My Bondage and My Freedom. Frederick Douglass

      MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM

      By Frederick Douglass

      By a principle essential to Christianity, a PERSON is eternally differenced from a THING; so that the idea of a HUMAN BEING, necessarily excludes the idea of PROPERTY IN THAT BEING. —COLERIDGE

      Entered according to Act of Congress in 1855 by Frederick Douglass in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York

      TO

       HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH,

       AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF

       ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER,

       ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE,

       AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND

       GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP,

       AND AS

       A Small but most Sincere Acknowledgement of

       HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES

       OF AN

       AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTRAGED PEOPLE,

       BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY AND MURDER,

       AND BY

       DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE,

       This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated,

       BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND,

       FREDERICK DOUGLAS.

       ROCHESTER, N.Y.

      CONTENTS

      MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM

      EDITOR’S PREFACE

      INTRODUCTION

      CHAPTER I. Childhood

      CHAPTER II. Removed from My First Home

      CHAPTER III. Parentage

      CHAPTER IV. A General Survey of the Slave Plantation

      CHAPTER V. Gradual Initiation to the Mysteries of Slavery

      CHAPTER VI. Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd’s Plantation

      CHAPTER VII. Life in the Great House

      CHAPTER VIII. A Chapter of Horrors

      CHAPTER IX. Personal Treatment

      CHAPTER X. Life in Baltimore

      CONTENTS

      CHAPTER XI. “A Change Came O’er the Spirit of My Dream”

      CHAPTER XII. Religious Nature Awakened

      CHAPTER XIII. The Vicissitudes of Slave Life

      CHAPTER XIV. Experience in St. Michael’s

      CHAPTER XV. Covey, the Negro Breaker

      CHAPTER XVI. Another Pressure of the Tyrant’s Vice

      CHAPTER XVII. The Last Flogging

      CHAPTER XVIII. New Relations and Duties

      CHAPTER XIX. The Run-Away Plot

      CHAPTER XX. Apprenticeship Life

      CHAPTER XXI. My Escape from Slavery

      CONTENTS

      LIFE as a FREEMAN

      CHAPTER XXII. Liberty Attained

      CHAPTER XXIII. Introduced to the Abolitionists

      CHAPTER XXIV. Twenty-One Months in Great Britain

      CHAPTER XXV. Various Incidents

      RECEPTION SPEECH. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12,

      Dr. Campbell’s Reply

      LETTER TO HIS OLD MASTER. To My Old Master, Thomas Auld

      THE NATURE OF SLAVERY. Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,

      INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. Extract from A Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester,

      WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY.? Extract from an Oration, at

      THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July

      THE SLAVERY PARTY. Extract from a Speech Delivered before the A. A. S.

      THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. Extracts from a Lecture before Various

      FOOTNOTES

      MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM

      EDITOR’S PREFACE

      If the volume now presented to the public were a mere work of ART, the history of its misfortune might be written in two very simple words—TOO LATE. The nature and character of slavery have been subjects of an almost endless variety of artistic representation; and after the brilliant achievements in that field, and while those achievements are yet fresh in the memory of the million, he who would add another to the legion, must possess the charm of transcendent excellence, or apologize for something worse than rashness. The reader is, therefore, assured, with all due promptitude, that his attention is not invited to a work of ART, but to a work of FACTS—Facts, terrible and almost incredible, it may be yet FACTS, nevertheless.

      I am authorized to say that there is not a fictitious name nor place in the whole volume; but that names and places are literally given, and that every transaction therein described actually transpired.

      Perhaps the best Preface to this volume is furnished in the following letter of Mr. Douglass, written in answer to my urgent solicitation for such a work:

       ROCHESTER, N. Y. July 2, 1855.

      DEAR FRIEND: I have long entertained, as you very well know, a somewhat positive repugnance to writing or speaking anything for the public, which could, with any degree of plausibilty, make me liable to the imputation of seeking personal notoriety, for its own sake. Entertaining that feeling very sincerely, and permitting its control, perhaps, quite unreasonably, I have often refused to narrate my personal experience in public anti-slavery meetings, and in sympathizing circles, when urged to do so by friends, with whose views and wishes, ordinarily, it were a pleasure to comply. In my letters and speeches, I have generally aimed to discuss the question of Slavery in the light of fundamental principles, and upon facts, notorious and open to all; making, I trust, no more of the fact of my own former enslavement, than circumstances seemed absolutely to require. I have never placed my opposition to slavery on a basis so narrow as my own enslavement, but rather upon the indestructible and unchangeable laws of human nature, every one of which is perpetually and flagrantly violated by the slave system. I have also felt that it was best for those having histories worth the writing—or supposed to be so—to commit such work to hands other than their own. To write of one’s self, in such a manner as not to incur the imputation of weakness, vanity, and egotism, is a work within the ability of but few; and I have little reason to believe that I belong to that fortunate few.

      These considerations caused me to hesitate, when first you kindly urged me to prepare for publication a full account of my life as a slave, and my life as a freeman.

      Nevertheless, I see, with you, many reasons for regarding my autobiography as exceptional in its character, and as being, in some sense, naturally beyond the reach of those reproaches which honorable and sensitive minds dislike to incur. It is not to illustrate any heroic achievements of a man, but to vindicate a just and beneficent principle, in its application to the whole human family, by letting in the light of truth upon a system, esteemed by some as a blessing, and by others as a curse and a crime. I agree with you, that this system is now at