Pages
6
for life, punished for some transgression in which I had no lot or part; and the other counselled me to manly endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now ended; my chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy. But my gladness was short lived, for I was not yet out of the reach and power of the slaveholders. I soon found that New York was not quite so free, or so safe a refuge as I had supposed, and a sense of loneliness and insecurity again oppressed me most sadly. I chanced to meet on the street a few hours after my landing, a fugitive slave whom I had once known well in slavery. The information received from him alarmed me. The fugitive in question was known in Baltimore as "Allender's Jake," but in New York he wore the more respectable name of ''William Dixon." Jake in law was the property of Doctor Allender, and Tolly Allender, the son of the doctor, had once made an effort to recapture Mr. Dixon, but had failed for want of evidence to support his claim. Jake told me the circumstances of this attempt, and how narrowly he escaped being sent back to slavery and torture. He told me that New York was then full of southerners returning from the watering places north;†Wealthy southerners frequently traveled to fashionable northern watering places, including Saratoga Springs, Balston, Newport, and Cape May. Known for the medicinal qualities of their mineral water, these resort communities promised visitors relief from such ailments and diseases as dyspepsia, constipation, rheumatism, joint ailments, diabetes, and vertigo. But many southern visitors to resorts such as Saratoga Springs did not use the waters as an excuse for vacationing there. The ability to mix with others of high social standing and attend balls and nightly social activities held in the elegant hotels were as much an attraction as the area water cures. John Hope Franklin, A Southern Odyssey: Travelers in the Antebellum North (Baton Rouge, La., 1976 ), 26-29; M. L. North, Analysis of Saratoga Waters (New York, 1846). that the colored people of New York†New York State's abolition laws came into effect in 1827. Two years after Douglass's arrival there, the 1840 census listed no slaves as residents of New York City. The free black population of the city reached its highest point at 16,358 according to the 1840 census. In 1850 the free black population dropped to 13,815, in part as a result of the federal Fugitive Slave Law enacted that year. Unlike European immigrants, free blacks did not Iive in the relative isolation of their native communities; rather, they were spread out into pockets throughout the city, finding accommodation where white landlords would allow them to rent. Likewise, racism limited their employment opportunities to predominantly menial tasks, many of which were procured daily on the street. Ira Berlin and Leslie M. Harris, eds., Slavery in New York (New York, 2005), 144, 282, 298-99; Rhoda G. Freeman, ''The Free Negro in New York City in the Era before the Civil War" ( Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1966), 64-100, 267-314. were not to be trusted; that there were hired men of my own color†Free blacks were known to have acted both independently and as decoys for white kidnappers. Perhaps the most successful black kidnapper was John Purnell, who worked with the Cannon-Johnson gang. Purnell was ultimately found guilty on two counts of kidnapping and sentenced to forty-two years in prison. By taking advantage of their race, these kidnappers were able to gain the trust of their victims, creating suspicion and uncertainty among the free black population. Wilson, Freedom at Risk, 32-37. who would betray me for a few dollars; that there were hired men ever on the lookout for fugitives; that I must trust no man with my secret; that I must not think of going either upon the wharves, or into any colored boarding-house, for all such places were closely watched; that he was himself unable to help me; and, in fact, he seemed while speaking to me to fear lest I myself might be a spy, and a betrayer. Under this apprehension, as I suppose, he showed signs of wishing to be rid of me, and with whitewash†A solution of lime and water or whiting, sizing, and water used to paint walls, ceilings, and other architectural elements. brush in hand, in search of work, he soon disappeared. This picture, given by poor "Jake" of New York, was a damper to my enthusiasm. My little store of money would soon be exhausted, and since it would be unsafe for me to go on the wharves for work, and I had no introductions elsewhere, the prospect for me was far from cheerful. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship-yards, for, if pursued, as I felt certain I would be, Mr. Auld would naturally seek me there among the calkers. Every door seemed closed against me, I was in the midst of an ocean of my fellow-men, and yet a perfect stranger to every one. I was without home, without acquaintance, without money, without credit, without work, and without any definite knowledge as to what course to take, or where to look for succor. In such an extremity, a man has something beside his new-born freedom to think of. While wandering about the streets of New York, and lodging at least one night among the barrels on one of the wharves, I was indeed free—from slavery, but free from food and shelter as well. I kept my
7
secret to myself as long as I could, but was compelled at last to seek some one who should befriend me, without taking advantage of my destitution to betray me. Such an one I found in a sailor named Stuart,†This individual was referred to as "Stewart" in Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom, but he cannot be identified. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 2:196. a warm-hearted and generous fellow, who from his humble home on Centre street, saw me standing on the opposite sidewalk, near "The Tombs."†The Tombs, New York City's first prison. was completed in 1838. Although its formal name was the Halls of Justice, it was more commonly referred to as "the Tombs" because it resembled a mausoleum. The Tombs was infamous for its structural problems, due to its having been built on former marshland. The resultant damp and cold made for unhealthful conditions for prisoners. The prison also became notorious for intentional mistreatment of prisoners, corruption, bribery, and prisoner escapes. Controversy would surround the Tombs until its forced closure in 1902. A second prison at the same location, "the Tombs II," shared many of the same difficulties as its predecessor, causing its closure by a federal justice. Carl Sifakis, Encyclopedia of American Prisons (New York, 2003), 260-62. As he approached me I ventured a remark to him which at once enlisted his interest in me. He took me to his home to spend the night, and in the morning went with me to Mr. David Ruggles, the secretary of the New York vigilance committee,†Northern blacks along with some sympathetic white supporters maintained a loose, clandestine system to clothe, feed, and shelter fugitive slaves from the South. These vigilance committees also operated to expose the presence of slave hunters and, on occasion, to rescue fugitives in the process of rendition to their masters. The New York City Vigilance Committee was founded in November 1835 with David Ruggles serving as its secretary. Ruggles's penchant for aggressive and even extralegal activities to protect fugitives led other members of the committee to force his resignation in 1839. Without Ruggles's leadership, the organization languished for a decade until it became the nucleus for a statewide vigilance society in 1848. Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, They Who Would Be Free: Blacks` Search for Freedom, 1830-1861 (New York, 1974), 207-12; Gara, Liberty Line, 101, 104-09; Freeman, "The Free Negro in New York City," 68-72, 203-04. a co-worker with Isaac T. Hopper, Lewis and Arthur Tappan, Theodore S. Wright, Samuel Cornish, Thomas Downing, Philip A. Bell†Editorial Emendation: Phillip. and other true men of their time. All these (save Mr. Bell. who still lives, and is editor and publisher of a paper called the Elevator,† The Elevator was an African American newspaper edited in San Francisco by Philip A. Bell beginning 18 April 1865. The newspaper consisted of four seven-column pages and was published every Friday, with the cost per issue at 15 cents. The newspaper was established for the promotion of blacks advocating inclusion within, not separation from, the American citizenry. In addition to civil liberties and political discussion, the Elevator was also widely known as forwarding science, drama, and literature. Bell had already had twenty-five years of editorial experience at the time he founded the Elevator, including editorial stints on the Colored American and the Pacific Appeal. By the 1880s the Elevator was the longest-running black newspaper in the nineteenth century. It ceased with Bell's death on 24 April 1889. Penn, Afro-American Press, 94, 95; EAAH, 1:123-24. in San Francisco) have finished their work on earth. Once in the hands of these brave and wise men, I felt comparatively safe. With Mr. Ruggles, on the corner of Lispenard and Church streets,†After arriving in New York. Douglass stayed at 36 Lispenard Street on the comer of Church Street, a boardinghouse operated by David Ruggles. The building also housed an abolitionist newspaper and served as a stop along the Underground Railroad, sheltering more than 600 fugitives during their escape from slavery. Ruggles himself lived at 67 Lispenard Street, where he ran an African American bookstore, probably the first of its kind. Although fire destroyed that bookstore in September 1835, he maintained his residence there. Hutton, Early Black Press in America, 152; Dorothy Porter, "David Ruggles, an Apostle of Human Rights," JNH, 28:23-50 (January 1943). I was hidden several days, during which time my intended wife came on from Baltimore at my call, to share the burdens of life with me. She was a free woman, and came at once on getting the good news of my safety. We were married by Rev. J. W. C. Pennington, then a well-known and respected Presbyterian minister. I had no money with which to pay the marriage fee, but he seemed well pleased with our thanks.
Mr. Ruggles was the first officer on the underground railroad with whom I met after coming North; and was indeed the only one with whom I had anything to do, till I became such an officer myself. Learning that my trade was that of a calker, he promptly decided that the best place for me was in New Bedford, Mass. He told me that many ships for whaling voyages were fitted out there, and that I might there find work at my trade, and make a good living. So on the day of the marriage ceremony, we took our little luggage to the steamer "John W. Richmond," which at that time was one of the line running between New York and Newport, R. I.†A major colonial-era seaport located on Aquidneck Island in Newport County, Rhode Island, thirty miles south of Providence. By the mid-nineteenth century, the small city was being transformed into a resort for the wealthy, including southern slaveholders, seeking a respite from the summer heat. Franklin, Southern Odyssey, 26-29. Forty-three years ago colored travelers were not permitted in the cabin, nor allowed abaft†Behind, in the rear. the paddle-wheels of a steam vessel.†Many historians point out that legalized segregation on public transportation was not widespread until the Jim Crow era, beginning in the late nineteenth century. And although the term "segregation" did not specifically denote "racial separation" until around the beginning of the twentieth century, exclusionary practices aboard all manner of public conveyances, including steamboats, were commonplace, for blacks as well as for women. As with northern railroads, these practices varied greatly aboard steamboats. Douglass's own experiences traveling on vessels between northern coastal cities before the Civil War indicate that he was sometimes excluded by the will of white passengers, and on other occasions by that of the crew, ranging from exclusion from a dinner table to exclusion from first-class accommodations. Lib., 1 October 1841; Alfred Avins, ed., The Reconstruction Amendments` Debates: The Legislative History and Contemporary Debates in Congress on the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments (Richmond, Va., 1967), 204, 431, 482, 554, 576-77, 632-33; George M. Fredrickson, Black Liberation: A Comparative History of Black Ideologies in the United States and South Africa (New York, 1995), 94-98. They were compelled, whatever the weather might be, whether cold or hot, wet or dry, to spend the night on deck. Unjust as this regulation was, it did not trouble us much. We had fared much harder before. We arrived at Newport the next morning, and soon after an old-fashioned stage-coach with "New Bedford" in large, yellow letters on its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare, and stood hesitating to know what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two Quaker gentlemen who were about to take passage on the stage,—Friends William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson,—who at once discerned our true
8
situation, and in a peculiarly quiet way, addressing me, Mr. Taber said: "Thee get in." I never obeyed an order with more alacrity, and we were soon on our way to our new home. When we reached "Stone Bridge"†Stone Bridge Village is a district in the northern end of the town of Tiverton, Rhode Island. Activity in the area began when a ferry service was established in 1640. The ferry changed hands but continued to operate until about 1794. In that year the first stone bridge was built, connecting Aquidneck Island and Tiverton and allowing for faster communication and transportation. Settlement subse-quently grew, and the area quickly established several cottages and public facilities near the stone bridge. Nancy Jensen Devin and Richard V. Simpson, Tiverton and Little Compton (Charleston, S.C., 1997), 9-11. the passengers alighted for breakfast, and paid their fares to the driver. We took no breakfast, and when asked for our fares I told the driver I would make it right with him when we reached New Bedford. I expected some objection to this on his part, but he made none. When, however, we reached New Bedford he took our baggage, including three music books,—two of them collections by Dyer, and one by Shaw,—and held them until I was able to redeem them by paying to him the sums due for our rides. This was soon done, for Mr. Nathan Johnson not only received me kindly, and hospitably, but, on being informed about our baggage, at once loaned me the two dollars with which to square accounts with the stage-driver. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson reached a good old age, and now rest from their labors. 1 am under many grateful obligations to them. They not only "took me in when a stranger,"†A paraphrase of Matt. 25:35 and "fed me when hungry,"†Matt. 25:35. but taught me how to make an honest living.
Thus, in a fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I was safe in New Bedford,—a citizen of the grand old commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Once initiated into my new life of freedom, and assured by Mr. Johnson that I need not fear recapture in that city, a comparatively unimportant question arose, as to the name by which I should be known thereafter, in my new relation as a free man. The name given me by my dear mother was no less pretentious and long than Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. I had, however, while living in Maryland disposed with the Augustus Washington, and retained only Frederick Bailey. Between Baltimore and New Bedford, the better to conceal myself from the slave-hunters, I had parted with Bailey and called myself Johnson; but finding that in New Bedford the Johnson family was already so numerous†According to the 1840 population census, there were eleven black families in New Bedford with the surname Johnson, with a total of forty-one household members. A historian of New Bedford's black community dismisses the census recordkeeping of that group as "next to worthless." 1840 U.S. Census, Massachusetts, Bristol County, 357-465; Grover, Fugitive`s Gibraltar, 310n. as to cause some confusion in distinguishing one from another, a change in this name seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, was emphatic as to this necessity, and wished me to allow him to select a name for me. I consented, and he called me by my present name,—the one by which I have been known for three and forty years,—Frederick Douglass. Mr. Johnson had just been reading "The Lady of the Lake," and so pleased was he with its great character that he wished me to bear his name. Since reading that charming poem myself, I have often thought that, considering the noble hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson, black man though he was, he, far more than I, illustrated the virtues of the Douglas of Scotland. Sure am I that if any slave-catcher had entered his domicile with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have been like him of the "stalwart hand."†Probably a reference to Canto I, stanza XXVIII, lines 565-67 in Sir Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake, "'I never knew but one,' he said,/ 'Whose stalwart arm might brook to wield/ A blade like this in battle-field."' Scott, Complete Poetical Works, 162.
9
The reader may be surprised, that living in Baltimore as I had done for many years, when I tell the honest truth of the impressions I had in some way conceived of the social and material condition of the people at the north. I had no proper idea of the wealth, refinement, enterprise, and high civilization of this section of the country. My "Columbian Orator," almost my only book, had done nothing to enlighten me concerning northern society. I had been taught that slavery was the bottom-fact of all wealth. With this foundation idea, I came naturally to the conclusion that poverty must be the general condition of the people of the free States. A white man holding no slaves in the country from which I came, was usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man. Men of this class were contemptuously called "poor white trash."†Derogatory term pertaining to the poor white population of the South. Mathews, Dictionary of Americanisms, 2:1283. Hence I supposed that since the non-slaveholders at the south were ignorant, poor, and degraded as a class, the non-slaveholders at the north must be in a similar condition. New Bedford therefore, which at that time was really the richest city in the Union, in proportion to its population, took me greatly by surprise, in the evidences it gave of its solid wealth and grandeur. I found that even the laboring classes lived in better houses,†The living conditions of laborers, and especially of free blacks, were only marginally better in northern states than in the South. Blacks living in northern cities were just a bit more likely to own property than their southern counterparts but were more likely to have difficulty finding a job that suited their occupation, if skilled. In some southern cities, free blacks lived in deplorable conditions, but others lived quite well. What Douglass must have noticed was the marked difference that freedom of self-expression brought to individuals. The churches, educational opportunities, newspapers, and abolitionist societies in the North helped to widen the contrast between the two regions. Luther Porter Jackson, Free Negro Labor and Property Holding in Virginia, 1830-1860 (New York, 1942), 168-70; Curry, Free Black in Urban America, 16-18, 267-69; Berlin, Slaves without Masters, 168. that their houses were more elegantly furnished, and were more abundantly supplied with conveniences and comforts, than the houses of many who owned slaves on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. This was true not only of the white people of that city, but it was so of my friend, Mr. Johnson. He lived in a nicer house, dined at a more ample board, was the owner of more books, the reader of more newspapers, was more conversant with the moral, social, and political condition of the country and the world than nine-tenths of the slaveholders in all Talbot county. I was not long in finding the cause of the difference in these respects, between the people of the north and south. It was the superiority of educated mind over mere brute force. I will not detain the reader by extended illustrations as to how my understanding was enlightened on this subject. On the wharves of New Bedford I received my first light. I saw there industry without bustle, labor without noise, toil—honest, earnest, and exhaustive, without the whip. There was no loud singing or hallooing, as at the wharves or southern ports when ships were loading or unloading; no loud cursing or quarreling; everything went on as smoothly as well-oiled machinery. One of the first incidents which impressed me with the superior mental character of labor in the north over that of the south, was in the manner of loading and unloading vessels. In a southern port twenty or thirty hands would be employed to do what five or six men, with the help of one ox, would do at the wharf in New Bedford. Main strength—human muscle—unassisted by intelligent skill, was slavery's method of labor. With a capital of about sixty
10
dollars in the shape of a good-natured old ox, attached to the end of a stout rope, New Bedford did the work of ten or twelve thousand dollars, represented in the bones and muscles of slaves, and did it far better. In a word, I found everything managed with a much more scrupulous regard to economy, both of men and things, time and strength, than in the country from which I had come. Instead of going a hundred yards to the spring, the maid-servant had a well or pump at her elbow. The wood used for fuel was kept dry and snugly piled away for winter. Here were sinks, drains, self-shutting gates, pounding-barrels, washing-machines, wringing-machines, and a hundred other contrivances for saving time and money. The ship-repairing docks showed the same thoughtful wisdom as seen elsewhere. Everybody seemed in earnest. The carpenter struck the nail on its head, and the calkers wasted no strength in idle flourishes of their mallets. Ships brought here for repairs were made stronger and better than when new. I could have landed in no part of the United States where I should have found a more striking and gratifying contrast, not only to life generally in the South, but in the condition of the colored people there than in New Bedford. No colored man was really free while residing in a slave State. He was ever more or less subject to the condition of his slave brother. In his color was his badge of bondage, I saw in New Bedford the nearest approach to freedom and equality that I had ever seen. I was amazed when Mr. Johnson told me that there was nothing in the laws or constitution of Massachusetts, that would prevent a colored man from being governor of the State, if the people should see fit to elect him.†Adopted in 1780, the Massachusetts state constitution makes no reference to a color bar for elected officials. As first written, the constitution made no provision for amendment, but when Maine was separated from Massachusetts in 1820, reformers held a constitutional convention, approving nine amendments, but none of those limited black participation in government. A second convention in 1853 attempted a complete revision of the constitution, but failed. Robert J. Taylor, ed., Massachusetts Colony to Commonwealth: Documents on the Formation of Its Constitution, 1775-1780 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1961), 127-46; League of Women Voters of Massachusetts, Massachusetts State Government (Cambridge, Mass., 1970), 51-52. There too the black man's children attended the same public schools with the white man's children, and apparently without objection from any quarter.†Although Douglass occasionally encountered racial discrimination in New Bedford, the Massachusetts seaport had a long history of a stable and moderately prosperous black community in its midst. Among principal cities in Massachusetts, only Boston operated a segregated public school system after the mid-1840s. Leon F. Litwack, North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States, 1790-1860 (Chicago, 1961), 153; Grover, Fugitive`s Gibraltar, 180-81, 230-31. To impress me with my security from recapture, and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson assured me that no slaveholder could take a slave out of New Bedford; that there were men there who would lay down their lives to save me from such a fate. A threat was once made by a colored man to inform a southern master where his runaway slave could be found.†It is unclear whether this incident actually occurred in the manner reported to Douglass. However, Nathan Johnson was undoubtedly a participant in an incident involving about twenty other people who went to the home of John Howard with stones and clubs, causing Howard some physical harm. Witnesses at Johnson's trial indicated that Howard had come from New York or somewhere farther south and that his purpose in New Bedford was to gain information about runaway slaves. Johnson and the others were charged with assault and battery, but were subsequently acquitted and released. Kathryn Grover, Fugitive Slave Traffic and the Maritime World of New Bedford (New Bedford, 1998), 9-10, 30; idem. Fugitive`s Gibraltar, 112-13, 148. As soon as this threat became known to the colored people they were furious. A notice was read from the pulpit of the Third Christian church (colored) for a public meeting, when important business would be transacted (not stating what the important business was). In the meantime special measures had been taken to secure the attendance of the would-be Judas,†That is, comparing the man with Judas Iscariot, disciple and later betrayer of Jesus Christ. J. D. Douglas, ed., The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, 3 vols. (Wheaton, Ill., 1980), 2:830-31. and these had proved successful, for when the hour of meeting arrived, ignorant of the object for which it was called,†Editorial Emendation: Expanded Second American Edition, First Printing Boston: De Wolfe, Fiske & Co., 1893: which they were called together. the offender was promptly in attendance. All the usual formalities were gone through with, the prayer, appointments of president, secretaries, etc. Then the president, with an air of great solemnity, rose and