The Life of Frederick Douglass Page 2

  In 1826, Captain Anthony became ill and life changed again for Frederick. Lucretia told Frederick he was being sent to Baltimore. She urged him to clean himself up as much as possible because the people of Baltimore were neat and clean and they would laugh at a dirty little boy. Lucretia promised Frederick his very first pair of trousers. For three days Frederick scrubbed himself in the creek, getting all the dead skin off his feet and knees. He looked forward to his new trousers and a new shirt, and he was glad to be leaving the plantation.

  On a Saturday morning, Frederick sailed on the Miles River toward Baltimore, and he arrived on Sunday. One of the ship hands took the nine-year-old boy to his new home—the residence of Hugh and Sophia Auld on Fells Point. Hugh Auld was Thomas Auld’s brother.

  Frederick watched the front door of the Auld house open, and there stood the Aulds and their two-year-old son, Tommy. Frederick recalled the moment with these words: “I saw what I had never seen before; it was a white face beaming with the most kindly emotions.”23 It was the face of his new mistress, Sophia Auld. Sophia told her small son that this new boy—Freddy—would be looking after him. Frederick was deeply moved and overjoyed.24

  Later, Frederick credited this move to Baltimore, into the Hugh Auld household, as the defining moment of his young life. He felt that had it not happened, he might never have escaped the cruelty of slavery. He believed that it was a special grace of God that sent him to Sophia Auld, and he wrote, “This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise.”25

  Chapter 3

  LESSONS IN FREEDOM

  Frederick wrote of his experiences in the Auld house in Baltimore, “I had been treated as a pig on the plantation. In this house I was treated as a child.”1 Hugh Auld, the boy’s new master, was a broad-shouldered shipbuilder. His wife, Sophia, came from a poor family living near St. Michaels. Before her marriage she had worked as a weaver. She was not well educated and did not have the manners Frederick had observed at Wye House, but she could read and often read the Bible, though she struggled over the more difficult words.

  “I was utterly astonished at her goodness,” Frederick recalled.2 The little boy did not quite know how to act around Sophia Auld. Previously he found he could gain the favor of white people by what he called “crouching servility,” but this seemed to upset Sophia Auld.3 She had never been the mistress of a slave before and the situation was equally new to her. Not knowing how to treat Frederick as a slave, the woman simply regarded him as a mother regards her child. She mothered Frederick and he said he did not look at her as his mistress but as “something more akin to a mother.”4 Sophia would sit with her son Tommy on one knee and a book in hand, and with her other arm she would draw Frederick close and read to both boys at once.

  Sophia Auld began to teach Frederick the ABC’s. She helped him spell words of three and four letters. Frederick was an eager pupil. He had developed a taste for words while listening to Daniel Lloyd’s tutor, and now he was rapidly picking up the skill. But these lessons ended abruptly when Hugh Auld discovered what his wife was doing. He angrily ordered Sophia to stop teaching Frederick at once because education destroyed a slave’s usefulness. A slave, Hugh Auld insisted, should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told. Education would spoil the best slave on earth, Auld told his wife, and would lead to nothing but unhappiness for the slave as well. Having tasted something better, the slave would never be content with his lot again.5

  Frederick knew in his heart that Hugh Auld was right in fearing what education would do. But it was already too late to keep the bright young boy contentedly ignorant. He had glimpsed the stars, and he would never forget their brightness.

  Frederick remained in the Hugh Auld household for a year before another change wrenched him away. When Captain Anthony died, he left no will, so his property, including his slaves, was to be divided equally among his three children, Andrew, Richard, and Lucretia Auld. But then Lucretia died, which meant that her share would go to her widower husband, Thomas Auld, Hugh’s brother. Frederick was part of the property to be given to Thomas Auld.

  In October 1827, nine-year-old Frederick was sent back to Tuckahoe. The little boy was brokenhearted when he had to leave Sophia Auld and Tommy. “We, all three, wept bitterly,” Frederick recalled.6 Once more the inhumanity of slavery was brought home to Frederick. No matter how one bonded with people, the law of slavery could break all ties.

  All of Captain Anthony’s slaves were assembled at the Tuckahoe farm to be disposed of. Thomas Auld took custody of Frederick and then, to the child’s great astonishment and joy, Thomas Auld decided to return him to Baltimore and his brother’s household.

  After that terrible scare, life returned to normal for Frederick. He lived with Hugh and Sophia Auld for the next five and a half years. It was a strange life for the light-colored slave boy who lived in a house where there were no other slaves, with a mistress who regarded him as almost a son. The Auld family gave Frederick the chance to thrive and blossom in remarkable ways.

  Sophia Auld respected her husband’s order to stop teaching Frederick, but his thirst for knowledge was so strong that he found other ways to learn. He made friends with neighborhood white boys his age and he used them as his new teachers. Frederick was often sent on errands by Sophia, and he always brought along some bread and a book that he secretly carried from the house. Frederick had gone hungry at Tuckahoe, but food was plentiful in the Auld household and Frederick was free to take an extra loaf. When he met the white boys, who were often hungry, he traded bread for reading lessons. Frederick made fast friends among the “hungry little urchins,” as he described them.7 Even better, when Frederick described the evils of slavery to the boys, they shared his hatred of it and expressed sympathy for the plight of slaves. All his life Frederick remembered those boys from the streets of Baltimore with “gratitude and affection.”8

  Around the Auld house, Sophia sang hymns as she worked. Frederick tumbled around with little Tommy. But when Frederick went down to the shipyards to watch the ships being loaded, his mind turned quickly away from childhood things. Frederick learned the meaning of the word abolition. He had been born a slave and as much as he hated his situation, he had never before doubted that he would always be a slave, condemned to a meager and miserable life. But now the possibility of freedom began stirring in his soul. Men were talking seriously about abolishing slavery.

  When he was twelve years old, Frederick could read newspapers. He found an article about a speech made by John Quincy Adams presenting the concept of abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia. Another time Frederick got into a conversation with two Irishmen on the wharf. When he described his life at Tuckahoe and how the slaves were abused, the Irishmen said they ought to run away to the North and be free.

  Frederick Bailey began to entertain the possibility that he would one day be free. And he could think of little else. For the first time he had powerful hopes that he was not condemned to spend his whole life in slavery.

  Frederick began to hang out with a rough-and-tumble group of white boys on the wharf. One day, one of the boys took out a book he had gotten from school and started reading aloud a speech a teacher had assigned. Frederick was fascinated by the marvelous words the boy was spouting. He could not imagine a book full of fine speeches like that. Frederick relied mainly on his Webster’s speller, borrowed from other boys, but now he was determined to get a copy of the speech book.

  Managing to save fifty cents earned doing errands, Frederick went to a Baltimore bookstore and purchased a copy of The Columbian Orator. It was the first book Frederick had ever owned, and it had a great influence on his life. It was filled with great speeches that Frederick had never heard of before. It opened up a world that the young slave did not know existed.

  Frederick found speeches by Cato the Roman and Cicero the Greek. He read a speech William Pitt made to the British Parliament and George Washington’s farewell address to his troops after the American
Revolution. Most powerful of all was a speech titled “Slave in Barbary.” A group of slaves were being sold in Tunisia, an African country, when suddenly an Irishman jumped to his feet to make a speech on the injustice of slavery. Frederick eagerly read these words and quickly grasped the main idea. Even if a master treats his slaves kindly, the slaves want and deserve their liberty. It is not right for one man to own another. The idea was electrifying to Frederick.

  As Frederick continued to enjoy the comfort and freedom of the Hugh Auld household, his former master, Thomas Auld, still officially owned him and could at any time reclaim him. A widower, Thomas Auld had found a new wife, Rowena Hambleton, a cross-tempered woman with the reputation of being very harsh to her slaves. Unlike Thomas Auld’s first wife, Lucretia, who had doted on Frederick, Rowena had no such kindly sympathies toward any slave.

  Frederick had a cousin, Henny, who had been severely injured in a fire. Her hands were so disfigured that she could not open them; they were unusable fists. She was one of Thomas Auld’s slaves and now that she was crippled and useless, he sent her to Hugh Auld. Thomas reasoned that because his brother had the bright and able Frederick, it was only fair that he also bear the burden of the crippled Henny. But Sophia found it very difficult to deal with Henny and sent the girl back to Thomas Auld. He was so angered by this that he decided if his brother would not keep Henny, then he should not have Frederick either.

  So in March 1833, fifteen-year-old Frederick Bailey was reclaimed by Thomas Auld. He was sent back to the port of St. Michaels, where Thomas Auld fully expected him to be a strong, capable, and obedient young slave fit for any work he was assigned. Auld did not know about the great change that had taken place in Frederick’s mind and heart.

  Frederick stood on the ship returning him to Thomas Auld’s custody, taking close note of the steamships moving toward Philadelphia. That was the direction of freedom. Frederick was now entertaining serious ideas about fleeing north to freedom.

  And the word abolition continued to stir the boy’s soul. Only two years earlier, a man named William Lloyd Garrison had published the first issue of his antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. In December 1833, the same year Frederick Bailey was sent back to Thomas Auld, a national abolitionist society was formed in Philadelphia—the American Anti-Slavery Society.

  Change was in the air. And change was in young Frederick’s heart.

  Chapter 4

  THE TURNING POINT

  Teenager Frederick Bailey came to the door of Thomas Auld’s home in St. Michaels not quite sure what to expect. His friend Lucretia was dead, leaving a small child, Amanda. Thomas Auld’s new wife, Rowena, was in charge, and she quickly let Frederick know where he stood. When Frederick responded warmly to the greeting given him by Amanda, Rowena Auld scolded him for showing too much familiarity with his master’s family. Frederick had forgotten his place—that of subservient slave. Frederick saw that Thomas Auld’s expression was as stern as his wife’s.

  While in Baltimore, Frederick had attended a number of religious revivals and had experienced a personal religious conversion. His new religious spirit was still very much alive in him, and he hoped that somehow he could convert Thomas Auld to the same beliefs. Surely, Frederick thought, if Auld had a religious conversion too, he would see that slavery was incompatible with true Christianity.

  After only three weeks in his new home, Frederick attended a weeklong camp meeting at Bay Side. The revival was open to both blacks and whites. Hundreds of seats were arranged in a half circle in stately tents. There were no seats for the black attendees, who had to stand in a fenced-off area behind the altar. Thomas Auld came to the revival and Frederick had high hopes that Auld would have a spiritual awakening. Frederick hoped Auld would throw himself onto his knees in the straw-filled pit and repent of being a slave owner. Although Thomas Auld did pray more after attending the revival, he still appeared to see no contradiction between his faith and slavery.

  Frederick was disappointed, but his own spiritual fires burned brightly. He decided to start a Sabbath school near where he lived for other young black men to gather and teach the gospel to black children. The makeshift school had only a few spelling books and Bibles, but the young men Frederick recruited were fervent. They started the school with about twenty children. Frederick was thrilled by the project. “Here, thought I, is something worth living for,” Frederick recalled. “Here is an excellent chance for usefulness.”1

  If Frederick entertained any frail hopes that Thomas Auld’s attitudes had been softened by the camp meeting, he was soon to have them shattered. One Sunday, as Frederick and the other young men taught the children, Thomas Auld and some of his white neighbors burst in, wielding sticks. They ordered everyone out. Auld sternly warned Frederick never again to attempt to teach black children anything.

  Frederick grew more and more discouraged with his master and despaired of his religious conversion when Auld whipped Frederick’s disabled cousin, Henny, and then “set her adrift to take care of herself.”2 Frederick feared the girl would not survive on her own. Auld’s lack of compassion also undermined Frederick’s faith in organized religion. Thomas Auld was a member in good standing of the Southern Methodist Church, a fact that scandalized Frederick.

  Life in the Auld house was unpleasant for Frederick. Rowena Auld was a stingy woman and the slaves often went hungry. Frederick’s sister Eliza, also living in the Auld home, taught Frederick ways he could frustrate and annoy their white masters without incurring punishment for outright defiance. Eliza told Frederick to forget instructions, misplace tools, perform tasks badly, and pretend ignorance of the correct procedures. This was a form of slave rebellion that frustrated the master but did not often bring a whipping down on the slave. Rowena Auld, irked by the inept performances of Frederick and Eliza, tried to starve them into doing better. Cornmeal was the only food allowed the slaves, but Frederick and Eliza were not given enough to stave off starvation. This forced them to beg from neighbors or to steal. They did both.

  Rowena and Thomas Auld grew so disgusted with the uncooperative Frederick that they decided to hire him out to someone who might turn him into a willing slave. They chose Edward Covey for the task. He was a farmer who lived seven miles from St. Michaels. It was while working for Covey that Frederick was stripped and savagely beaten in an effort to break him. It was here that Frederick gained the courage to strike back at his abuser and discovered his own manhood. Over Christmas in 1834, Frederick finished his work for Edward Covey and spent the holidays with the Aulds. In early 1835, Auld hired Frederick out to another farmer, William Freeland.

  Freeland was an educated southerner who ran a small farm and was much less harsh than Covey. Freeland had “some feelings of humanity,” according to Frederick.3 He gave his slaves enough to eat and time to eat, not hurrying them through meals so they might return more quickly to work. He demanded good work and he provided the tools necessary to perform the tasks he assigned. Frederick described his treatment at the Freeland farm as “heavenly” compared to life at the Covey farm.4

  William Freeland owned just two slaves, Henry and John Harris. All the rest were like Frederick, hired out to Freeland by their masters. Frederick quickly became friends with the Harris brothers and secretly began teaching them to read. Other slaves from the surrounding area learned of the Sunday lessons and joined them.

  Frederick credited Freeland with being the best master he ever had, but still it was slavery and Frederick yearned to be his own man. Frederick decided that 1835 would be the year he would gain his freedom. He was a tall, strapping seventeen-year-old. He looked like a man and he felt like a man. So Frederick confided to his fellow slaves that he was going to escape, and he invited them to join him. Everyone he talked to seemed interested in the idea, and five slaves, including Frederick, devised a plan. A free black man named Sandy Jenkins befriended the group and shared in their discussions about the escape, but he did not want to take an active part in it.

  The five pl
anned to get a large canoe belonging to a nearby farmer on the Saturday night before the Easter holidays and then to paddle up Chesapeake Bay to its head about eighty miles away. They would then turn the canoe adrift, follow the North Star beyond the limits of Maryland, and slip unseen into free Pennsylvania. As an extra precaution, Frederick wrote passes for himself and the others, forging the name of William Hamilton on the passes. Hamilton was the master of one of the five slaves. The passes indicated that the men were traveling with the permission of Hamilton.

  On Saturday, the five went to breakfast as usual, though Frederick had a feeling that something was wrong. He had a strong premonition that they had already been betrayed.5 As the men ate their breakfast, mounted white constables came galloping up. Within minutes, the five slaves were surrounded and placed under arrest. William Freeland’s mother, Betsy Freeland, glared at Frederick and screamed, “You devil! You yellow devil!”6 Trusting her own slaves, the Harris brothers, as incapable of such plotting, she believed rightly that Frederick was the mastermind who had lured the brothers into making plans to escape.

  Frederick and the other four were taken to Thomas Auld’s store in St. Michaels for questioning. All the slaves denied any scheming. But it was obvious that someone had betrayed them, giving detailed information. Frederick suspected Sandy Jenkins because he was the only person beside the five who knew the whole plan.

  Some of the white men gathered in Auld’s store suggested the five slaves should be hanged at once for the crime of slave rebellion, but Thomas Auld insisted that they be sent to jail while their fates were decided. The five were tied behind horses and forced to walk fifteen miles to Easton, Maryland. They often stumbled and had to scramble to get back on their feet to avoid being dragged by the horses.