Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave

by Frederick Douglass

Overview

Frederick Douglass was a key figure in helping to secure the abolition of slavery in America – discover his Narrative.

A masterpiece … [Douglass] was not only self-educated, with a love of language which should still be an inspiration; he was also self-created’ New York Times

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. After his escape in 1838 he became an ardent abolitionist, and his autobiography was an instant bestseller upon publication in 1845. In it he describes with harrowing honesty his life as a slave – the cruelty he suffered at the hands of plantation owners; his struggles to educate himself in a world where slaves are deliberately kept ignorant; and ultimately, his fight for his right to freedom. A passionately written, intelligent and highly emotive indictment of slavery, his principle preoccupation was that slavery could be eradicated only through education. This text was key in helping to secure its eventual abolition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781473512559
Publisher:	Random House
Publication date:	01/01/2015
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Frederick Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey to a slave woman and an unknown white man in either 1817 or 1818. He was enslaved in Baltimore and Maryland for twenty years, first as a servant and then as a farm hand. He escaped in 1838, married, and settled in Massachusetts where he began work as an anti-slavery crusader. Following a fantastically eloquent speech at an anti-slavery convention he was hired by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to lecture about his life as a slave. He was such a brilliantly gifted public speaker that many doubted he had ever been a slave, and this stereotype – that a slave couldn’t be intelligent or articulate – was something he fought ardently against. He wrote his autobiography partly to address this – it became an instant bestseller on publication. After the outbreak of the civil war he successfully persuaded President Lincoln to allow black soldiers to enlist. He was, at various times, Federal Marshall of the District of Columbia, President of the Freedman’s Bank, United States Minister to Haiti, and charge d’affaires for the Dominican Republic. He died in 1895 shortly after delivering a speech at a women’s rights rally.

Hometown:

Tuckahoe, Maryland

Date of Birth:

1818

Date of Death:

February 20, 1895

Place of Death:

Washington, D.C.

Read an Excerpt

I have often been utterly astonished, since I came north, to find persons who could speak of the singing, among slaves, as evidence of their contentment and happiness. It is impossible to conceive of a greater mistake. Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy….Crying for joy, and singing for joy, were alike uncommon to me while in the jaws of slavery. The singing of a man cast away upon a desolate island might be as appropriately considered as evidence of contentment and happiness, as the singing of a slave; the songs of the one and of the other are prompted by the same emotion. -- from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Table of Contents

Foreword

Preface

INTRODUCTION: "A Psalm of Freedom"

Pt. 1

The Document

25

Editor's Note on the Text

27

Preface by William Lloyd Garrison, May 1,1845

29

Letter from Wendell Phillips, Esq., April 22,1845

36

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

39

Notes on the Text

109

Pt. 2

Selected Reviews, Documents, and Speeches

117

Caleb Bingham, "Dialogue Between a Master and a Slave," in The Columbian Orator (1797)

119

Margaret Fuller, Review of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, New York Tribune, June 10, 1845

121

Ephraim Peabody, "Narratives of Fugitive Slaves," excerpt, Christian Examiner, July 1849

124

Nathaniel P. Rogers, "Southern Slavery and Northern Religion," two addresses delivered in Concord, New Hampshire, February 11, 1844, as reported in (Concord, N.H.) Herald Freedom, February 16,1844

128

Frederick Douglass, "My Slave Experience in Maryland," an address delivered in New York City, May 6, 1845, as recorded in National Antislavery Standard, May 22,1845

130

Frederick Douglass, Letter to Thomas Auld, September 3, 1848, published in The North Star, September 8,1848; and The Liberator, September 22, 1848

134

Frederick Douglass, "What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?" speech delivered in Corinthian Hall, Rochester, New York, July 5, 1852

141

App. A Douglass chronology (1818-1895)

147

App. Questions for Considerarion

153

App. Selected Bibliography

155

Editorial Reviews

A century and a half after its first publication, Frederick Douglass's Narrative retains its hold on us, capturing us with its first-person story of the abolitionist's passage from bondage to freedom.

EBOOK COMMENTARY

A century and a half after its first publication, Frederick Douglass's Narrative retains its hold on us, capturing us with its first-person story of the abolitionist's passage from bondage to freedom.

bn.com

When it was first published, many critics doubted that The Narrative of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass had even been written by Frederick Douglass. As odd as it may seem now, that criticism was not completely unfounded: In the mid-nineteenth century, the antislavery movement produced hundreds of slave narratives, many of them ghostwritten by white abolitionists and tailored to create sympathy for their movement. But this book, by this remarkable man, was different. The tag line at the end of the book's subtitle—Written by Himself —was vitally important. Although clearly written with the abolitionist cause in mind, this book is not merely a political tract. True, its dispassionate prose brought to light the "injustice, exposure to outrage, and savage barbarity" of slavery as Douglass observed and experienced But also brought to life an uncommon man and the particular concerns seared into him during his experience of bondage. Douglass recounts that during slavery, he and his people were denied life's fundamentals: faith, family, education, the capacity for bold action, a sense of community, and personal identity. Douglass saw reclamation of these things as the key to his and his people's survival, redemption, and salvation.

The autobiography opens with a description of the aspects of his own life that Douglass was never allowed to know: the identity of his father, the warmth and care of his mother (who was a stranger to him), and even the fact of his own date of birth. As a child, he suffered from and observed savage beatings firsthand, including the fierce beating of his Aunt Hester at the hands of their master, Captain Aaron Anthony. As he grew older, Douglass liberated himself in stages: mentally, spiritually, and, eventually, physically. His mental freedom began when he was taught to read and write and realized the power of literacy; his spiritual freedom came when he discovered the grace of Christianity and the will to resist his beatings; his physical freedom arrived when he finally escaped to the North.

After escaping, Douglass was committed to telling the world about the condition of the brothers and sisters he left behind. Aside from telling Douglass's personal story, his autobiography takes us to the fields and the cabins and the lives of many slaves to reveal the real human cost of slavery. Douglass focused on the dehumanizing aspects of slavery: not just the beatings, but the parting of children from their mothers, the denial of education, and the sexual abuses of slave masters. He ends the book with this statement: "Sincerely and earnestly hoping that his little book may do something toward throwing light on the American slave system, and hastening the glad day of deliverance to the millions of my brethren in bonds—faithfully relying upon the power of truth, love, and justice, for success in my humble efforts—and solemnly pledging myself anew to the sacred cause, I subscribe myself, Frederick Douglass."

The book was an incredible success: It sold over thirty thousand copies and was an international bestseller. It was the first, and most successful, of three autobiographies that Douglass was to write. The other two, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, update the story of his life and revise some of the facts of his earlier autobiography.

Sacred Life

The 2018 Broadview edition of Douglass’s Narrative could not be timelier. Its relevance bears equally and urgently on our own fraught lives and time. Celeste-Marie Bernier has given us a view into the life of the Narrative and its author that is so full and intimate as to make this edition definitive by any standard. In words and images, Bernier’s Douglass—autobiographer, orator, bookseller, family man, fugitive—cuts a bold black figure. No ex-slave or abolitionist ever damned slavery so surely self-possessed.” — Maurice Wallace, University of Virginia

“An outstanding edition from one of the world’s great Douglass scholars. Bernier provides a comprehensive biographical, historical, and literary introduction, numerous illustrations, and a wealth of primary materials that allow readers to develop fresh and exciting political, familial, and trans-Atlantic perspectives on Douglass’s most widely read autobiography.” — Robert S. Levine, Distinguished University Professor, University of Maryland, and author of The Lives of Frederick Douglass

“Bernier’s edition of Frederick Douglass’s Narrative will immediately establish its place as the most original and timely version of the great black abolitionist’s bestselling text. Without romanticizing Douglass, Bernier uncovers his skills as a self-reflective writer and experimental autobiographer and contextualizes his work within survivor narratives written by slaves and former slaves throughout the Atlantic world. Bernier’s edition of the Narrative is the text for twenty-first-century readers. It reminds us that black lives mattered in Douglass’s day—just as they do today.” — John David Smith, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

From the Publisher

Frederick Douglass died over one hundred years ago, but his spirit endures in this short account he wrote of his life. Brief yet detailed, it resonates with the same subdued anger and passion against injustice that marked his later work. That spirit of controlled fury has been caught in the reading by Pete Papageorge. Though slow and deliberate, it carries with it an undertone of strong feeling. His deep voice more than suggests Douglass's authority and his position as the grandfather and living symbol of the abolitionist movement. When the ex-slave bristles at the horrors in the slave-holding system and methodically details the damage done by that system to the economy and psyche of the South, it may be Papageorge's voice we hear, but it is Douglass's scathing condemnation ringing through the ages. P.E.F. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine

FEB/MAR 03 - AudioFile