Full Name: Frederick Douglass
Pen Name: Frederick Douglass
Date of Birth: Uncertain, approximately February of 1818
Place of Birth: Tuckahoe, Maryland
Date of Death: February 20, 1895
Brief Life Story: Douglass was born a slave in Maryland. His father was an unknown white man who may have been his master. Douglass endured decades in slavery, working both as a field hand in the countryside and an apprentice in Baltimore. While enslaved in Baltimore, Douglass managed to teach himself to read and write—a miraculous feat, especially given that his endeavors were actively opposed by his master and mistress, Hugh and Sophia Auld. Douglass successfully escaped and made his way to the free state of Massachusetts. There, he began to follow William Lloyd Garrison’s abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, which inspired him to become deeply involved with the anti-slavery cause. Douglass’s intelligence and articulateness made him an obvious spokesman for the abolition movement. Later in his life, Douglass served as an adviser to President Lincoln during the Civil War, and, after the war’s conclusion, carried out diplomatic roles in the United States government.
Maryland. His mother is a slave named Harriet Bailey, and his father is an unknown white man who may be his master. Douglass encounters slavery’s brutality at an early age when he witnesses his first master, Captain Anthony, give a brutal whipping to Douglass’s Aunt Hester. Captain Anthony is employed by Colonel Edward Lloyd, and Anthony lives in a house on Lloyd’s sprawling property with his sons, Andrew and Richard; his daughter, Lucretia; and Lucretia’s husband, Captain Thomas Auld. Lloyd himself lives in the middle of his plantation on a property called the Great House Farm, which is so majestic that some slaves feel honored to work there.
Lloyd is an unkind master, and, like other slaveholders, he will discipline the slaves if they speak honestly about the discomfort of their circumstances. One of Lloyd’s overseers, Mr. Austin Gore, is a particularly cruel disciplinarian. His killing of a slave named Demby, which goes unpunished, illustrates that killing or harming a black person is not treated as a crime.
To Douglass’s delight, he is moved to Baltimore at age seven or eight to work for Mr. Hugh Auld, brother of Captain Thomas Auld. Hugh’s wife, Sophia Auld, is at first a kind and loving mistress who begins teaching Douglass to read. However, Hugh emphatically puts a stop to Douglass’s education. Hugh’s intervention only makes Douglass more determined to learn how to read, viewing education as a path to freedom. Sophia is warped by the power that owning slaves gives her. She becomes mean-spirited and works to thwart Douglass’s attempts to become literate. Douglass lives with the Aulds for seven years, and in this time he teaches himself to read. Douglass reads books that present arguments against slavery, and he begins to lose hope as he realizes the extent of his powerlessness. He resolves to attempt an escape
Captain Anthony dies, and Douglass is sent back to Lloyd’s plantation to be humiliatingly evaluated alongside Anthony’s livestock. Douglass is inherited by Lucretia Auld and sent back to Baltimore, and Douglass is sent to live with Thomas and his new wife in the town of St. Michael’s, Maryland in 1832. Thomas is a cruel master and a religious hypocrite. He and Douglass do not get along, and Douglass is sent to work for Edward Covey, a farmer who has a reputation for breaking the spirits of difficult slaves.
Douglass spends six hellish months working for the malevolent Mr. Covey. Douglass’s spirits are broken by the work, and he goes to Thomas Auld to protest his treatment, but is sent back to Covey’s farm. Another slave, Sandy Jenkins, gives Douglass a mystical root to protect himself. Douglass stands up to Covey and stops receiving whippings. After a year with Covey, Douglass is sent to live with William Freeland. Douglass and four other slaves attempt to escape from Freeland’s, but their plan is betrayed and Douglass ends up in jail. After some time in prison, Douglass is sent back to Baltimore to work again for Hugh Auld.
In Baltimore, Douglass works for a shipbuilder, and is assaulted on his jobsite. Hugh apprentices him to another shipbuilder, and Douglass learns how to caulk. Douglass’s caulking skills allow him to earn good money for Hugh. Hugh temporarily allows Douglass to work for his own pay, but later revokes this permission. Douglass then decides to plan an escape.
future slaves’ escapes from slavery, Douglass does not describe his escape in detail. Once free, Douglass ends up in New York, and is helped by Mr. David Ruggles. In New York, Douglass weds a free woman named Anna. The newlyweds then make their way to New Bedford, where Douglass is aided by a man named Nathan Johnson. Douglass is amazed by the prosperity the north has achieved without slaves. After some time in New Bedford, Douglass begins reading The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper. This inspires Douglass to speak at an anti-slavery convention in 1841, which launches his career as an anti-slavery advocate
Frederick Douglass –Douglass, the Narrative’s author and protagonist, was born a slave in Tuckahoe, Maryland, to a woman named Harriet Bailey. His father was an unknown white man who may have been his master. Douglass begins life belonging to Captain Anthony, who is a steward on Colonel Edward Lloyd’s plantation. Later, Douglass is moved Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld and Sophia Auld,relatives of Anthony’s son-in-law, Thomas Auld. Douglass believes that education is a path to self-emancipation, and for this reason, he teaches himself to read and write in Baltimore. Douglass then suffers as a slave to Thomas Auld, then Edward Covey and, after Covey, William Freeland. Under Freeland, he attempts his first escape, which fails. Throughout his enslavement, Douglass finds that the most religious masters are, hypocritically, often the cruelest to their slaves. Douglass spends his final months of slavery in Baltimore with Hugh, where he learns the trade of caulking ships. Douglass successfully escapes to New York, where he marries Anna Murray, and then makes his way to Massachusetts, where he becomes an antislavery advocate.
Hugh Auld – The brother of Thomas Auld. He lives in Baltimore with his wife, Sophia Auld. Douglass comes to work for Hugh when he is fairly young. Hugh prevents his wife from teaching Douglass to read and write because he understands that the institution of slavery perpetuates itself by keeping blacks uneducated, and this, in turn, impresses upon Douglass the importance of educating himself.
Sophia Auld – Hugh Auld’s wife. She is initially kind and generous to Douglass. However, once her husband forces her to stop teaching Douglass to read and write, her power over Douglass starts to corrupt her. She becomes cruel and begins to actively thwart Douglass’s attempts to educate himself.
Edward Covey – A farmer renowned for his ability to “break” disobedient slaves. He cannot afford to own many slaves himself, so other masters will lease him their slaves in exchange for him “breaking” them. Covey uses deceit to ensure that slaves are fearful and hardworking. Thomas Auld sends Douglass to work for him for a year because Douglass is difficult to control. Douglass’s first six months with Covey are miserable, but Douglass then stands up to Covey and is never whipped again.
Sandy Jenkins – A slave who works with Douglass. He briefly takes Douglass in after Douglass flees Covey’s farm. Sandy also gives Douglass a special root, which he superstitiously believes will protect Douglass from being harmed by his master. Initially, Sandy also plans to escape William Freeland’s farm with Douglass and several other slaves, but he backs out of the plan, which suggests that he may have been the one who betrayed Douglass to his master.
Colonel Edward Lloyd – Anthony’s employer. He is exceedingly wealthy, and owns hundreds of slaves on a number of farms; his personal homestead is called the “Great House Farm.” Lloyd is unfair to his slaves, particularly Old Barney and Young Barney, who work in his stable.
Captain Anthony – Captain Anthony, so called because he used to captain ships in the Chesapeake, is Douglass’s first owner. Anthony is a superintendent for Colonel Edward Lloyd, and his family lives on Lloyd’s property. Douglass’s first experience of the horrors of slavery was watching Anthony brutally whip Douglass’s Aunt Hester.
Captain Thomas Auld – Thomas, the husband of Lucretia Auld, is a very cruel owner who puts on airs because he hasn’t owned slaves from birth. Douglass lives with him after his first stint in Baltimore; by this time, Lucretia has died and Thomas has remarried to Rowena Hamilton. Thomas becomes deeply religious while Douglass works for him, but this only makes him a crueler master.
Betsy Bailey – Douglass’s grandmother. She raised Douglass because his mother was sold away. She spent her entire life working for Captain Anthony and his family. Douglass is indignant when he hears that after Anthony’s death, Betsy isn’t emancipated, but is instead put out in a shed in the woods to live out her final days alone.
Aunt Hester – Douglass’s aunt. Watching Captain Anthony whip her for associating with another man stands out to Douglass as his first encounter with the cruelty of slavery.
Harriet Bailey – Douglass’s mother. He was separated from her very early on, and Douglass only sees her a handful of times in his life. Douglass laments that he never felt very attached to her.
Austin Gore – One of Colonel Lloyd’s overseers. He is exceedingly cruel, and his murder of Demby illustrates whites’ ability to kill blacks with impunity.
Mr. Severe – The first of Colonel Lloyd’s overseers that Douglass remembers. Like his name suggests, he treats slaves poorly, and the slaves are relieved when he dies
Old Barney and Young Barney – This father-and-son pair is in charge of the upkeep of Colonel Lloyd’s stable. Lloyd has unreasonable expectations for the two slaves, and holds them accountable for problems that they cannot control. The Barneys symbolize slaves’ inability to speak truthfully or in their own defense without being punished.
Lucretia Auld – The daughter of Captain Anthony, married to Captain Thomas Auld. After Anthony dies, Douglass is passed on to her. Fairly soon after inheriting Douglass, Lucretia herself dies.
William Freeland – Douglass is leased to Freeland for two years after spending a year with Covey. Freeland is Douglass’s most evenhanded master.
William Hamilton – The father of Thomas Auld’s second wife, Rowena Hamilton. William Hamilton captures Douglass before he attempts his escape from Freeland.
Rowena Hamilton – Thomas Auld’s second wife, whom he marries after Lucretia Auld’s death.
William Gardner – The first shipbuilder to whom Douglass is apprenticed in Baltimore. His shipyard is too busy for Douglass to learn any skills.
Nathan Johnson – An abolitionist who helps get Douglass and Anna settled in Massachusetts. Douglass honors him by letting him choose Douglass’s last name.
Anna Murray – The free black woman that Douglass marries in New York after escaping bondage.
David Ruggles – A black New Yorker, journalist, and abolitionist who helps Douglass get on his feet after his escape from slavery.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is full of blistering critiques of slave owners who feign religious piety. Douglass’s experience often shows that the white southerners who participate most zealously in religious activities are often the same ones who treat slaves most inhumanely. These reprehensible people are quick to condemn slaves for the slightest violations of biblical principles, but are all too willing to twist scripture into justifying their own horrifyingly irreligious acts. For example, during Douglass’s time at St. Michael’s, a white man named Mr. Wilson starts up a Sabbath school designed to teach slaves how to read the New Testament. This reading group is violently broken up by Mr. West and Mr. Fairbanks, two men who led classes to teach scripture to whites, on the grounds that they don’t want slaves to learn to read at all. One of Douglass’s masters, Thomas Auld, even quotes scripture to justify giving a brutal whipping to a crippled woman: “He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.”
While this hypocrisy is extraordinarily harmful to the slaves themselves, it is also damaging to the masters. Religious slaveholders believe they have divine moral sanction for the atrocities they perpetuate, which further compromises their already-diminished ability to discern right from wrong and encourages them to sink to even more reprehensible depths. For example, male slaveholders rape their female slaves and sell their own children into slavery, all while nominally condemning such actions through their religious devotion. By rationalizing such actions with illogical religious workarounds, the slaveholders’ moral reasoning deteriorates even further, even faster. Throughout the autobiography, Douglass uses ironic language to condemn the two-faced “piety” of his oppressors. However, in an appendix to the book, he is careful to clarify that he objects not to Christianity proper, but to what he calls the “slaveholding religion,” which uses Christianity to justify atrocities. In fact, Douglass himself appears to possess a great deal of faith in a more humane Christianity; he writes, “I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land.” Ultimately, through his narrative Douglass is making the case that slavery is incompatible with true Christianity, and in doing so making the case against slavery on religious grounds.
Douglass writes, “I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.” Throughout his experience as a slave, Douglass finds that masters consistently seek to deprive their slaves of knowledge, in order to crush slaves’ wills to be free, or to make it so that the slaves cannot even comprehend of being free. When Hugh Auld finds his wife, Sophia, teaching Frederick how to write, he demands that she stop, saying that “learning would spoil the best nigger in the world.”
The institution of slavery seems to depend on keeping slaves as unenlightened as possible. Masters encourage slaves to revel and drink excessively during their annual Christmas holidays, so that the slaves sicken themselves when left to their own devices and come to think of themselves as unable to be responsible for themselves. Sinister slave owners contrive situations that force slaves to develop a distorted understanding of the nature of freedom. This way, slaves come to believe that they cannot handle an independent existence. Even Douglass, upon first reading about the full nature and extent of slavery, loses the little hope he had for bettering his circumstances.
However, Douglass becomes dedicated to educating himself and his fellow slaves because he sees it as a route to longer-term empowerment. The information that Douglass encounters through literacy broadens his understanding of the dehumanizing institution of slavery and the slaveholders’ strategies for promoting the ignorance of their slaves, and strengthens his desire to emancipate himself. Once he is free, Douglass’s literacy lets him advance the abolitionist cause far more than he could without the ability to read and write. This literacy is in itself a refutation of many arguments in favor of slavery: Douglass’s intelligence and eloquence prove that slaves are human beings capable of meaningful thought, despite racist slaveholders’ arguments to the contrary.
Douglass’s autobiography is created out of the belief that exposing the truth will eventually bring about justice. To Douglass, a straightforward depiction of the true nature of slavery is one of the most effective ways to combat the injustice of the institution. His story is delivered matter-of-factly, and Douglass rightly judges that he doesn’t need to embellish or editorialize on his story in order to persuade readers of the horrors of slavery. In the text, one moment defines Douglass’s veneration of truth: after teaching himself to read, Douglass pores over an anti-slavery book called The Columbian Orator and concludes that “the moral which I gained from the dialogue was the power of truth over the conscience of even a slaveholder.” The value Douglass places on truthfulness becomes still clearer when he reveals that it pains him to be unable to describe the facts of his escape in meaningful detail (even though he must keep it secret in order to protect those who helped him escape).
The significance of Douglass’s ability to write truthfully should not be underestimated. One of the many injustices of slavery that Douglass recounts is the inability to speak truthfully, which seems like it should be a basic human entitlement. While enslaved, he and other slaves would be punished severely for simply speaking honestly about the discomfort of their situations. Douglass’s freedom not only affords him an escape from these miserable conditions, but also an opportunity for honest, public reflection on the miseries he endured.
Douglass’s commentary throughout the book suggests that someone who has the fortune never to be enslaved can never truly understand slavery. The hardship of slavery is inexpressible. For example, when recounting his escape, Douglass writes, “I say, let him be placed in this most trying situation,—the situation in which I was placed,—then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.” Moreover, intellectual means may not be the most effective way to understand this hardship: when he remembers the songs that the slaves used to sing, Douglass reflects that merely hearing these songs could do more to help one understand the abominable nature of slavery than years of reading about the institution could ever accomplish.
Slave owners do everything they can to undermine any basic ties of kinship that could unite their slaves. Families are broken up; much to Douglass’s dismay, he barely gets to know his mother, Harriet Bailey, and his siblings are utterly alienated from him. However, in spite of their masters’ cruel designs, slaves develop profound attachments to one another: writes Douglass, “I was…somewhat indebted to the society of my fellow-slaves…I loved them with a love stronger than any thing I have experienced since. It is sometimes said that we slaves do not love and confide in each other. In answer to this assertion, I can say, I never loved any or confided in any people more than my fellow-slaves.” This fellowship brings Douglass comfort, and when he is on the run and unable to trust anyone, he suffers greatly. Conversely, by enslaving their fellow man, the slave owners fail to grasp the extent and importance of the communal fellowship that sustains the slaves.
The father-and-son pair of slaves who maintain Colonel Lloyd’s stable represent the unpredictable and unreasonable demands slaveholders make of their slaves. The Barneys are held accountable for everything that displeases the Colonel, and cannot speak up to defend themselves or their conduct.
After teaching himself to read, Douglass studies books that deal with oppression. He reads The Columbian Orator, in which a slave presents compelling arguments for emancipation. The book also includes speeches from the Catholic Relief movement in England, in which activists successfully campaigned for the removal of restrictions on Roman Catholics. These literary experiences persuade Douglass that the truth is powerful enough to overcome even the most bigoted slaveholder’s views.
Demby is a slave who is killed by Mr. Gore, one of Colonel Lloyd’s overseers. Demby runs away from the brutal whipping he is receiving from Gore and takes refuge in a stream. Gore threatens to shoot Demby if the slave does not leave the stream by the count of three, and when Demby remains in the stream, Gore kills him. Gore is not punished for his actions. This story illustrates that the murder of a slave is not treated as a punishable offense in the slaveholding south.
Aunt Hester is Douglass’s aunt and a slave of Captain Anthony’s. She receives a merciless whipping from her master, accompanied by degrading slurs, because she spends time with a male slave. Douglass witnesses this beating at a very young age, and it affects him greatly. The assault was Douglass’s first view of the cruelty of slavery, as well as the irrational jealousy and sexual greed that characterizes male masters’ relations with female slaves.
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