In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly
forty years ago, and in various writings since, I have given
the public what I considered very good reasons for withholding
the manner of my escape. In substance these reasons were, first,
that such publication at any time during the existence of slavery
might be used by the master against the slave, and prevent
The second reason was, if possible, still more binding to silence:
the publication of details would certainly have put in peril
the persons and property of those who assisted. Murder itself was
not more sternly and certainly punished in the State of Maryland
than that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave.
Many colored men, for no other crime than that of giving aid to
a fugitive slave, have, like Charles T. Torrey, perished in prison.
The abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the country,
and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto observed
no longer necessary. But even since the abolition of slavery,
I have sometimes thought it well enough to baffle curiosity
by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons
for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery
had ceased to exist, there was no reason for telling it.
I shall now, however, cease to avail myself of this formula, and,
as far as I can, endeavor to satisfy this very natural curiosity.
I should, perhaps, have yielded to that feeling sooner, had there been
anything very heroic or thrilling in the incidents connected with
my escape, for I am sorry to say I have nothing of that sort to
tell; and yet the courage that could risk betrayal and the bravery
which was ready to encounter death, if need be, in pursuit of
freedom, were essential features in the undertaking. My success
was due to address rather than courage, to good luck rather than
bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by the very men
who were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery.
It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require the free
colored people to have what were called free papers.
These instruments they were required to renew very often,
and by charging a fee for this writing, considerable sums from
time to time were collected by the State. In these papers the name,
age, color, height, and form of the freeman were described,
together with any scars or other marks upon his person which
could assist in his identification. This device in some measure
defeated itself--since more than one man could be found to answer
the same general description. Hence many slaves could escape
by personating the owner of one set of papers; and this was often done
as follows: A slave, nearly or sufficiently answering the description
set forth in the papers, would borrow or hire them till by means of them
he could escape to a free State, and then, by mail or otherwise,
would return them to the owner. The operation was a hazardous one for
the lender as well as for the borrower. A failure on the part of
the fugitive to send back the papers would imperil his benefactor,
and the discovery of the papers in possession of the wrong man
would imperil both the fugitive and his friend. It was, therefore,
an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to
put in jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was,
however, not unfrequently bravely done, and was seldom discovered.
I was not so fortunate as to resemble any of my free acquaintances
sufficiently to answer the description of their papers.
But I had a friend--a sailor--who owned a sailor's protection,
which answered somewhat the purpose of free papers--describing his person,
and certifying to the fact that he was a free American sailor.
The instrument had at its head the American eagle, which gave
it the appearance at once of an authorized document.
This protection, when in my hands, did not describe
its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called for a man
much darker than myself, and close examination of it would
have caused my arrest at the start.
In order to avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of railroad
officials, I arranged with Isaac Rolls, a Baltimore hackman,
to bring my baggage to the Philadelphia train just on the moment
of starting, and jumped upon the car myself when the train was in motion.
Had I gone into the station and offered to purchase a ticket,
I should have been instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested.
In choosing this plan I considered the jostle of the train, and the natural
haste of the conductor, in a train crowded with passengers, and relied upon
my skill and address in playing the sailor, as described in my protection,
to do the rest. One element in my favor was the kind feeling which prevailed
in Baltimore and other sea-ports at the time, toward "those who go down
to the sea in ships." "Free trade and sailors' rights" just then expressed
the sentiment of the country. In my clothing I was rigged out in sailor style.
I had on a red shirt and a tarpaulin hat, and a black cravat tied
in sailor fashion carelessly and loosely about my neck. My knowledge
of ships and sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship
from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor
like an "old salt." I was well on the way to Havre de Grace before
the conductor came into the negro car to collect tickets and examine
the papers of his black passengers. This was a critical moment in the drama.
My whole future depended upon the decision of this conductor.
Agitated though I was while this ceremony was proceeding, still,
externally, at least, I was apparently calm and self-possessed.
He went on with his duty--examining several colored passengers
before reaching me. He was somewhat harsh in tome and peremptory
in manner until he reached me, when, strange enough, and to my surprise
and relief, his whole manner changed. Seeing that I did not readily
produce my free papers, as the other colored persons in the car had done,
he said to me, in friendly contrast with his bearing toward the others:
"I suppose you have your free papers?"
To which I answered:
"No sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me."
"But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven't you?"
"Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with the American Eagle on it,
and that will carry me around the world."
With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection,
as before described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him,
and he took my fare and went on about his business. This moment
of time was one of the most anxious I ever experienced.
Had the conductor looked closely at the paper, he could not
have failed to discover that it called for a very different-looking
person from myself, and in that case it would have been his duty
to arrest me on the instant, and send me back to Baltimore
from the first station. When he left me with the assurance
that I was all right, though much relieved, I realized that
I was still in great danger: I was still in Maryland,
and subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train
several persons who would have known me in any other clothes,
and I feared they might recognize me, even in my sailor "rig,"
and report me to the conductor, who would then subject me
to a closer examination, which I knew well would be fatal to me.
Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt perhaps
quite as miserable as such a criminal. The train was moving
at a very high rate of speed for that epoch of railroad travel,
but to my anxious mind it was moving far too slowly. Minutes were hours,
and hours were days during this part of my flight. After Maryland,
I was to pass through Delaware--another slave State, where slave-catchers
generally awaited their prey, for it was not in the interior of the State,
but on its borders, that these human hounds were most vigilant and active.
The border lines between slavery and freedom were the dangerous ones
for the fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds
on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily
than did mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia.
The passage of the Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that time
made by ferry-boat, on board of which I met a young colored man by the name
of Nichols, who came very near betraying me. He was a "hand" on the boat,
but, instead of minding his business, he insisted upon knowing me,
and asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going,
when I was coming back, etc. I got away from my old and inconvenient
acquaintance as soon as I could decently do so, and went to another part
of the boat. Once across the river, I encountered a new danger.
Only a few days before, I had been at work on a revenue cutter,
in Mr. Price's ship-yard in Baltimore, under the care of Captain McGowan.
On the meeting at this point of the two trains, the one going
south stopped on the track just opposite to the one going north,
and it so happened that this Captain McGowan sat at a window where
he could see me very distinctly, and would certainly have recognized
me had he looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the hurry
of the moment, he did not see me; and the trains soon passed each
other on their respective ways. But this was not my only hair-
breadth escape. A German blacksmith whom I knew well was on the
train with me, and looked at me very intently, as if he thought
he had seen me somewhere before in his travels. I really
believe he knew me, but had no heart to betray me. At any rate,
he saw me escaping and held his peace.
The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most,
was Wilmington. Here we left the train and took the steam-boat
for Philadelphia. In making the change here I again apprehended arrest,
but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and beautiful Delaware,
speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the afternoon,
I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York. He directed me
to the William-street depot, and thither I went, taking the train that night.
I reached New York Tuesday morning, having completed the journey in less
than twenty-four hours.
My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the morning
of the fourth of that month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe
journey, I found myself in the big city of New York, a FREE MAN--
one more added to the mighty throng which, like the confused waves
of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of Broadway.
Though dazzled with the wonders which met me on every hand, my thoughts
could not be much withdrawn from my strange situation. For the moment,
the dreams of my youth and the hopes of my manhood were completely fulfilled.
The bonds that had held me to "old master" were broken. No man now
had a right to call me his slave or assert mastery over me. I was
in the rough and tumble of an outdoor world, to take my chance with
the rest of its busy number. I have often been asked how I felt
when first I found myself on free soil. There is scarcely anything
in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer.
A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath and the
"quick round of blood," I lived more in that one day than in a year
of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words
can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after
reaching New York, I said: "I felt as one might feel upon escape
from a den of hungry lions." Anguish and grief, like darkness and rain,
may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill
of pen or pencil. During ten or fifteen years I had been, as it were,
dragging a heavy chain which no strength of mine could break;
I was not only a slave, but a slave for life. I might become a husband,
a father, an aged man, but through all, from birth to death, from the cradle
to the grave, I had felt myself doomed. All efforts I had previously made
to secure my freedom had not only failed, but had seemed only to rivet
my fetters the more firmly, and to render my escape more difficult.
Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at times asked myself
the question, May not my condition after all be God's work,
and ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not submission my duty?
A contest had in fact been going on in my mind for a long time,
between the clear consciousness of right and the plausible make-
shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject
slave--a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression in
which I had no lot nor part; and the other counseled 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 slave-holders. 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 Northern watering-places;
that the colored people of New York were not to be trusted; that there were
hired men of my own color 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 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 should be, Mr. Auld, my "master,"
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 had something
besides 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 secret to myself as long as I could,
but I was compelled at last to seek some one who would befriend me without
taking advantage of my destitution to betray me. Such a person I found
in a sailor named Stuart, a warm-hearted and generous fellow, who, from his
humble home on Centre street, saw me standing on the opposite sidewalk,
near the Tombs prison. 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, a co-worker with
Isaac T. Hopper, Lewis and Arthur Tappan, Theodore S. Wright, Samuel Cornish,
Thomas Downing, Philip A. Bell, 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," 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,
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"
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. Forty-three years ago
colored travelers were not permitted in the cabin, nor allowed abaft
the paddle-wheels of a steam vessel. 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 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 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"
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 amount 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. I am under many grateful obligations to them.
They not only "took me in when a stranger" and "fed me when hungry,"
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, dispensed 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 in New Bedford I found that the Johnson family was already so numerous
as to cause some confusion in distinguishing them, hence a change in this name
seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, placed great emphasis upon
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 shown himself like him
of the "stalwart hand."
The reader may be surprised at 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. In the country from which I came,
a white man holding no slaves was usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man,
and men of this class were contemptuously called "poor white trash."
Hence I supposed that, since the non-slave-holders at the South were ignorant,
poor, and degraded as a class, the non-slave-holders at the North must be
in a similar condition. 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. 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. There, too, the black man's
children attended the public schools with the white man's children,
and apparently without objection from any quarter. To impress me
with my security from recapture and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson
assured me that no slave-holder 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.
The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common laborer,
and went upon the wharves in search of work. On my way down Union street
I saw a large pile of coal in front of the house of Rev. Ephraim Peabody,
the Unitarian minister. I went to the kitchen door and asked the privilege
of bringing in and putting away this coal. "What will you charge?"
said the lady. "I will leave that to you, madam." "You may put it away,"
she said. I was not long in accomplishing the job, when the dear lady
put into my hand TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To understand the emotion
which swelled my heart as I clasped this money, realizing that I had no
master who could take it from me,--THAT IT WAS MINE--THAT MY HANDS WERE MY OWN,
and could earn more of the precious coin,--one must have been in some sense
himself a slave. My next job was stowing a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland's
wharf with a cargo of oil for New York. I was not only a freeman,
but a free working-man, and no "master" stood ready at the end of the week
to seize my hard earnings.
The season was growing late and work was plenty. Ships were being
fitted out for whaling, and much wood was used in storing them.
The sawing this wood was considered a good job. With the help
of old Friend Johnson (blessings on his memory) I got a saw and "buck,"
and went at it. When I went into a store to buy a cord with which
to brace up my saw in the frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord.
The man behind the counter looked rather sharply at me, and said with
equal sharpness, "You don't belong about here." I was alarmed,
and thought I had betrayed myself. A fip in Maryland was
six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in Massachusetts.
But no harm came from the "fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently
and cheerfully went to work with my saw and buck. It was new business to me,
but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same space of time
on the plantation for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did for myself
in these earliest years of my freedom.
Notwithstanding the just and humane sentiment of New Bedford
three and forty years ago, the place was not entirely free from
race and color prejudice. The good influence of the Roaches,
Rodmans, Arnolds, Grinnells, and Robesons did not pervade all
classes of its people. The test of the real civilization of the
community came when I applied for work at my trade, and then my
repulse was emphatic and decisive. It so happened that Mr. Rodney
French, a wealthy and enterprising citizen, distinguished as an
anti-slavery man, was fitting out a vessel for a whaling voyage,
upon which there was a heavy job of calking and coppering to be
done. I had some skill in both branches, and applied to Mr. French
for work. He, generous man that he was, told me he would employ
me, and I might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon
reaching the float-stage, where others [sic] calkers were at work,
I was told that every white man would leave the ship, in her
unfinished condition, if I struck a blow at my trade upon her.
This uncivil, inhuman, and selfish treatment was not so shocking
and scandalous in my eyes at the time as it now appears to me.
Slavery had inured me to hardships that made ordinary trouble sit
lightly upon me. Could I have worked at my trade I could have
earned two dollars a day, but as a common laborer I received but
one dollar. The difference was of great importance to me, but if
I could not get two dollars, I was glad to get one; and so I went
to work for Mr. French as a common laborer. The consciousness
that I was free--no longer a slave--kept me cheerful under this,
and many similar proscriptions, which I was destined to meet in
New Bedford and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts.
For instance, though colored children attended the schools,
and were treated kindly by their teachers, the New Bedford Lyceum
refused, till several years after my residence in that city,
to allow any colored person to attend the lectures delivered in its
hall. Not until such men as Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker,
Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Horace Mann refused to lecture in their
course while there was such a restriction, was it abandoned.
Becoming satisfied that I could not rely on my trade in New
Bedford to give me a living, I prepared myself to do any kind of
work that came to hand. I sawed wood, shoveled coal, dug cellars,
moved rubbish from back yards, worked on the wharves, loaded and
unloaded vessels, and scoured their cabins.
I afterward got steady work at the brass-foundry owned by Mr. Richmond.
My duty here was to blow the bellows, swing the crane, and empty the flasks
in which castings were made; and at times this was hot and heavy work.
The articles produced here were mostly for ship work, and in the busy season
the foundry was in operation night and day. I have often worked two nights
and every working day of the week. My foreman, Mr. Cobb, was a good man,
and more than once protected me from abuse that one or more of the hands
was disposed to throw upon me. While in this situation I had little time
for mental improvement. Hard work, night and day, over a furnace hot
enough to keep the metal running like water, was more favorable
to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a newspaper to the post
near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and down motion
of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged.
It was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now,
after so many years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could
have been so earnest and persevering in any pursuit other than for my
daily bread. I certainly saw nothing in the conduct of those around
to inspire me with such interest: they were all devoted exclusively
to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able to say that,
during my engagement in this foundry, no complaint was ever made against
me that I did not do my work, and do it well. The bellows which I worked
by main strength was, after I left, moved by a steam-engine.