FREDERICK DOUGLASS

FREDERICK DOUGLASS .

I. BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Today I will talk about the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. I will discuss his biography, and then discuss his ideas about slavery and race.

1. EARLY LIFE

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born in February 1818 at the Holme Hill farm on Tuckahoe Creek, Talbot County, in Maryland. His first owner was Aaron Anthony. Douglass' father was white, and there was the insinuation that his master may have been his father, but this is speculation. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was hired out on another plantation, the Stewart plantation, twelve miles away. Thus Frederick rarely saw his mother, and in his Narrative states that he never saw her more than four or five times in his life. Consequently he was raised by his grandmother, Betsey. Douglass' mother died in 1825, when he was seven years old. In 1826, at about age 8, Douglass was sent to Baltimore to live with Hugh and Sophia Auld.

In 1827 Aaron Anthony died suddenly, and unexpectedly, leaving no will. As he left no will, indicating what was to be done with his property, his property, including his slaves, was divided in half between his two heirs, his son Andrew and his daughter Lucretia. The slaves were divided in half, that is to say half went to Andrew and half to Lucretia. Lucretia inherited Douglass. But as she was married to Thomas Auld, de facto Auld became his new owner (because women in that time usually deferred to their husbands, and if a woman was married her property became his property).

Thomas Auld allowed his brother, Hugh, to keep Douglass for a number of years. And indeed, soon after Douglass went back to Baltimore Lucretia died, and he then became the property of Thomas Auld for sure.

2. UNSAFE TO TEACH A SLAVE TO READ

There, in Baltimore, Sophia Auld began teaching young Frederick to read. However she was enjoined from doing this by her husband, Hugh.

As you read on page 49, Hugh Auld told his wife that it was against the law to teach a slave to read, and unsafe. He said:

"If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master - to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now, if you teach that nigger how to read, there will be no keeping him. It would unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy."

Actually, Auld had it exactly right. Once the slave can read and write he will aspire for more. This knowledge would whet his appetitie for freedom, and he would aspire for more. He would want more out of life, and feel frustrated. But for Frederick Douglass it was now too late. The seed of curiousity and aspiration had already been planted, and once Douglass had begun to learn it was too late to try to put the genie back into the bottle.

Douglass would challenge the white children in the neighborhood to a contest to see who could draw the most letters, and he learned from them. He would draw thje few letters he knew, and the little white children would say, "oh, that's nothing, I know more than that," and then they would draw the letters they knew. So Douglass learned from them. Later, Hugh Auld's son, little Master Thomas began to go to school. Douglass learned from Thomas' discarded copy books, and learned to write a script, or as he puts it, a hand, like his.

In 1832 Douglass' sister Sarah was sold away to Mississippi. During his childhood 15 close relatives were "sold South." This included not only his sister but also 2 aunts, 7 cousins and 5 relatives. Here we see dramatic evidence of the impact of the break-up of families during slavery.

3. THE FIGHT WITH EDWARD COVEY

Douglass was bounced around from owner to owner. In 1834 he was hired out to Edward Covey, the slave breaker. As you read, he suffered many beatings and much abuse at the hands of Covey. But in August of 1834 something in Douglass snapped, and he resolved to resist Covey and fight back. A friend of his, Sandy Jenkins, gave him a root that he had gotten from a conjurer, which was supposed to protect him from being whipped. The friend carried such a root himself, and swore that it worked. Root or no root, this was the period when Douglass refused to let Covey whip him, and the two fought and wrestled for two hours before the exhausted Covey finally let him go. Covey insisted that Freddy had not resisted he would not have whipped him, but in fact Covey had not whipped him. Rather they had fought for two hours and an exhausted Covey had let him go.

But for Douglass this was a crucial turning point in his life, a kind of rite of passage. It was in that moment, in that fight, that he asserted his humanity. By his behavior, he said, I am a human being, not a dog. I have value and worth as a human being. I refuse any longer to be the chattel that you say I am. And I will not tamely submit to this abuse and mistreatment. He was asserting his manhood. So this fight can be seen as part of his coming of age.

In 1835 Douglass was hired out to William Freeland as a field hand, and he secretly conducted a Sabbath school where he taught about 40 other slaves to read and write. The school was held secretly at the home of a free black man.

4. THE FIRST ESCAPE ATTEMPT

In April 1836, at the age of 18, Douglass and several of his companions plotted to escape to the North by taking a boat into the Chesapeake Bay. Douglass forged passes for himself and his co-conspirators. However someone informed on them, and they were hauled off to jail, but eventually released.

In 1836 Douglass was sent to live with Hugh Auld once again, and he worked as a caulker in the Baltimore shipyards. However, as is described on pages 100-101, the white carpenters went out on strike to protest having to work with free black carpenters. They were afraid that in time black carpenters would take over the trade and take jobs from the white men, the white working class. White labor regarded black labor as unwelcome competition. The white apprentices then attacked Douglass and he nearly lost his left eye.

It was at this time also, that Douglass met a free black woman named Anna Murray. Later on, after Douglass' escape from slavery, they would be married.

Hugh Auld allowed Douglass to hire his own time, that is to work for someone else and receive payment for it. However all of the money had to be given to Master Hugh. However, on occasions when Douglass made six dollars, Master Hugh would allow him to keep 6 cents, as encouragement. And when Douglass one week earned eight dollars, Master Hugh actually gave him twenty five cents, which was a large sum to allow a slave.

II. FREDERICK DOUGLASS' ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY

On September 3, 1838 twenty year old Douglass escaped to New York. Since your readings do not reveal how he managed this, let me say a few words about it. From a retired sailor, named Mr. Stanley, he got Mr. Stanley's "seaman's protection" papers. These were papers that certified that the person in question, the bearer, was free and was a sailor and therefore was allowed to travel at will. Disguised, dressed, as a sailor, on leave, Douglass, a.k.a. Stanley, calmly boarded the train from Baltimore. At Havre de Grace he took the ferry across the Susquehanna River, and then the train to Wilmington, Delaware. From there he took a steamboat to Philadelphia and then a train to New York. He arrived in New York the next day, on September 4th. He got the money for his trainfare from Anna Murray. He at once wrote to her, she came to New York, and they were married on September 15th. They moved to New Bedford, Mass., where Douglass worked as a caulker in the shipyards.

Douglass went on to become one of the most famous black abolitionists, initially working with William Lloyd Garrison. He founded an anti-slavery newspaper, The North Star, and in May 1845 published the first edition of his Narrative. In 1845 and 46 he was invited to go on an anti-slavery speaking tour to Ireland, Scotland and England. But he was still a fugitive, runaway slave. He was liable to arrest upon his return to the United States. British anti-slavery friend sent Thomas Auld a check for $150 British pouns, or $711, to purchase Frederick Douglass. Manumission papers were filed, and Douglass was able to return to the U.S. in safety, as a free man. Douglass rewrote the Narrative in 1855 and again in 1881. During the Civil War he recruited black soldiers. His sons served in the war.

III. DOUGLASS' VIEWS ABOUT SLAVERY AND RACE

There are several passages where Douglass tells us his views of slavery, and by extension, racism.

1. HAVE NOT I AS GOOD A RIGHT TO BE FREE AS YOU HAVE?

At age twelve (p. 54) Douglass describes his conversation with the young white children he played with in Baltimore, and who helped him to learn to read and write.

"I used to talk this matter of slavery over with them. I would sometimes say to them, I wished I could be 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.

Young Frederick Douglass saw no difference between himself and the white children, except the accident of color. The difference in treatment seemed arbitrary and unjust, for no good reason.

2. ENSLAVERS AS ROBBERS, PIRATES

He continues, on page 55,

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.

On page 84 Douglass describes slavery as a gross fraud, a wrong, and as inhuman. He condemns it as barbaric. Elsewhere he describes it as cruel (p. 90). And he frequently uses the metaphor of a prison or prisonhouse to describe slavery (p. 90).

On page 90 he asks, "Does a righteous God govern the universe? and for what does he hold the thunders in his right hand, if not to smite the oppressor, and deliver the spoiled from the spoiler?

On page 104, Douglass writes:

"I was now getting...one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet upon each Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to Master Hugh. And why? Not because he earned it, - not because he had any hand in earning it, - not because I owed it to him, - nor because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged pirate upon the high seas is exactly the same."

Here Douglass condemns slavery as nothing more than robbery, theft, piracy and extortion. It is the strong preying upon the weak, and living by the fruit of their labor. Douglass regarded slavery as barbaric. He saw it as tyranny. Obviously he saw it as oppression.

3. SLAVERY AND RACISM AS UNEARNED PRIVILEGE

Douglass saw slavery and racism as one group of people usurping power for themselves, and allocating all the privileges to themselves. But as far as he could see, they were not worthy of this privilege, and had done nothing to earn it or deserve it. They had this privilege simply by virtue of their greater POWER. Slavery and racism were unearned privilege.

4. THE ABUSE OF POWER AND THE WILL TO POWER

More than this, Douglass saw slavery as a criminal and inmoral abuse of power. He saw slavery and discrimination as a case of those who possessed power taking advantage of, and victimizing, those who were relatively powerless. These, of course, again, were the ethics of a robber, a thief, a bully. Also, these were the actions and ethics of people blinded and consumed by greed.

Douglass believed that the races were equal and there was no inherent difference between them. He rejected the doctrines of white superiority and black inferiority. He believed that the only difference between blacks and whites was that the Europeans had more power, and they had possessed guns while the Africans had not. It was the gun (or technology) that enabled the European to enslave the African, and it was the gun that held 4 million slaves in bondage in 1860. The gun was the only real difference between blacks and whites.

Slavery, then, and racial discrimination, reflected the will to power. It reflected the attitude that "might makes right," and if one has power then one can do whatever one wishes, be it right or wrong. If I want it I can take it, and nobody can stop me. And if others don't like it, well, it is just too bad, because there is nothing the powerless can do about it. This, of course, is the attitude of a bully, of a despot, of a tyrant. It is the spirit of domination. It is the spirit if the caveman, of the hunter, of the predator. It is the law of the jungle, the state of nature, the war of all against all, and the survival of the fittest. And it is the spirit of extortion. One is reminded of the words of Lord Acton, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

Douglass believed that slaveholders deliberately kept the slaves ignorant and uneducated, and then accused them of being ignorant and backward and inferior, and used this enforced ignorance as an excuse to justify the enslavement of blacks. As Dana Carvey (a.k.a. Church Lady) would say, "Well isn't that special! How convenient."

5. THE STIGMA OF SLAVERY

Douglass also believed that slavery stigmatized the entire black race. It put a negative label on blacks. Because slavery was such a degrading condition, all blacks, even free blacks, were despised and held in contempt. But Douglass believed that with freedom and education and economic opportunity, blacks could lift themselves up and achieve just like whites. The backwardness and ignorance of blkacks was due to their slave environment, he said. Change the environment, and blacks can progress.

As an optimist, Douglass believed that once slavery was abolished, racism would recede. He believed that racism flowed from slavery. He may well have been in error about this, however, for as he discovered, there was prejudice and discrimination even in the free North.

6. AMERICA GUILTY OF HYPOCRISY AND BETRAYING ITS OWN IDEALS

In addition, Douglass believed that America was guilty of tremendous hypocrisy. This theme runs throughtout the text. He accused white America of betraying and falling short of its own professed ideals. No less a person than Thomas Jefferson had said, in the Declaration of Independence, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The United States had adopted a democratic and republican form of government, with popular elections and the principle of the consent of the governed.

But across this democracy there seemed to be written a sign that said "For whites only." Of course Jefferson had not meant to include blacks in the phrase "all men," but his words took on a life of their own after he wrote them, and others took him literally, at his word. If he hadn't meant "all" he should not have said "all." But he did say all, and his words were appropriated by the advocates of racial and sexual equality, and put to good use by them, despite what he meant.

Rhetorically, and polemically, Douglass and others asserted that America had betrayed the ideals of the Revolution and the Founding Fathers. America professed to be a democratic society in which all were equal, but 4 million blacks were held in slavery.

And also written across our democracy was a sign that said, "For men only," as women could not vote and indeed would not receive the vote until 1919. Douglass opposed slavery and believed that both blacks and women should be allowed to vote. He was an early advocate of women's suffrage along with Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Douglass contended that this unequal behavior impugned and stained the free and equal image that the nation had of itself. And like the great white aboloitionist leader, William Lloyd Garrison, Douglass accused the nation of hypocrisy, of betraying the Christianity it claimed to profess. Douglass called American Christians "Pharisees." Douglass drove home the point of hypocrisy and contradiction, and called American democracy a lie and American Christianity a sham. Like Garrison and Charles Sumner, he held that slavery and inequality before the law was incompatible with a free, democratic society and with Christianity, and therefore slavery and inequality before the law should be abolished.

PRO-SLAVERY IDEOLOGY

INTRODUCTION

After 1830 slaveowners began aggressively to defend the institution of slavery. They were defending it against the criticisms of the abolitionists. Josiah Nott, who wrote in the 1840s and 1850s, was one of these pro-slavery apologists. Nott and many others asserted that Negroes were naturally and biologically and intellectually inferior to whites. He asserted that Negroes were a separate species from Caucasians, and on some occasions suggested that God had created Negroes in a separate creation from when he created Adam and Eve.

Even Thomas Jefferson had said and written that Negroes were biologically and intellectually inferior to whites. This inferiority was genetic, and inate.

As we know, this alleged inferiority was used as a justification to legitimize and legitimate slavery. If the Negro was an inferior sub-human (less than human) species, then he deserved slavery. It would be wrong to enslave a human being, but the Negro was not a human being: therefore his enslavement was okay. Slavery, and the ideology of racism, at their extreme, denied the humanity of persons of African ancestry. The ideology of slavery insisted upon the superiority of whites and the inferiority of blacks.

George Fitzhugh asserted that slavery was a positive good, and a better social system than democracy, with its awful industrial wage slavery. According to Fitzhugh, the urban working class in the North and in Europe were no better off than slaves. They were wages slaves, working 12, 14, 16 hours a day in sweatshops for paltry wages. This was white wage slavery. It was the exploitation of the white working class. How could Northerners then presume to denounce slavery?

James Henry Hammond, governor and senator from South Carolina, (senator 1857-1860), asserted that every society needed its "mudsills," the people at the bottom. If black slaves were not on the bottom, the white working class or the poor whites would be. Slavery for blacks, he said, elevated all whites, because it spared them from being on the bottom. Hammond insisted that the white lower classes in the South benefitted from slavery, and should remain loyal to the slaveholding elite, and support slavery. Hammond said, in essence, to the white lower class and the yeomen, the small landowners, there but for the grace of slavery go you. If the slaves were not at the bottom, you would be instead. Obviously it is better for you, and your interests, that slavery remain in place. Consider the alternative. This rhetoric was most effective, and its message was not lost on the lower classes in the South.

And of course Fitzhugh and Hammond and many others also contended that slavery was good for the slave, because it taught him civilization and he was cared for and protected by his master. And the slaves were happy being slaves.

IV. THE IDEAS OF W.E.B. DUBOIS

In the time remaining let me say a little bit about DuBois. I will not say as much about his biographical data, since you have a pretty good biographical sketch as the introduction to the selection you read. Instead I will focus on his ideas.

1. FULL POLITICAL AND SOCIAL EQUALITY

DuBois was a fierce advocate of full, immediate social and political equality for black people. He opposed legal, official, state sponsored racial segregation, which began to be enacted in the 1880s. He also opposed the efforts of the Southern states to disenfranchise black voters, that is to take away the right to vote, by means of the poll tax and literacy test. This occurred between 1890 and 1910 in the Southern states. This was also the period of lynching, or hanging people without benefit of a trial, in the South. Between 1885 and 1910 more than 3000 black men, women and even some children were lynched in the South. There was a veritable reign of terror in the South. This was a period of intense Klan activity and some terrible race riots in which whites attacked the black community.

In these dire circumstances DuBois believed that no so-called "black leader" could stand silently by and not speak out forcefully and passionately against segregation, disenfranchisement and lynching. DuBois was an early leader of the civil rights movement and a founder of the NAACP in 1909. DuBois, like Douglass, believed in the equality of the races and believed that the slaveholders had deliberately kept blacks uneducated and then used their illiteracy as proof of their alleged inferiority.

2. EDUCATION AND THE TALENTED TENTH

He advocated a liberal arts education, a college education, and entry into the professions, such as medicine and law, for blacks. He believed that the Talented Tenth of college educated, professional, middle class blacks would lift up the rest of the race.

3. DIFFERENCES WITH BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

In contrast, Booker T. Washington placed his emphasis on practical, industrial or vocational education that would teach poor blacks a marketable skill that would enable them to find employment or become self-employed. Washington's emphasis was on economic development, as the first and most urgent priority. To him this took precedence over civil rights agitation for social and political equality. He was willing to hold off on a fight for social and political equality, temporarily, until economic development had been achieved. This meant land ownership for sharecroppers, and self-employment for skilled artisans, and entrepreneurship for black businessmen. Washington was the foremost advocate of black ownership and black capitalism at the turn of the century.

The famous dispute between Washington and DuBois was over which should be the priority, the fight for immediate social and political equality (civil rights) or economic development.

4. DOUBLE-CONSCIOUSNESS

In the essay that you read, Of Our Spiritual Strivings, there are two passages that are memorable.

The first is on page 364, where he writes:

After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, - a world which yields him no self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world.

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels this two-ness, _ an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

This theme of double-consciousness, of twoness, recurs in much black literature in the twentieth century, and is a very important theme in understanding the black experience.

5. EACH RACE HAS ITS OWN PARTICULAR GENIUS

On page 365, DuBois continues:

The history of the American Negro is the history of this strife, - this longing to attain self-conscious manhood, to merge his double self into a better and truer self. In this merging he wishes neither of the other selves to be lost. He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face."

In this passage DuBois suggests that each race has its own particular genius, or strong point, or special talent. Each has something to offer and contribute to the world. And the black race is no exception. (Negro blood has a message for the world), Blacks too have something to offer and contribute.

DuBois rejects assimilation (he would not drown his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism). And he does not seek to "Africanize" America. Instead, with his discussion of double-consciousness and two-ness, although he does not use the term, DuBois anticipates the notion that African-Americans are bi-cultural; that black Americans have an ethnic (sub)culture of their own and also must be conversant and familiar with the dominant culture, the culture of the white majority. Blacks operate within both cultures. In this regard DuBois is regarded as a pluralist. He is one of the fathers or early advocates of cultural pluralism.