TUE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
FREDERICK DOUGLASS appears as a Maryland slave, who escaped from his master in 1838, and, after working as a free labourer in the North- eastern States till 1841, was engaged by an American Anti-Slavery Society as itinerant lecturer. Having a natural force and fluency of language, and dealing with things within his own experience, he appears to have spoken with so much acceptance as to have been stimulated to commit to paper the autobiographical portion of his addresses, which is before us in a Dublin reprint.
In his life there is not much of hairbreadth escape. He is a Mulatto, and supposes that his first owner was his father. Time, to a slave, is not known in its particulars, such as birthdays and exact dates ; so that he does not know his own age, but supposes it now to be about seven- and-twenty. According to this reckoning, he was sent in his sixth year from the estate where he was born to wait upon a little boy in Baltimore. Here he was treated kindly ; and his mistress began to teach him to read, till his master forbade it : but Frederick, having, as he says, had his mind a little opened, persevered in teaching himself, and succeeded by dint of casual assistance from poor White boys in the street : and to reading, at a subsequent period, he added writing. When about fifteen, his owner in the country took him from his master in town, in consequence of a family quarrel ; and Frederick was transformed from a sort of page or footman to a rield- labourer. His first two country masters were religion:4 men, but very cruel and exacting; so that he had no time to think of anything but work. His third master was more liberal ; and, having time to medi- tate, he planned an escape, with some fellow-sltves : but it was detected ; and Frederick, after being imprisoned and threatened with sale, was sent back to his old quarters in Baltimore, whence he finally managed to escape in reality. Up to this point his narrative is pretty full; but he designedly suppresses the particulars of his escape, lest he should expose others to danger, and prevent some unfortunates from attaining their freedom. In plain English, he was assisted by those secret agents who are scattered through some of the Southern States for the especial pur- pose of aiding the escape of runaway slaves. We assume that Frederick Douglass is really what he professes, and not a Coloured free man in masquerade, upon the Jesuit's principle that the end justifies the means. On the one hand, we note the very extra- ordinary manner in which he taught himself to read ; some contentions with different masters, in one case proceeding to a fight,—which seems an improbable insubordination in a slave country, though it may have been heightened to add dignity to Douglass; and a precocious air in the more youthful part of his career, but which also may have been uncon- sciously coloured by his feelings at the period of composition. On the other hand, the facts and incidents have a strong character of truth. Frederick deals a little in atrocities, though he admits them to be exceptions ; but they do not make the greatest impression on the reader as to the horrors of slavery. This appears rather in the brutish degradation to which the mind of the slave is reduced, the destruction of all family ties which is systematically aimed at, and the reaction of the " institution " upon
the Whites themselves, lowering their character, and often according to Douglass, wringing their affections in the case of their Coloured children.
It is worthy of remark, that such slaves [children of the planter] invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with than others. They are in the first place, a constant offence to their mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom do anything to please her; she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash' especially when she sus- pects her husband of showing to his Mulatto children favours which he withholds from his Black slaves. The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his White wife; and, cruel as the deed may strike any one to be for a man to sell his own children to human flesh- mongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to do so; for unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one White son tie up his brother of but few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back; and if he lisp one word of disapproval, it is set down to his parental partiality, and only makes a bad matter worse both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend."
There is something natural and touching in this instance of maternal feeling.
"lily mother and I were separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off; and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field-labour. For what this separation is done I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child a affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.
"I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She made herjourney to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary; a permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to hint that gives it the proud name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep; but long before I waked she was gone."
According to Frederick, slaveholders professing religion are a great deal worse than others ; more gravely cruel, more exacting, and very mean—not even giving their people enough to eat, which in Maryland is very contrary to public opinion. "Not to give a slave enough to eat, is regarded as the most aggravated development of meanness even among slaveholders. The rule is, no matter how coarse the food, only let there be enough of it." This meanness the professors seem to carry into punishment ; assigning Scriptural reasons for it. Here is a text for stripes.
"I have said my master found religious sanction for his cruelty. As an example, I will state one of many facts going to prove the charge. I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her nakedshoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture= He that knoweth his master's will, and
i
doeth t not, shall be beaten with many stripes.'" If this narrative is really true in its basis, and untouched by any one save Douglass himself, it is a singular book, and he is a more singular man. Even if it is of the nature of the true stories of Be Foe, it is curious as a picture of slavery, and worth reading.
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