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Believing that one of the best means of emancipating the slaves of the south is to improve and elevate the character of the free colored people of the north I shall labor in the future, as I have labored in the past, to promote the moral, social, religious, and intellectual elevation of the free colored people; never forgetting my own humble origin, nor refusing, while Heaven lends me ability, to use my voice, my pen, or my vote, to advocate the great and primary work of the universal and unconditional emancipation of my entire race. -Frederick Douglass My Bondage, My Freedom (Last Paragraph) The story of Frederick Douglass is a unique and very well know, and one that has helped change the course of history in the United States and also influenced other countries around the world. The fact that Douglass was born a slave and lived in Maryland most of his life is common knowledge. So is the fact that he, like millions of other slaves, he dealt with the horrors of slavery everyday, something so unimaginable, that it is impossible to truly understand the thoughts they had to live with. If one were to read about Douglass through the eyes of a biographer, the next ten years of his life (generalized of course) were spend working hard for his family, beginning his now famous lecturing career, traveling to Great Britain, and starting The North Star. What you wouldn t read about in these biographical overviews of Douglass life would be the feelings and thoughts that were in his head during this time. This is the area that I would like to focus on.
The ten years of Douglass life, between freedom and the beginning of his paper The North Star, were a time of great education, a time of increased maturity, and several shifts in thought that covered multiple areas of his life. In his autobiography his chronicles these changes in thought through the different events, places he went, and people that he met. In some cases the change in his views are drastic, and sometimes the change is minor. To get a understanding of the thoughts and feeling that Douglass experienced, I have divided the first ten years of his life away from slavery into three categories; Life as a free America, the two years in Great Britain, and coming back to America to start The North Star. This helps to show the succession of his ideas that would ultimately place him in the national spotlight and among the company of the great individuals in the history of the United States.
Life As A Free America It is hard to imagine the feelings that Douglass had as he escaped his horrible past and enter a world of what he thought at the time to be total freedom; He was in a free state, he was free. This false illusion was quickly wiped away from his eyes when he ran into Allender s Jake, another runaway that he knew from Baltimore. As they talked for a period of time Jake told of how New York was as dangerous as Baltimore. And how nobody was to be trusted because for a few dollars, would runaways into the hands of the slave holders. I was soon taught that I was still in an enemy s land, Douglass explained, A sense of loneliness and insecurity oppressed me sadly. The feeling of relief that quickly changed to insecurity is psychologically hard to handle, and it is something that a freeman would not understand.
In the retrospective of his autobiography Douglass explains how he felt, A freeman cannot understand why the slave-master s shadow is bigger, to the slave, than might and majesty of a free state. This hear did effect Douglass, so much so that he laid low for a couple of days, and by the time he had almost exhausted his money, he was forced to go in search of an honest man. Douglass did find a trustworthy man, his name was Stewart and he was a sailor. Stewart was a warm-hearted and generous, and he listen to my story with a brother s interest.
Stewart promptly to Douglass to a man named David Ruggles, who at the time was the secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee, and was an active anti-slavery activist. Mr. Ruggles was the first officer of the Underground Railroad that Douglass ran into. Douglass said of Mr. Ruggles, he is a whole-souled man, that would give eyes to the blind, and legs to the lame.
As they talked, Douglass informed Mr. Ruggles the fact that he was a called by trade, and the situation that he was in, Mr. Ruggles said that it would be in the best interest of Douglass and his new family to move to New Bedford. A place where there were many ships so that Douglass should have trouble finding a job to support his family.
So two weeks after leaving the south, Douglass was now as safe as he possibly could be. I was safe in New Bedford, regularly entered upon the exercise of the rights, responsibilities, and duties of a freeman. Upon arrival Douglass and his wife were instructed to find a Mr. and Mrs.
Nathan Johnson. Right away the Johnson s helped Douglass out by loaning him two dollars so that they could get their bags back from the stage coach driver because they didn t have the money to pay for the entire fair for the trip and their bags were being held till the money was paid. The Douglass were welcomed into the Johnson house to stay until they took root of their own. Long may they live, and may blessings attend them in this life and in that which is to come, was the expression that Douglass used to describe his feelings for the people that helped them begin the rest of their lives. Douglass feeling of security was strengthened even more when Mr. Johnson assured him that New Bedford was a safe place.
And that no slaveholder could ever take a slave from New Bedford; that there were men there who would lay down their lives, before such an outrage could be perpetrated. The colored people themselves were of the best metal, and would fight for liberty to the death. Douglass could finally obtain that feeling of security that was non-existent while he was in New York. I now find that I could have landed in no part of the United States, where I should have found a more striking and gratifying contrast to the condition of the free people of color in Baltimore, than I found here in New Bedford.
A couple of days went by and the Douglass had settled into their new surroundings, he went out in search for a job. What he say when he got down to the wharves amazed him. The sight of the broad brim and the plain, Quaker dress, which met me at every turn, greatly increased my sense of freedom and security. I am among the Quakers, thought Douglass, and am safe. Douglass remembered the way Auld had brought him up to be a hard worker, and remembering how other plantation owners went about doing their work, and when he notice how smoothly the wharves in New Bedford ran, he could believe that it ran so smoothly and so much work was getting done.
And the people doing the work weren t even forced to do it. On the wharves, I saw industry without bustle, labor without noise, and heavy toil without the whip. There was no loud singing, as in southern ports, where ships are loading or unloading no loud cursing or swearing but everything went on as smoothly as the works of a well adjusted machine. Douglass wondered how this system of labor was better than the one that he had been forced into as a slave. He soon realized why it worked so well when found working for himself and his family, not his master, so gratifying. He was willing to do anything which came to hand in the way of turning an honest penny; sawed wood dug cellars shoveled coal swept chimneys with Uncle Lucas Debutyrolled oil casks on the wharves helped to load and unload vessels worked in Ricketsons candle works in Richmond's brass foundry, and elsewhere; and thus supported myself and family for three years.
This self-motivated hard work paid off because the first winter that the Douglass experienced in New Bedford was one of the worst that the town has every seen. But even during that winter we probably suffered less than many who had been free all their lives. In a way Douglass had an advantage over the people of New Bedford that have been their entire life, because of the amount of arduous work that he did without reward as a slave made these random jobs he did in support of his family seem futile. Now that Douglass was living a freeman s life began to make choices that a freeman has the constitutional right to do. One of those major choices was to join a church, so that he could freely practice his chosen religion. During his last years of slavery he let his religious practices slide to the point that he called it lukewarm, because of his feeling that bad men such as Covey, Weedens, Auld's, and Hopkins.
When he got to New Bedford Douglass had his heart set on joining the Methodist church. In Douglass mind, he could not see how Elm Street church, in New Bedford, could be regarded as sanctioning the Christianity of these characters in the church at St. Michaels. Like other assumptions Douglass made about the North, this one turned out to be false.
His first account of this was when he tried to attend the church service and sit with the entire body of the congregation and was asked to leave on account of the color of his skin. Another factor that proved his original theory to be incorrect was the time he ran into a member of the church outside of the church, and was disowned in public. The last event that convinced Douglass to ultimately leave the Methodist church and seek out a more suitable one was the day that the congregation performing the sacrament of the Lord s Supper. As Douglass sat in back, with the rest of the rest of the half-dozen black people that attended the church regularly, he noticed that once all the white people were done the minister called the people from the back, including Douglass, forward so that they might participate in the ceremony. All the time the minister was saying, Come forward, color friends!
Come Forward! You, too, have an interest in the blood of Christ. God is no respecter of persons. Douglass left and never set foot in that church again. He said his reason was, I found it impossible to respect the religious profession of any who were under the dominion of this wicker prejudice. Later Douglass found a church that was better suited for him.
It was the Zion Methodist church, an all black church in New Bedford. Almost as soon after becoming a part of that church, the other members appointed him class leader and a local preacher. This was the first real leadership role that Douglass had ever been in his whole life. After about four or five months of living in New Bedford Douglass was introduced to a man that he would not meet for almost another two years. That man was the editor for The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison, and after Douglass first issue he was mesmerized by his words because they were, few, full of holy fire, and straight to the point. Douglass described the paper by saying that it detested slavery, exposed hypocrisy, and wickedness in high places demanded the emancipation of my race.
The paper opened Douglass eyes to movement that W. L. Garrison was deeply involved in, and it opened his heart to allow the heat of passion for this fight to burn. In Nantucket, during the summer of 1841, there was a very large anti-slavery gathering that W. L. Garrison and his friends led.
Douglass was in attendance. A man at the gathering named William C. Coffin had once heard Douglass give a speech to his brothers and sisters at the Zion Methodist church, and went to look for him at the convention. When Coffin found Douglass and kindly asked him to give a testimony of his escape from slavery and his views on the direction of the abolitionists movement. Douglass was taken aback by the offer, but did take him up on that offer. I do not remember a single connected sentence, Douglass exclaims in his autobiography.
It was with the utmost difficulty that I could stand erect, or that I could command and articulate two words without hesitation and stammering. I trembled in every limb. I am not sure that my embarrassment was not the most effective part of my speech, if speech it could be called. At any rate, this is about the only part of my performance that I now distinctly remember. Douglass goes on to talk about how he did care that he might of given an erratic, mumbling speech, he was just overwhelmed and excited to be in the presence to the great leaders of the movement that he was whole-heartedly immersed. After the Nantucket gathering John A.
Collins ask Douglass to become an agent to the anti-slavery society. Reluctantly, Douglass agreed to go for three months, but was under stress because he had only been free for three years and did want to reveal his true identity. Thus began a new stage in his life, one where he could not only help himself but other slaves, and abolitionists around the North. Douglass first job was to travel around the eastern counties of Massachusetts giving speeches and securing subscriptions to The Liberator, and the Anti-Slavery Standard.
During Douglass first speeches on this trip he neglected to tell the people what his slave name was, where he lived, and the name of his master. After a couple of speeches the doubt among the listeners began to grow. One listener after one of Douglass speeches complained, He dont tell us where he came from what his masters name wash he got away nor the story of his experience. Besides, he is educated, and is, in this, a contradiction of all the facts we have concerning the ignorance of the slaves. After this speech Foster was quick to give some advice to Douglass, better have a little of the plantation manner of speech than not; tis not best that you seem too learned. It seemed to Douglass that even the people and runaway slaves of the North had the prejudice that blacks were inferior mentally.
Basically these people were saying, he s black, he can t he be a slave and still be educated, there aren t any educated slaves. This is Douglass first theory on this subject; white people discriminate against the blacks because they think are inferior. Similar to other theories that Douglass forms early in his life, this one will change after experiences in the future. Two Years in Great Britain Douglass toured around the anti-slavery seen for a while, and his popularity grew tremendously once he reveled the truths of his life. Because he indulged the public with this information, Douglass became very anxious of the fact that word would spread to Auld and he would ultimately come looking for Douglass. It was because of this reason Douglass decided to take refuge in Great Britain.
Once on the Cambria, Douglass was informed that he couldn t stay with his friend, James N. Buffum, in any of the cabins of the ship because Douglass was black. American prejudice against color triumphed over British liberality and civilization, Douglass wrote. But to Douglass these prejudice actions weren t any different from ones that he had experienced before, so it really didn t bother him. Fortunately, as they set-to-sea, those prejudice feelings were left at the dock by almost everybody. The one exception was a few slave holding passengers that from the South.
An altercation arose when the captain and some of the passengers request a few words from Douglass about his life and his feelings on slavery. The southerners took this as an insult to their way of life, and threatened to throw Douglass overboard if he did continue with his speech. In the end, both sides backed down and the rest of the trip was fairly uneventful. Douglass and Buffum eventually landed in Great Britain, first in Liverpool, and then three days later they travel to Dublin where they stayed for five weeks. But as soon as they landed the story of what happened on the Cambria hit the English newspapers and for Douglass, by no means of his own, was thrown into the national spotlight right away. This unexpected coverage in the press brought large crowds where even Douglass and his anti-slavery cohorts spoke.
Douglass wrote back to Garrison, Our success here is even greater than I anticipated. There was a strong anti-slavery movement in Ireland and Douglass had the feeling that he could help improve millions of lives here, and back in the United States by shedding light on the wrongs of the world. On January 1 st, 1846, Douglass wrote Garrison again. This letter was not much different from the ones before. Except this one shed light on some of the mixed feelings he was having during his stay so far. For a brief instant in the letter Douglass describes that he misses America, and the beauty that her shores hold.
In thinking of America, I sometimes find myself admiring her bright blue sky, her grand old woods, her fertile fields, her beautiful rivers, her mighty lakes, and star-crowned mountains. But my rapture is soon checked, my joy is soon turned to mourning. When I remember that all is cursed with the infernal spirit of slaveholding, robbery, and wrong; when I remember that with the waters of her noblest rivers, the tears of my brethren are borne to the ocean, disregarded and forgotten, and that her most fertile fields drink daily of the warm blood of my outraged sisters; I am filled with unutterable loathing, and led to reproach myself that anything could fall from my lips in praise of such a land. America will not allow her children to love her. The internal need to have a country to love and call home is deeply rooted in Douglass needs, but the reoccurring thoughts of his time in slavery is too horrible to overcome. Especially for a man who s very own country judges him by the color of his skin, not by his intellect.
During his time in Great Britain Douglass did tremendous amount of retrospective thinking and began to come up with new theories, and change old theories that he would now use later in life. One example is how he has been treated by the law and by society, in the different parts of the country. First he looks at his life as a slave. He had absolutely no human rights, and also, he was not even considered human, he was a piece of property to which the owner could do what he pleased.
Secondly, he looked at his life in New Bedford. There he was treated as a freeman, excepted to follow the laws like anybody else, but still was not considered to be equal to the whites of the North because blacks were considered to be inferior because of their skin color. Because of this prejudice he still was not truly free. Last, and fresh in his mind at the time of this letter, was how he lived in Great Britain, and the treatment he had received up to that point. Color was not an issue. I employ a cabI am seated beside white people I reach the hotel I enter the same door I am shown into the same parlor I dine at the same table and no one is offended.
No delicate nose grows deformed in my presence. I find no difficulty here in obtaining admission into any place of worship, instruction, or amusement, on equal terms with people as white as any I ever saw in the United States. So in a twist of irony, for Douglass to become a truly freeman, like we know today, he had to move to a country that was run by a monarchy, where the Royal Family makes the decisions for everybody. The amount of knowledge and experience Douglass gained during his time in Great Britain was priceless. He could have stayed and gone on to do great things for all kinds of people, but he knew that his life-long fight, to emancipate the slaves, was back in America. Right before Douglass left he received a gift only he could fully understand.
Ellen and Anna Richardson of Newcastle raised the $ 710. 96 necessary to buy the rights for Douglass so that in America, he could he almost as much of a freeman as what he was in Great Britain. There was one last incident before Douglass left Great Britain, one that he refers to as the sting of insult in his autobiography. As Douglass was in London, he bought a ticket to return to America on the Cambria, when he was informed of the same problem he encountered on the voyage to Great Britain, they would not allow him to ride in the cabins of the ship, or was allowed to enter the saloon. On the previous occasion he shrugged the incident off as understandable, but after living the life of a freeman he was extremely insulted by this action. So much so that he wrote a lengthy letter the editor of the London Times expressing his disgust. Mr.
Cunard, the owner of the Cambria, took immediate action and said that this prejudice would never show its face again on any of his ships. The Start of The North Star My plans for my then future usefulness as an anti-slavery advocate were all settled. My friends in England had resolved to raise a given sum to purchase for me a press and printing materials, Douglass explained as he returned from Great Britain. His friends from overseas wanted him to start a newspaper. The idea grew on Douglass before he left, and was certain that his friends in Boston would be as enthusiastic he was the idea, but to Douglass surprise they questioned to usefulness of another paper. Douglass friends said things like, A slave, brought up in the very depths of ignorance, assuming to instruct the highly civilized people of the north in the principles of liberty, justice, and humanity, or, what good would another paper do the cause?
Douglass was determined to see the The North Star a success, so he moved his family to Rochester, New York. Another reason Douglass moved north was that upon his return from Great Britain, he began to notice a split in ideas between Garrison and himself. With Mr. Garrison, I held it to be the first duty of the non-slaveholding states to dissolve the union with the slaveholding states; and hence my cry, like his, was, No union with slaveholders. With these views, I came into western New York; and during the first four years of my labor here, I advocated them with pen and tongue, according to the best of my ability.
But as Douglass began to realize after further study of the Constitution is that, not only contained no guarantees in favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, it is, in its letter and spirit, an anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition of its own existence, as the supreme law of the land. And it was necessary to maintain the union between the northern and southern states. The distance physically between Douglass and Garrison allow Douglass to develop his ideas further, and distance himself from Garrison intellectually. What they held to be a great and important truth, I now looked upon as a dangerous error.
Douglass thinking matured, he took one man s ideas, used them for a time, looked back on them in constructive retrospective thought, and then used, charged, or abandoned those ideas for his own. There was one other incident that Douglass mentions in his autobiography that helps him realize that he was partially wrong in his views on how the white person viewed a black person. The time that this incident occurred was a couple of months after he had returned home from Great Britain. Douglass was riding on a crowded train from Boston to Albany. There was only one seat open, so naturally Douglass, more confident since his return from Great Britain asked the gentlemen if he could join him. The man got up and left the entire seat to Douglass, so he sat down, much to the dislike of the people around him.
As Douglass got on the train that day noticed that Gov. George N. Briggs was a passenger on the as well, although Douglass had never meet the Governor, Briggs made his way to Douglass. He asked if he could sit down and talk to the great abolitionists lecturer. The Governor and Douglass had a pleasant and instructive conversation. At the next stop the Governor got off, and almost immediately several people asked if they could sit with Douglass and talk.
Douglass concluded that pride and fashion have much to do with the treatment commonly extended to colored people in the United States. If you get white people out of the reach of the public eye, and the harshness in which it rules that people don t view the world the same. From that moment on Douglass ideas of how to better the lives of the black people of the country is illustrated in the first quote of this paper, to elevate the understanding between whites and blacks.
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Research essay sample on Years Of His Life Feeling Of Security
