: but it will run through this nation from house to house, and from heart to heart, as the wild fire, finding wings in every wind which blows, flies
across the tall and boundless prairies. Its stirring incidents will fasten themselves on the eager minds of the youth of this country with hooks of steel. The politics
of the land will stand abashed before it, while her more corrupt religion will wish to sink back into the hot womb which gave it birth. It will fall in among the
churches and state-houses of the land like a bomb-shell, and those who madly undertake to pick it to pieces will share the fate of that poor New-Yorker who
attempted something of the kind on a bomb-shell picked up on the shores of Jersey, i. e., they will be blowed to atoms at the first blow.
—Lynn Pioneer
REFUGE OF OPPRESSION.
From the Delaware Republican
TO THE PUBLIC.
FALSEHOOD REFUTED.
A. C. C. Thompson
FROM The Liberator, 12 December 1845.
It is with considerable regret that I find myself measurably compelled to appear before the public; but my attention has lately been arrested by a pamphlet
which has been freely circulated in Wilmington and elsewhere, with the following superscription:—Extract from a Narrative of Frederick Douglass, an American
Slave, written by himself. And although I am aware that no sensible, unprejudiced person will credit such a ridiculous publication, which bears the glaring
impress of falsehood on every page, yet I deem it expedient that I should give the public some information respecting the validity of this narrative, because I was
for many years a citizen of the section of country where the scenes of the above mentioned narrative are laid; and am intimately acquainted with most of the
gentlemen whose characters are so shamefully traduced, and I am also aware, that the Narrative was not written by the professed author; but from statements
of this runaway slave, some evil designed person or persons have composed this catalogue of lies to excite the indignation of the public opinion against the
slaveholders of the South; and have even attempted to plunge their venomous fangs in the vitals of the church. I shall, therefore, briefly notice some of the
most glaring falsehoods contained in the aforesaid Narrative, and give a true representation of the character of those gentlemen, who have been censured in
such an uncharitable manner, as murderers, hypocrites, and everything else that is vile. I indulge no animosity against the fabricators and circulators of the
Narrative, neither do I know them, but I positively declare the whole to be a bucket of falsehoods, from beginning to end.
1st. The identity of the author. About eight years ago I knew this recreant slave by the name of Frederick Bailey, (instead of Douglass.) He then lived with Mr.
Edward Covy, and was an unlearned, and rather an ordinary negro, and am confident he was not capable of writing the Narrative alluded to; for none but an
educated man, and one who had some knowledge of the rules of grammar, could write so correctly. Although, to make the imposition at all creditable, the
composer has labored to write it in as plain a style as possible: consequently, the detection of this first falsehood proves the whole production to be notoriously
untrue. Again. 'It is a common custom in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to separate children from their mothers at a very early age.' This also I
know to be false. There is no such custom prevalent in that section of the country; but, on the contrary, the children are raised with their mothers, and generally
live with them in the same house, except in some few instances where the mother is hired out as a cook or laborer in some other family. The gentlemen, whose
names are so prominently set forth in the said Narrative are Col. Edward Lloyd, Capt. Anthony, Austin Gore, Thomas Lamdin, (not Lanman,) Giles Hicks, Thomas
Auld, and Edward Covy. Most of these persons I am intimately acquainted with and shall give a brief sketch of their characters as follows: Col. Edward Lloyd was
one of the most wealthy and respectable planters in the State of Maryland. He was at one time the Governor of the State, and for several years, a member of
the Legislature. He owned several thousand acres of land, and between 4 and 500 slaves. He died before I had much knowledge of him; but I know that he was a
kind and charitable man, and in every respect an honorable and worthy citizen. Most of the same slaves are now owned by his three sons, and they manage
their servants in the same manner as did their father; and I know there are no such barbarities committed on their plantations.
Could it be possible that charitable feeling men could murder human beings, with as little remorse of conscience, as the narrative of this infamous libel wishes to
make us believe; and that the laws of Maryland, which operate alike upon black and white, bond or free, could permit such foul murders to pass unnoticed? No!
it is impossible; and every sensible man knows that these false accusations are the ebullition of an unchristian prejudice. Captain Anthony and Giles Hicks, I
know but little of. The accused murderer, Mr. Gore, is a respectable citizen, living near St. Michaels, and I believe a worthy member of the Methodist Episcopal
Church: he was formerly an overseer for Col. Lloyd, and at this time, all who know him, think him anything but a murderer. Thomas Lamdin, who, it is said, (in
the Narrative,) boasted so frequently of his murders, is at this time an honest school teacher in the District where I formerly lived; and all the harm that can be
said of him is, that he is too good-natured and harmless to injure any person but himself. Capt. Thomas Auld, whose hypocritical meanness is so strongly
depicted in the aforesaid Narrative, was for many years a respectable merchant in the town of St Michaels, and an honorable and worthy member of the
Methodist E. Church, and only notable for his integrity and irreproachable Christian character. He is now retired from the turmoil of a mercantile life, and
engaged in the worthy occupation of tilling the soil, little dreaming of the foul accusations that are circulated against him. Edward Covy, the renowned 'negro
breaker,' is also a plain, honest farmer, and a tried and faithful member of the Methodist E. Church. Mr. Covy lived for several years on a farm adjoining my
father's, at which time this runaway negro lived with him, and I am well aware that no such bloody tragedy as is recorded in that lying Narrative ever occurred
on Mr. Covy's farm. All that can be said of Mr. Covy is that he is a good Christian, and a hard working man, and makes every one around him work and treats
them well. By his honest industry, he has purchased a fine farm, and is now reaping the reward of his labor. Such are the characters of the men whom the
imposers of this dirty Narrative have so uncharitably traduced, and by blending these false accusations with the Methodist religion of the South, they wish to
lacerate her already bleeding wounds. I was raised among slaves, and have also owned them, and am well aware that the slaves live better and fare better in
many respects than the free blacks. Yet, I am positively opposed to slavery, for I know it is a great evil; but the evil falls not upon the slave, but on the owner.
Intrigue and false accusations will never liberate the slave of the South; but, on the contrary, every such attempt will only forge for them new and stronger
fetters.
Let the tender-hearted philanthropists of the North speak truth and love towards their southern brethren, and make a liberal application of their gold for the
removing the blacks from the country, and their chance of success will be more flattering:
I have given a true representation of the persons connected with the aforesaid Narrative, and I respectfully submit the facts to the judgment of an impartial
public.
-A. C. C. THOMPSON.
No. 101 Market-st. Wilmington, Del.