HERU

In 1845 Frederick Douglas authored a book entitled “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself.” His sober, detailed account of the physical and emotional horrors of slavery and his determination to escape became a best seller.

He begins his book with the story of his early years on a Maryland plantation. As was often the custom of slave owners, he was separated from his mother; she had to walk from another plantation twelve miles away. She travelled at night on several occasions to see him. She died when he was about seven years old. Douglass knew his father was white, the offspring of his slave master.

As a child two episodes particularly terrified him. His master Captain Anthony had forbidden Freddy’s Aunt Hester from seeing a particular back male slave. When she disobeyed Anthony, he took her into his kitchen, stripped her from the neck down to her waist and whipped her back savagely.

Another particularly distressing event is the story of the slave Demby. A man by the name of Gore was to discipline Demby, one of Colonel Lloyd’s slaves, for misbehavior. Gore had given Demby a few stripes of the whip when Demby plunged himself into a creek with only his head showing above the water.

Mr. Gore gave him three calls as a warning and if he did not come out, he would shoot him. The first, second, and third call was given, and Demby did not come out. Wrote Douglass: “Mr. Gore, without hesitation or deliberation with anyone, not even giving Demby an additional call, raised his musket to his face, taking deadly aim at his standing victim, and in an instant poor Danby was no more. His mangled body sank out of sight, and blood and brains marked the water where he had stood.”

Authorities never tried Gore for murder nor punished him in any way. Writes Douglass: “He argued that if one slave refused to be corrected, and escaped with his life, the other slaves would soon copy the example; the result of which would be, the freedom of slaves, and the enslavement of whites.”

(This same rationale is used today to justify oppression-which is based on the fear of minorities gaining power).

A fortunate event occurred in Douglass life when he was about seven or eight years old. He was sent to serve the Hugh Ault family, his master’s relatives in Baltimore. For the first time he saw a city, a far different reality than the backwoods plantations he was accustomed to. In the city his vision of the world broadened.

In Baltimore he was treated kindly, given adequate clothes and food. Mrs. Ault decided to teach him how to read. Young Douglass caught on quickly. Soon Mr. Ault found out his wife was teaching him the rudiments of reading and forbade her to teach a slave boy on the assumption that if a slave learns reading and writing they will no longer want to be a slave. Writes Douglass: “It would forever unfit him to be a slave…” These words sank deep into my heart…I now understand what had been to me most perplexing difficulty…to wit, the white’s man’s power to enslave the Black man.”

The ultimate lesson of Douglass’s reading and writing was that he was not a slave. He was a person who had once been a slave. He was somebody in his own right. Others told Douglass that he was a slave. He learned that was not his identity.

His actual escape from slavery occurred on September 3, 1838. Two years previously, he had tried to escape but he was captured, jailed, and returned to his master who assigned him to work in the Baltimore shipyards.

Although he knew the risk, he tried again. He wrote in his autobiography: “I felt assured that if I failed in this attempt, my case would be a helpless one. It would seal my fate as a slave forever.”

This time, Douglass disguised himself as a free Black sailor, a credible ruse given the nautical knowledge he gained from working in the shipyards.

Christopher Klein in an article entitled “How Frederick Douglass Escaped Slavery, “provides details: “In his pocket, Douglass stuffed a sailor’s protection pass, which he could present in lieu of the “free papers” that railroad officials required Black passengers to carry as proof they were not enslaved. Douglass had borrowed the document from a free African American seaman, but he bore little resemblance to the physical description detailed on the piece of paper. Close examination by a railroad official or any authority would reveal the subterfuge and imperil both Douglass and his friend.”

Douglass described the moment on the train to New York when the conductor asked to see his “free Papers”, since Douglass had none, the conductor queried “But you have something to show you are a free man, have you not?” ‘Yes sir, I have a paper with the American eagle on it, that will carry me around the world.’ The eyes of the conductor were drawn to the authoritative eagle emblazoned on the top rather than the erroneous physical description. “Had the conductor looked closely at the paper,” wrote Douglass, “he could not have failed to discover that it called for a very different looking person from myself.”

Despite the obstacles, Douglass arrived safely in New York less than 24 hours after leaving Baltimore. Writes Klein: “Although on free soil, Douglass was not legally a free man. Packs of slave catchers roamed the streets of New York searching for fugitives.”

Once his wife-to-be, a free Black housekeeper named Anna Murray whom he had met in Maryland, arrived in New York, the couple left for safer refuge in New Bedford, Massachusetts. There, Douglass began his life as an abolitionist crusader.

His journey from slavery to freedom is compelling and filled with suspense. All along he was taking a journey of a different kind- a pathway through suffering toward freedom. He possessed an unquenchable soul or spirit that remained despite the harsh realities of his life.

There was no surround of support. The master slave owner took his mother from him for the sake of the slave system. They saw him as chattel, a beast of burden. He was passed from home to home with no steady emotional floor under his feet. He did not even know his birthdate.

And yet, through his travail, his crucifixion of fire, he found a resurrection of spiritual freedom that motivated him to seek the liberation of his brothers and sisters still in chains.

We have the example of Frederick Douglass who not only escaped the realities of slavery but also achieved freedom to live as a free soulful human being-a being that “overcame” the world of domination by the “principalities and powers” of his time. In that sense he was an apostle of spiritual liberation.

Dr John Campbell is a psychotherapist living in Brevard.