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    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself
    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself
    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself
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    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself

    By Frederick Douglass

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    Enriched Classics offer readers accessible editions of great works of literature enhanced by helpful notes and commentary. Each book includes educational tools alongside the text, enabling students and readers alike to gain a deeper and more developed understanding of the writer and their work.

    Frederick Douglass’s powerful autobiographical account of life in bondage, his triumphant escape to freedom, and his analysis of slavery as a condition.

    Enriched Classics enhance your engagement by introducing and explaining the historical and cultural significance of the work, the author’s personal history, and what impact this book had on subsequent scholarship. Each book includes discussion questions that help clarify and reinforce major themes and reading recommendations for further research.

    Read with confidence.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster
    Release dateAug 1, 2013
    ISBN9781451686036
    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave, Written by Himself
    Author

    Frederick Douglass

    Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an African American abolitionist, writer, statesman, and social reformer. Born in Maryland, he escaped slavery at the age of twenty with the help of his future wife Anna Murray Douglass, a free Black woman from Baltimore. He made his way through Delaware, Philadelphia, and New York City—where he married Murray—before settling in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In New England, he connected with the influential abolitionist community and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, a historically black denomination which counted Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman among its members. In 1839, Douglass became a preacher and began his career as a captivating orator on religious, social, and political matters. He met William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, in 1841, and was deeply moved by his passionate abolitionism. As Douglass’ reputation and influence grew, he traveled across the country and eventually to Ireland and Great Britain to advocate on behalf of the American abolitionist movement, winning countless people over to the leading moral cause of the nineteenth century. He was often accosted during his speeches and was badly beaten at least once by a violent mob. His autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) was an immediate bestseller that detailed Douglass’ life in and escape from slavery, providing readers a firsthand description of the cruelties of the southern plantation system. Towards the end of his life, he became a fierce advocate for women’s rights and was the first Black man to be nominated for Vice President on the Equal Rights Party ticket, alongside Presidential candidate Victoria Woodhull. Arguably one of the most influential Americans of all time, Douglass led a life dedicated to democracy and racial equality.

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    Reviews for Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

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    • 4/5
      What really struck me was how the introductory texts in the preface (written by Douglass's contemporaries and included in the original publication, so I believe they will be in all editions), while sincere and correct, are still fairly inaccessible and overwrought as far as the language is concerned, which has the effect of highlighting the clear, concise wisdom of Frederick Douglass. If you've never read this before and worry it will be dense or inaccessible, don't let that be a stumbling block; the writing is powerful but uncomplicated. Personally, I've read sections of it before in school, but this was my first full read through (even then it's quite short, 122 pages on Kindle). I've always found the idea he presented of slavery itself as a corrupting influence on whites even if they start out with "good" intentions to be really intriguing, so I was hoping for a deeper exploration of that and didn't really find it in the full text. I also completely understand why he omitted the details of how he escaped slavery (the safety of other fleeing slaves who might take the same path), but given that the whole narrative was heading in that direction, it does create an unfortunate disconnect with his story as a narrative at that point. But otherwise the importance of this text is obvious and moving.
    • 4/5
      Interesting story. I only wish there were more details, and that the story went on longer. I especially appreciated Douglass's thoughts on how he changed as a slave, and on how slavery changed individual slaveholders, their society and their religion.
    • 3/5
      A fine book.
    • 5/5
      First-hand account of African American orator Frederick Douglass' early years as an enslaved person. Essential reading for anyone interested in the history of slavery in America.
    • 4/5
      As a white Canadian, I think I have a not very admirable tendency to abstract the hell out of American slavery--to make it about the revolting idea of people owning other people (which it is) and then somehow less about what that meant: the sheer incomprehensible mass of abuses, from the daily sneer to the atrocities of casual, consequenceless rape and murder. Frederick Douglass is the antidote to that, one of the great testifiers to slavery's evil, and a hell of a man. This one's good to read (as a white North American person) any time you start to get tired of bringing to your relations with race, and with race relations, and with your friends and neighbours of other races all your gathered sincerity and humility and care.
    • 5/5
      Essential reading for any student of American history. Douglass writes with elegance, passion, and experience. His views on America's version of Christianity are, unfortunately, as true now as when he penned them in 1845; I can't recommend a quick read of the Appendix enough.
    • 5/5
      It's interesting how the story of one person can have a greater impact than the history of a people or event. In this extraordinary autobiography of abolitionist and escaped slave Frederick Douglass, we are given an intimate window into the everyday world of slavery, and it is ugly. I have read only one other book that made me feel so profoundly the lack of humanity and the evil of which humans are capable, and that was "People of the Lie" by M. Scott Peck, in which he describes parents who, for Christmas, gift their surviving son the rifle used by another son to kill himself. Reading Peck's description of a truly evil person, it seems he could have just read Douglass' book: (Adapted from Wikipedia):- Consistently self-deceiving, with the intent of avoiding guilt and maintaining a self-image of perfection- Projects his or her evils and sins onto very specific targets while being apparently normal with everyone else - Commonly hates with the pretense of love- Abuses political (emotional) power - Maintains a high level of respectability, and lies incessantly in order to do so- Is consistent in his or her sins. Evil persons are characterized not so much by the magnitude of their sins, but by their consistency of destructiveness. - Is unable to think from the viewpoint of his or her victim- Has a covert intolerance to criticismDouglass tells his story of being born and kept as a slave, and his escape to the North in his early twenties, in a style that highlights the evil he experienced and/or observed in Maryland:- being removed from his mother's care by the age of one, with almost no contact allowed with her for the rest of his life- being clothed as a child only in a knee-length shirt, summer or winter, and going naked if the shirt wore out before the annual clothing allotment - having no provision for beds or bedding except for a single blanket - routine rape of women to increase slaveholders' assets and wealth- deliberate near-starvation of slaves, with stock animals being well-cared for and slaves whipped for any perceived lack of attention to the animals' well-being- slaveholders' (both men and women) and overseers' enjoyment of frequent, repeated, and lengthy slave whippings, often for no reason than satisfaction- old slaves being put out into the forest to fend for themselves - the inevitable degeneration into depravity of whites who were new to slaveholding (thorough marriage, for instance) The book skips over the exact method Douglass used to escape, in order to protect others and not give slaveholders any tips, but in his final autobiography, after the Civil War, he did give a detailed account. The book ends with him in New Bedford, MA, with a new bride and making his way among the wonders of freedom, irrespective of the hostility shown blacks by northern whites afraid for their jobs. There's also an epilogue Douglass wrote to clarify his comments on the "Christianity" he observed in both the South and the North. It's not pretty. Ministers going home to rape, preachers spending the rest of the week whipping humans, respectable citizens spending their time finding new ways to force compliance, whether it be though intimidation, murder, or forcible separation of families. More than anywhere else, this is where Douglass expresses his anger.
    • 5/5
      Amazing story of Frederick Douglass's struggle for freedom and then for the rights and freedom of African-Americans.
    • 4/5
      This is a good little book which everybody should read. It was published in 1845 when the author, who escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1838, put it out. It does not tell details of his escape for the good reason that he did not want Southern masters to know how he accomplished the escape. The account of slave life tells of brutality which no sensible person would inflict on his horse, much less on another human being. His strictures on Sothern religion are well-deserved: how horrendous that religion in those days condoned slavery. And how asinine that some Southen "statesmen" deemed slavery a positive good!
    • 4/5
      Very short & to the point, Douglass paints the picture of being a slave better than any other book I've read on the subject. His first hand account blows away 'Roots' or even the 'Confessions of Nat Turner' with its simple, understated prose. Huge thanks to Nancy, a friend here on GR, that recommended & gave me the book.

      Why would a man remain in slavery when there was any chance of escape? This is a question I've always wondered about. He tells us. The courage & determination that it took him to make that leap was incredible. His simple account of what people can endure is heart wrenching.

      The only reason this book didn't get 5 stars was the editor. I can't recall his name, but he is a professor at Columbia University & must think his audience is a bunch of idiots. His long winded introduction basically tells Douglass' entire story. It was a spoiler & redundant. The original publication had another introduction that is also included. This was doubly redundant due to the first, but would have been far better if just it was included.

      The editor's constant footnotes, defining well known words that are well used in context, were distracting & occasionally incorrect. The end notes were better, but should have been footnotes instead. I was left with the impression that the editor was trying to impress me rather than help me understand Douglass' story. Blech!

      Douglass has written his autobiography in several versions. This was his first. I'd be interested in finding a later one, especially with a different editor. In any case, for all the faults of the editor, the basic story is something that I recommend everyone read.
    • 5/5
      Frederick Douglass' powerful account of the slave condition and freedom. Starts with the bloody details of slave holding, then the even sadder aspects of slave mentality - singing proudly about errands to "the great house farm" and quarreling over who's master is the richest or most powerful - before gradually the yearning for freedom and will to be free take over the story. Argues that slavery corrupts both the slave and the slave holder, that religion in the South is mostly shallow. Emphasizes the importance of literacy in making slaves rise.
    • 2/5
      This book is not bad, but I've had to read it so many times for school, in so many different classes, that I don't want to see this book ever again.
    • 5/5
      M. Douglass has been able to transport us to his time thru his narrative. The way this book is writing keeps you asking for more. The only negative is the absence of details on how he manage to get free, which is pretty understandable. As he put it himself he did not want to jeopardize any other slaves' tentative to free themselves. Presently I am reading a few 19th century books, unlike other travel or explorers narratives this is not a boring description of facts, landscape or political scenes but a vibrant personal experience...
    • 4/5
      A gripping narrative full of terror, fear, triumph and luck. A bold thing to have written at the time. A good reminder of what humans are capable of on both sides of the spectrum.
    • 4/5
      Douglass’s memoir really amazed me. I was expecting something more alone the lines of Uncle Tom’s Cabin where the reader is brow-beaten with the message – I think this style was needed in the time it was written but makes for a difficult read at times today. The memoir, however, is a very practical piece. He tells his story frankly, without delving into morality, because the simple facts of his life are enough for one to form an opinion. A really beautifully told story – I highly recommend it to anyone who hasn’t read it yet.
    • 5/5
      Reviewed August 2006 I had often heard mentioned Frederik Douglass, I know he was asked to advise Lincoln twice and I have a nice portrait of this man taken at the Lincoln museum. Now I have so much more knowledge - to read his accounts of slavery are jaw-dropping. I want to travel to Maryland and look the descendants of these slave-owners and whip them. Douglass is very clear in his idea of Christianity - there is real Christianity that follows Gods teachings. Then there is the Christianity of the slave-owners, the hypocrisy of that time and place. To beat a slave and quote the Bible while doing it sounds so insane. Douglass gives us much detail in some accounts and leaves out much about his wife and what happened to many of the slaves he left. Now I am very curious to read what were the reactions after this book came out. Where are the descendants of Douglass now? I want to know more. 21-2006
    • 5/5
      I used to hear negative things about frederick bailey, johnson douglas but after reading his first narrative autobiography I thought of him as a brave, intellegent, thought ful and wise young man. I was truly fascinated by the way that he tricked the young boys in his baltimore neighborhood into teaching him how to read, the way he gave his master the beat down of his life, the type of planning that he did to get things done, the strength and courage that it took to stand up to rouge cowards, and his constant analysis of his condition as well as his friends, family and colleagues. Although the total narrative was very focused on the events of his life you cannot help but wonder about other things that made the civilization, look astoundingly backwards.Things such as the proletariate violence, the child abuse, the rape of woman, the wonton murder and the labor practices. By the way the narrative explains the work practices, the freedman, the working class were as much in bondage as the slave. There had to be high unemployment and when the slaves were eventually emancipated everyone who was not wealthy and didn't own anything was without a doubt emancipated also, else headed for the same plight as the people in bondage...I enjoyed this narrative....
    • 3/5
      A VERY good account of what slavery did to countless lives. Definately something that should be in a high school cirriculum.
    • 4/5
      This is one of those books I should have read years ago as a history teacher. I have read excerpts of this and many other slave narratives like it, but I enjoyed this read. Having a good background in the history of the time period, there is nothing new here for me and his story mirrors those of many others. The obvious exception to that would be how he spent his life after he gained his freedom, but this story does not cover that time period.

      I imagine that this book had a great impact at the time it was published. Douglas was such a large presence in American politics and abolitionist circles. This book is a great introduction to his story and I would recommend it to any students of history.
    • 4/5
      well written, gets you really riled up and pissed off at America's treatment of human beings. righteous hair.
    • 4/5
      This is a wonderful book to read in order to get a glimpse of what being a slave was actually like, because it is written by a slave who taught himself how to read and write. Every person, especially in the United States, should read this book.
    • 4/5
      Incredible, amazing, moving autobiography. He writes with such energy and well-earned emotion. But this is not only an emotional story, it is one full of ideas that are still relevant today. Douglass even sometimes looks past race, which is hard to do today, much less in his position, with all his personal grievances, and focuses instead on the much larger ill of slavery. I found it touching how fairly he described his 'good masters' as well as 'bad masters' (good being a relative term here), not villifying them, though it would be easy to do so, but showing clearly how the institution of slavery itself is to blame for perverting or amplifying their bad natures. He is not only a great and moral man but a great writer, impressive as he wrote this only 7 years after escaping from slavery, and the only fault I find with this book is that, coming in at 86 pages of actual narrative, it's too short! I'm going to look for his two follow up autobiographies.
    • 5/5
      For my reading-while-driving I'm dependent on the library audiobook selection, which has very little overlap with anything I'd ever chose on my own. But amidst the dreck there are serendipities, books I never would have tried if not for the lack of any other option -- worlds opened to me that I never would have known otherwise. I certainly never would have considered reading the Narrative of Frederick Douglass -- not from any prejudice or lack of curiousity, but just from the general unexamined assumption that it would not be very interesting. Where do I get these ideas? Anyhow, this is a stunning book, clearly written, with riveting descriptions of life in slavery. It's one of those books -- I also said this about The Bookseller of Kabul -- that opens your eyes and heart to a greater understanding of those facts you already knew. The descriptions of the rags young Frederick had instead of clothes, the constant cursing heaped upon him, his dawning awareness of his own humanity and dignity, his willingness to fight for himself -- this is an eye-opening book that should be read by everyone studying American history.
    • 4/5
      Frederick Douglass has to be one of the most powerful American writers to date. The ferocity, and fear that engulfed his life are truly unbearable, and lets the reader feel that. Douglass is eloquent, and persuasive. But above all he is radical and inspiring.
    • 4/5
      This summer while talking among friends I had the realization that I have read almost no african american literature. I knew I had deficiencies in female authors and have been trying to balance things out better this year. How is it that I can think of myself as well read with these two (and who knows how many more) weak spots?

      So I decided to start near the beginning with Frederick Douglass and I am glad I did as it was a fairly eye opening look into the life of a slave. I think we all get the gist of what slavery is and how bad it can be but many of the details were entirely new to me (like getting a few days off at the end of the year, and at times being able to visit family members). I am thinking I will move on to Du Bois from here, then venture into Ellison. Who else would you recommend?
    • 5/5
      This is a powerful autobiography of a man who would not be kept down. It is really powerful to hear him talk about the desire to learn to read and the power it unleashed for him. I also think the description of the change he felt when he decided he would never be whooped without striking back again is compelling. Civil rights struggles wrestle with the idea of violent or non-violent resistance and both have practical hang-ups. As an individual, Frederick Douglass decided that he would not be a passive sufferer of beatings any longer, and it seems to have also changed his demeanor and attitude before situations got to the point of him getting assaulted.
    • 5/5
      A wonderfully evocative account by this former slave of his sufferings, his self-education and growing sense of self-worth and dignity prior to his successful bid for freedom in 1838 (he withholds details of his escape in this first version of his autogiography, so as not to make it harder for other slaves to escape by the same route from Maryland to New York). The author is a very good writer, with a straightforward, yet powerful and moving prose style The white man's view that the black slave is less than human and a mere chattel comes across very clearly in numerous incidents, as does the hypocrisy of much of 19th century American Christianity in upholding the slave regime. A great read.
    • 5/5
      One of my favorite historical figures! Loved learning about his life.
    • 5/5
      Still a wonderful read, even when you are forced to read a bunch of emancipation narratives all at the same time thanks to an English degree. I read this again in a graduate program and it lost none of its power.
    • 4/5
      This book tells you something you already know--slavery was, and is, evil--and tells you in the politest of ways, and yet still manages to be shocking in Douglass's calm, first-person account of his life as a slave.

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    Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass - Frederick Douglass

    title

    CONTENTS

    design

    INTRODUCTION

    CHRONOLOGY OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS’ LIFE AND WORK

    HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS

    PREFACE

    LETTER FROM WENDELL PHILLIPS, ESQ.

    CHAPTER ONE

    CHAPTER TWO

    CHAPTER THREE

    CHAPTER FOUR

    CHAPTER FIVE

    CHAPTER SIX

    CHAPTER SEVEN

    CHAPTER EIGHT

    CHAPTER NINE

    CHAPTER TEN

    CHAPTER ELEVEN

    INTERPRETIVE NOTES

    CRITICAL EXCERPTS

    QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

    SUGGESTIONS FOR THE INTERESTED READER

    NOTES

    INTRODUCTION

    NARRATIVE OF THE LIFE OF FREDERICK DOUGLASS: WRITING THE WAY TO FREEDOM
    design

    As readers, we might expect the story of a life in slavery to be heartrending or frightening, to move us to tears, outrage, or action. Since we know the slave will escape to write the story of his life, we might also expect it to be suspenseful and exciting. Since it is a story of justice triumphing over evil, we might expect it to be morally uplifting. And most of all, we might hope to learn the inside story, the things that no one but a former slave could tell us. In all these hopes and expectations we would be very much like nineteenth-century readers, whose craving for these readerly thrills made slave narratives one of the most popular genres of their time. Frederick Douglass had already been thrilling audiences as a dazzling orator when he published his Narrative, and it did not disappoint his readers’ expectations. But the Narrative also went beyond these expectations to surprise its readers with elegant prose, rhetorical sophistication, and sharp wit. Moving within pages from scenes of frightening violence and deep pathos to coolly ironic satire, and then again to incisive psychological and political analysis, the Narrative is far more than the bare facts of Douglass’ life. Douglass wrote not only to be a champion in the fight against slavery, but to claim his freedom as a writer, an intellectual, and an American.

    The full title of Douglass’ work—Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself—reveals much about the difficulties Douglass faced as a writer, and about the genius with which he overcame them. This is no ordinary life story. It is the story of the author’s mental and physical bondage. It is also the story of his escape—but barely. The 1845 publication of the Narrative flagrantly exposed Douglass as a fugitive, still subject to laws that made his forcible removal to the South perfectly legal. His uneasiness was great enough to prompt him to embark on a tour of Great Britain, where friends in England raised the $710.96 needed to buy his freedom. Douglass took the risk of publication, his title insists, as an American. The Narrative is not simply a piece of abolitionist propaganda: it is Douglass’ address to the nation. To claim one could be both American and a slave in an era when not only slaves, but all nonwhite citizens (save some Native Americans) were denied citizenship, was a bold claim indeed.

    The world and the United States have changed dramatically since Douglass first wrote the Narrative. In the fight for civil rights and citizenship, thousands upon thousands of men and women have struggled and sometimes triumphed over injustice. Yet the struggle against racism, oppression, and systematic cruelty in America continues. The difficulty of claiming an identity—of knowing what it is to be American in the midst of this struggle—also continues. Fortunately, Douglass’ Narrative, saved from the neglect that was the fate of so much early African-American literature, continues as well as a vibrant testimony to the past and a deeply resonant demonstration of the writer’s power to craft a future.

    The Life and Work of Frederick Douglass

    If Frederick Douglass had been born into a world of privilege and educated at elite institutions, his life and career would have been remarkable. That he began his life as a slave makes it nothing short of miraculous. The facts of his early life in slavery are essentially as he reports them in the Narrative. Douglass was born sometime in February 1818 in Maryland to Harriet Bailey and an unknown white father rumored to be his master, Captain Anthony. He was raised by his grandmother, Betsey Bailey, one in a line of strong matriarchs. When Douglass was eight, his mother died and he was sent to live in Baltimore with Hugh and Sophia Auld. There he first learned the power of the written word, continuing his education on the sly after Hugh ordered Sophia to stop teaching him his letters lest it render him unfit for slavery. After conning little white boys into teaching him how to read, he obtained a copy of The Columbian Orator and began to study the rules of argument and speechmaking.

    In 1833 he returned to his second master, Thomas Auld. After he caught Douglass teaching slaves to read, Auld rented Douglass out to slave breaker Edward Covey. Covey did not succeed in mastering Douglass, and one year later, in 1835, he was hired out to William Freeland. While at Freeland’s, Douglass organized a secret Sunday school, where he taught reading. He also organized an escape plan with several other men. When the plan failed, he was sent back to Baltimore, to Hugh Auld, to learn a trade in the shipyard. In the relative freedom of his life there, he began to attend meetings of a debating society of freedmen. Through one of the members, he met his future wife, a freedwoman named Anna Murray. The following year, 1838, he successfully escaped to New York by train, using the borrowed papers of a free black sailor. Soon after he arrived, Murray joined him and they were married.

    Douglass and his wife set up housekeeping in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Their daughter Rosetta was born the following year in 1839, and their sons Lewis, Frederick, and Charles Redmond followed in 1840, 1842, and 1844. Daughter Annie, their final child, was born in 1849. During these years Douglass became a licensed preacher and joined the abolitionist movement. As he records in the Narrative, he came into his career and calling as an activist, orator, and writer when he stepped up to the lectern to give his first speech at a New Bedford abolitionist meeting in 1841. It was there that he caught the attention of the powerful abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was instrumental in launching Douglass’ career. He encouraged him to speak and write on behalf of the abolitionist movement and wrote the Preface to the Narrative. However, Douglass soon found himself in disagreement with Garrison and other abolitionists on many matters. Perhaps the most important of these, as regards Douglass’ future as a writer, was his struggle to control the subject matter and presentation of his speeches. The abolitionists believed general audiences would find Douglass more convincing if he spoke solely about his experience as a slave, in the simple language expected of the uneducated. They hoped to use him as a living example of a slave. Douglass, on the other hand, wanted to argue for the political actions and reforms he had come to believe in as a result of his experience. He wished to be taken seriously as a thinker, writer, and speaker on his own merits, not simply because he had once been a slave.

    It was partly out of his wish for more intellectual and political freedom that Douglass became a writer as well as an orator. The Narrative was published in 1845. He would later revise and expand the Narrative in two other autobiographies, My Bondage, My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). Two years after publishing the Narrative, against the protests of colleagues who felt he should focus his energies more narrowly, Douglass began publishing the abolitionist paper North Star, moving west to Rochester, New York, rather than compete with Garrison’s paper, The Liberator. Later, in 1851, he would merge North Star with another abolitionist paper to form the influential Frederick Douglass’ Paper. As its name indicates, Douglass was by then widely known and well respected. He had begun to take up other causes in addition to abolition, most notably women’s rights. He had also become an active participant in the Underground Railroad. Meanwhile, during his long speaking tours, Anna Douglass took care of their children and worked in a shoe factory to raise the family income. Both parents suffered when their daughter Annie died in 1860.

    As the Civil War loomed on the horizon, Douglass found himself ever more deeply involved in national politics. When his friend and colleague John Brown raided Harper’s Ferry, Douglass fled to Canada and England to escape arrest, even though he had not helped Brown in any way. During the war itself, he was called upon by the Lincoln administration to act as an adviser and to recruit soldiers for the Union. He did so, but fought throughout the war for equal treatment of black soldiers and for the full acceptance of blacks as voting citizens. The latter fight he won in 1870 with the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution. By 1872 he was running for vice president of the United States on a third party ticket headed by women’s rights leader Victoria C. Woodhull. In later years he held several positions in Washington, D.C., including president of the Freedman’s Bank, before a final adventure in 1889 as U.S. minister and consul general to Haiti. His personal life kept pace with the revolutionary quality of his public life. After Anna Douglass’ death in 1882, Douglass mourned for one year before scandalizing his family, friends, and enemies by marrying Helen Pitts, a white woman some twenty years his junior. They remained happily married until February 20, 1895, when, after speaking at a National Council of Women’s meeting, Douglass returned home, suffered a heart attack, and died that afternoon.

    Historical and Literary Contexts of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

    Escape from Slavery

    Douglass was typical of the majority of successful escaped slaves: young, healthy men who traveled alone. The physical rigors and mental anguish of escaping cannot be overestimated. Only those who were strong and healthy were likely to survive their attempts to run away. In spite of this, hundreds of slaves, including families and groups of men and women, escaped from slavery each year. Though most slaves had to find their own way to freedom, some were helped by the Underground Railroad, a loose affiliation of safe houses and conductors who helped direct and protect fugitives along many branching routes from South to North. Members of the Underground Railroad used code language and objects such as quilts to communicate with slaves getting ready to flee. Though for the most part the Underground Railroad was only loosely organized, in the 1830s former slaves such as David Ruggles (whom Douglass mentions in the Narrative) collaborated with other abolitionists to form vigilance committees stationed throughout the North. One of the most famous conductors of the Underground Railroad was Harriet Tubman, who made over twenty successful trips to bring slaves to freedom, thereby earning the title of the Moses of her people. Douglass himself became a conductor on the railroad several years after publishing the Narrative.

    Some escaped slaves left the United States for Canada or England. Others, like Douglass, remained in the United States in free states where anti-slavery sympathies were strong, went to urban areas where they could live among communities of free blacks, or formed freedman communities in isolated places.

    The Abolition Movement

    Most of the members of the Underground Railroad were also active in the abolition movement, the campaign to abolish slavery in the United States. When Douglass joined the movement, New England was the center of anti-slavery sentiments and had been since the nation’s inception. Vermont had banned slavery in 1777, Pennsylvania in 1780. The Northern states (whose southern border was the Mason-Dixon line) had abolished slavery in 1804. By the 1830s, however, economic interdependence and laws supporting the kidnapping and return of fugitive slaves (and, since slaves could not testify on their own behalf, free blacks as well) meant many people in the North could no longer pretend to be exempt from the moral wrongs of slavery. The movement was galvanized by the fiery radicalism of William Lloyd Garrison, whose abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, began appearing in 1831 and quickly became a primary voice of the movement. Garrison was uncompromising in his call for the immediate abolition of slavery. He believed the Constitution was a pro-slavery document and condemned organized religion as irremediably implicated in slavery’s propagation. His fierce energy and charismatic presence won Garrison many protégés, including Wendell Phillips, who gave up his law practice to devote himself to abolition after he watched Garrison face down a lynch mob enraged by his speech. The testimony of former slaves formed an important part of the abolitionists’ evidence of the horrors of slavery. As their Prefaces to the Narrative make clear, Garrison and Phillips both admired Douglass, and actively recruited him to speak on behalf of the abolition movement. Eventually, however, Garrison’s radicalism proved divisive both within the movement and in his friendship with Douglass. Douglass came to disagree with Garrison about many important issues, and to rebel against the often condescending attitudes of white abolitionists toward former slaves.

    Slave Narratives and Autobiography

    Douglass’ Narrative was one of many slave narratives published in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Read by some as important testimony to a moral wrong and by others as thrilling stories of suffering and triumph, the slave narrative was one of the best-selling genres in America and Europe. It was identifiable as a genre not simply through its content but through the fairly strict form imposed on the unique experiences of individual authors. Generally, slave narratives were supposed to give over the bulk of their story to the sufferings of their authors in slavery, and to end with their author’s escape to freedom. In a few cases, when the tale of escape was particularly spectacular or arduous, the structure changed to accomodate the tale. The narratives were also supposed to be true stories, but their veracity was often questioned, and not just by pro-slavery readers. It was illegal to teach slaves to read or write, and the horrors detailed by the narratives were often simply too much for white readers to believe. Too, their popularity meant writers and publishers with an eye for profit sometimes produced false narratives, often cobbled together from true stories. To promote the reader’s credulity, authentic narratives were often presented in a white envelope: they contained Forewords and Afterwords written by white authors who vouched for the talent and honesty of the narrative’s author.

    Readers of Douglass’

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