Frederick Douglass American Hero: And International Icon of the Nineteenth Century

By Connie A. Miller, Sr.

This is a complex and comprehensive literary about a Black American hero, a story never told before as it has been in this book. Previous authors and historians have not portrayed Frederick Douglass as an American hero who greatly influenced American History.

Frederick Douglass was one of the most dynamic and influential individuals during the nineteenth century. He crusaded for the passage of the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution, which were all ratified during his lifetime. He was a friend of President Abraham Lincoln and an adviser to President Lincoln during the American Civil War (1861-1865).

Frederick Douglass taught himself how to read and write and became a very brilliant individual as an orator, a writer and entrepreneur. He is the father of the original Civil Rights Movement in America as he fought for the civil rights and voting rights for women and Blacks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 13, 2008
• ISBN: 9781441576491

Connie A. Miller, Sr.

Connie A. Miller, Sr. earned a B.S. Degree in Education, from the University of Southern California. From 1966 to 2002 Miller worked as an administrator for various city, state and federal government social programs. Currently, he is recognized as an author and historian. His most recent work "Concepts of a Black Conservative" is one in the essence of "Political Incorrectness."

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Copyright © 2008 by Connie A. Miller, Sr.

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Contents

Dedication

Introductory Remarks

Chapter I

The Years in Bondage

Life on the Great Farm

Young Frederick’s Slave Family

Leaving the Plantation for Baltimore

Return to Old Home at St. Michael’s

Hired Out to Edward Covey

Hired Out to William Freeland

An Attempt to Escape Slavery

Chapter II

Douglass Escapes and

Becomes a Fugitive Slave

Anna Murray Assists Douglass in His Successful Escape

From Frederick Johnson to Frederick Douglass

Chapter III

William Lloyd Garrison Discovers Frederick Douglass

Abolitionist, Orator and Entrepreneur

Founding Fathers Against Slavery

A New World

The Hundred Conventions Tour

Chapter IV

Tour of Ireland, Scotland and England

To Be a Principal, Not an Agent

Chapter V

Free At Last

Chapter VI

Rochester

The Julia Griffiths Episode

Eliza Marries

Douglass’s Love Affair with Rochester

An Underground Railroad Conductor

The Ottilie Assing Episode

Ottilie Assing’s Suicide

The Harriet Beecher Stowe Encounter

Chapter VII

Frederick Douglass Meets John Brown

John Brown (Abolitionist)

Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry

Frederick Douglass about Harper’s Ferry

Freedom Fighters at Harper’s Ferry

The Fate of Jeremiah Anderson?

A Chronicle of Major Slave Revolts and Escapes

On the Run Again, after Harper’s Ferry

Douglass’s Return from Exile

Chapter VIII

Proslavery Faction Gains in the 1850s

Fugitive Slave Act, 1850

Repeal of the Missouri Compromise, 1854

The Dred Scott Decision, 1857

Chapter IX

Antebellum Politics on the

Slavery Issue

The Presidential Election of 1860

Chapter X

The Civil War and the Unusual Friendship with President

Abraham Lincoln

Two American Giants of the Nineteenth Century

Frederick Douglass Supports Abraham Lincoln for President

Oration in Memory of Abraham Lincoln

Chapter XI

Dispute with Andrew Johnson

Reconstruction by Frederick Douglass

Impeachment of Andrew Johnson

Chapter XII

Douglass Supports Grant for President

Support of Grant the Republican

Achievements of Ulysses S. Grant in Gaining the Civil Rights for Former Slaves

Grant Signs the First Enforcement Act (May 31, 1870)

Frederick Douglass’s Fight for Voting Rights

February 3, 1870—Ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment

April 20, 1871—Signing of the Second Enforcement Act

Chapter XIII

Frederick Douglass for Vice President

Victoria Woodhull Picked Frederick Douglass

as her Running Mate for V.P.

Chapter XIV

Farewell to Rochester

Arsonists Strike Home in Rochester

Chapter XV

Douglass Family Moves to

Washington, D.C.

The Freedman’s Savings and Trust Company

Failure of Freedman’s Bank

Microfilmed Records

Unmicrofilmed Records

Freedman’s Bank Depositors

Access to the Records

Freedman’s Bank and Trust Reparations

Remedy

Chapter XVI

The Exoduster Migration

Frederick Douglass was adamantly opposed to the migration of large numbers of Negroes out of the South.

Chapter XVII

Douglass Purchase Of Cedar Hill

Douglass Family Moves to Washington, D.C.

Disappointment By Rutherford B. Hayes

James A. Garfield, Another Disappointment

Anna Murray Douglass Dies

Second Marriage Not Well Accepted by Family

Chapter XVIII

Frederick And Helen Tour Europe

and Northern Africa

About Sarah Parker Remond

Chapter XIX

Douglass, U.S. Diplomat To Haiti

Douglass’s First Diplomatic Visit to Haiti

The Influence of the Haitian Revolution

on American History

The Impact of the Haitian Revolution on the U. S.

Until She Spoke

Douglass Resigns as Consul General to Haiti

Chapter XX

Frederick Douglass At The

World’s Fair in 1893

Chapter XXI

Frederick Douglass’s Last Days

Douglass’s Last Great Speech

Relations between Blacks and Whites in the Southern States

Douglass Continues His Support for Women’s Rights

Frederick Douglass Dies

Chronology of an American Hero and Father of the Civil Rights Movement—Frederick Douglass

Afterword

Author’s Statement

Bibliographies,

Archives and Writings

missing image file

Rare Image of Frederick Douglass at a Very Young Age

This book is dedicated to Ms. Dianne Dale

missing image file

Dianne Dale is the Founder and President of Frederick Douglass Gardens, Inc., (FDG). FDG was authorized by Congress (PL 106-479—The Frederick Douglass Memorial & Gardens Act of 2000) to create a national memorial to honor Frederick Douglass on Interior Department land in the District of Columbia. On November 8, 2005 the National Capital Memorial Commission approved the FDG location of five acres on the Anacostia River waterfront at Poplar Point in Anacostia Park a few blocks from the Frederick Douglass Home.

Ms. Dale, whose family has lived in the adjacent Hillsdale Anacostia, Washington, DC community since 1892, is President of the Anacostia Historical Society and Past President of the Anacostia Garden Club. She is a graduate of Howard University with a BS in Recreation and Allied Sciences, an MS in Child Development and an MPA in Health Services Administration. She is a published author, stained glass artist, and sings tenor in an award-winning women’s barbershop chorus, Potomac Harmony Chorus, in Arlington, VA.

Introductory Remarks

Frederick Douglass once remarked that history would only remember him as that runaway Negro slave. I shall never get beyond Frederick Douglass—the self-educated fugitive slave, implying that all of the other things that he had accomplished in his rich and eventful life would never be recognized by American historians. Perhaps he was right in his foresightedness. Until very recently there have been a small number of Frederick Douglass biographies that have written fragmented (other than his slave experiences) renditions of other chapters in his life. Frederick Douglass was an American hero and an international icon of the nineteenth century. This literary work is an attempt to give its readers a comprehensive view of a genius and very complex individual, Frederick Douglass.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery near Easton, Maryland, in February 1818. His mother was a Negro slave field worker, Harriet Bailey. His father was his mother’s White slave master, Aaron Anthony. Frederick’s exact date of birth is not known; however, his mother called him her Little Valentine. Therefore, Douglass adopted February 14 (the date that I was born in 1937) as the date of his birth. Frederick never really knew his mother, as she died when he was only seven years old. When Aaron Anthony died, Frederick Bailey was inherited by Anthony’s son-in-law, Thomas Auld.

Frederick Douglass’s life was full of adventure, courage, trials, and tribulations. He beat the odds of being born a Negro slave in America to become one of the richest and most influential Americans during his era. Due to the slave Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey’s innate brilliance and cunning, he was able to learn how to read and write English, mostly teaching himself, despite the fact that the slave masters frowned on the Negro slaves learning how to read and write. The slave masters religiously believed that a literate slave could no longer be useful as a slave; they believed that the Negro slave should know nothing but the will of his/her master, and learn to obey it. The slave masters were right. When Frederick Bailey learned how to read, he spent a great deal of time reading abolitionist newspapers and other such publications. His ability to read and comprehend these writings caused him to resent slavery and to envy his illiterate Black slave brothers and sisters for not being able to read and gain such knowledge about the profound predicaments of their condition, the evils of slavery as human beings. It was during this period that Frederick began to realize the truth and the overall evilness of the institution of slavery. Knowledge and truth will make you free. Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey knew, from this particular time in his life, that one day in the future he would be running away from slavery. Eventually while Frederick Bailey was still a slave, he would teach himself how to write. By the time that he was a teenager, he was better educated than most of the Negroes and many of the White Americans during that period of the nineteenth century.

For Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, there were many unpleasant episodes during his life in bondage. He wrote of the mistreatment of the slave women by their White slave masters (beatings and rape) and also the beating and murder of the Negro male slaves whenever they displeased their master.

Another event in Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey’s life played a significant role in his premeditated plan to become a free individual. When Frederick was only fifteen he was sent to a plantation to be broken as he had been labeled an uppity nigger slave. Edward Covey was the slave master and had a reputation of breaking the slaves that gave their master trouble, especially the smart ones, the likes of young Frederick. He was to crush the spirit of this young buck that had gotten out of his place as a nigger slave. On the one and only occasion when Edward Covey tried to whip young Frederick, Frederick fought Covey back. The fight resulted in a draw. Young Frederick probably outmuscled Covey because of his physical strength and size. Frederick was large for his age and as an adult he had grown to six feet or more, which is ironic since he was poorly fed by his slave masters prior to the time he had this fight with Covey. Be that as it may, young Frederick more than likely was too much for Covey to handle both physically and mentally, therefore, Frederick outwitted Covey, who was uneducated and not a young man. This restored Frederick’s sense of self-worth, and Covey never attempted to whip Frederick again. Covey was not proud of his performance in this event, and he never told anyone else about what had happened. A year later (in 1835) Frederick’s first attempt to escape slavery with two of his young slave friends was prevented as the group of runaway slaves were betrayed by one of their number and were jailed. Young Frederick was released from jail to his master, Thomas Auld. Auld realized that young Frederick’s reputation in the area, as an uppity nigger slave, would cause him problems. Therefore, Auld subsequently sent Frederick to Baltimore to learn the ship caulking trade. Thomas Auld’s decision to send young Frederick to Baltimore was Frederick’s gateway to freedom. In 1837 Frederick met his first wife Anna Murray, a free Black woman working in Baltimore, while attending the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society. Anna Murray helped him plan his escape from slavery. At age twenty, Frederick Bailey escaped from slavery using the forged papers of a Black Union sailor. He forged the papers himself, by this time he had taught himself to write. He traveled by railroad from Baltimore, Maryland, to New York City. Several weeks later Anna Murray followed Frederick to New York, and there they were married, and they later moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts. Shortly after, Frederick changed his last name to Douglass so that it would not be so easy for the slave hunters (nigger catchers as some called them) to trace and capture him and send him back to his slave master. *

From 1839 to 1849 Frederick and Anna had five children between them. During this period, Frederick Douglass attended an abolitionist antislavery meeting in Massachusetts where the White abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison heard him speak against slavery. Garrison was impressed with Douglass’s speaking ability and hired Douglass as a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society. In 1845 Douglass wrote and published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave. Between 1845 and 1847 Douglass toured England, Scotland, and Ireland, making antislavery speeches. During this period he was able to raise enough money to buy his freedom from his slave master. In England during December 1846, in New Castle he met an articulate, intelligent White antislavery worker, Julia Griffiths. Douglass talked to Griffiths about his plan to start a newspaper when he returned to America. Griffiths subsequently came to America with her sister Eliza to help Douglass in speaking against slavery and help him with the editing of the North Star. Julia Griffiths and Douglass developed an interracial romance that was intense. In 1856, after Julia Griffiths left America to return to England, another White woman, Ottilie Assing, a German-Jew and abolitionist, met Douglass at his home in Rochester, New York, as she had been fascinated with Douglass’s writings. They had a love affair that lasted twenty-six years. Assing was a passionate abolitionist, politically astute, and contributed a great deal to Douglass’s work. She always thought that Frederick would marry her after his wife Anna’s death. However, he married another White woman after Anna’s death. Assing, sick with breast cancer and grieving over Douglass’s marriage to another, committed suicide. During the antebellum years of the nineteenth century, Frederick Douglass traveled in America and abroad speaking against slavery; he also authored multiple publications about his own experiences and life as a slave.

In 1859 after assisting John Brown in planning a raid on Harper’s Ferry, Virginia, in order to incite a slave revolt, Douglass, however, did not join the failed expedition as he told Brown that they would not have a chance in overcoming this steel trap. Subsequently, Douglass fled to England for six months by way of Canada to avoid arrest and prosecution. Douglass’s youngest, eleven-year-old daughter Annie, died while he was in exile. Upon hearing about Annie’s death, Douglass returned to America from England and continued the publication of the Douglass’ Monthly. Another Black abolitionist slave Harriet Tubman knew about John Brown’s plans but did not participate in the raid on Harper’s Ferry; therefore, was not associated with it by the authorities as Douglass was. Both Douglass and Tubman managed to escape punishment by the federal government for their association with John Brown. Harriet Tubman made many stops to the Douglass home in Rochester used as a station stop for the Underground Railroad (UGRR) with her band of escaped slaves.

Frederick Douglass was associated with and had dealings with both Black and White giants in America’s history during the nineteenth century. He was an advisor to Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War. Douglass convinced President Lincoln to allow Blacks to serve as soldiers in the Union Army. Lincoln appointed Douglass to help recruit Negroes into the Union Army. President Lincoln considered Douglass a friend; considering the circumstances, it was an unusual friendship, but one with trust and admiration between them both. To Douglass at first, Lincoln was vague on the issue of slavery; however, with Lincoln’s approval of the Emancipation Proclamation, Douglass’s doubts about Lincoln declined. Frederick Douglass recruited members for the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts, a Black regiment in the Union Army. His sons Charles and Lewis joined the regiment. Another son, Frederick Douglass, Jr., became a recruiter. From 1861 to 1881, Frederick Douglass had dealings and associations with the following U.S. Presidents:

Abraham Lincoln 1861-1865

Andrew Johnson 1865-1869

Ulysses S. Grant 1869-1877

Rutherford B. Hayes 1877-1881

James A. Garfield 1881-assassinated Sept 19, 1881

Frederick Douglass was appointed by President Ulysses S. Grant to accompany the Santo Domingo Commission and also to a seat on the Council of the District of Columbia, his appointment as United States marshal by President Rutherford B. Hayes, and his appointment to be recorder of deeds in Washington by President John A. Garfield. Douglass was experiencing his second marriage and was in semiretirement in 1888 when President Benjamin Harrison appointed him to the post of Consul General to Haiti.

In December 1865 the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified. This was to the delight of Frederick Douglass, as he was an advocate for this law. It was stated here that Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. Frederick Douglass’s fight for freedom and equality for Black Americans was rewarded with the ratification of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 and the Fifteenth Amendment in 1870 to the United States Constitution. In 1872 Frederick Douglass was nominated to be the running mate of presidential nominee, Victoria Woodhull, for vice president of the United States. The Equal Rights Party, headed by Victoria Woodhull, nominated Douglass as its vice-presidential candidate. Douglass did not accept the nomination; he was at the time supporting Ulysses S. Grant in his presidential reelection campaign. Douglass did not meet Woodhull until a decade later when he and his second wife, Helen Pitts, toured Europe for his third time. The Douglass home in Rochester was burned to the ground in 1872 allegedly by arsonists, destroying many of the Douglass papers. The family subsequently moved to Washington, D.C., and Douglass purchased Cedar Hill, an estate in Anacostia in the District of Columbia.

In August 1882, Douglass’s first wife, Anna, died from the long residuals of a stroke, and in January of 1884 he married Helen Pitts, a White woman, twenty years his junior and then his secretary. Several years after his marriage to Helen Pitts, they took a tour together through Europe and North Africa when he met Victoria Woodhull for the first time.

Frederick Douglass was the author of several publications and autobiographies and received several prestigious presidential appointments to high U.S. government positions. He died in his home at Cedar Hill on February 20, 1895.

Frederick Douglass was a courageous American who had the strength to endure and overcome the odds against him. His innate far-sightedness enhanced his successful efforts to educate himself and become a great American and international icon during the nineteenth century. He was a leader of both Black and White men and women. He was also a great public speaker, author, entrepreneur, statesman and international figure. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that Frederick Douglass was one of America’s greatest individuals and had more of an influence on America’s history than any Black American, past or present. He was respected by both his friends and his enemies. He is an individual example of the type of courage that has made America the greatest country in the world.

American historians have not made Douglass’s most outstanding achievements and his influence on American history very public. During my research, I spoke to a middle-aged Black female about Frederick Douglass, and she did not know that Douglass was Black. Her reply was Oh, I thought Frederick Douglass was a White man. Most White individuals to whom I spoke where not aware of most of his accomplishments. Contemporary historians have praised such Blacks as Martin Luther King, Jr., Coretta (Scott) King, and Rosa Parks as Black modern-day civil rights leaders. However, Frederick Douglass’s achievements and accomplishments in the area of civil rights for Black Americans will pale any subsequent civil rights activities by Black leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, considering the circumstances which he was subjected to. This is not to take anything away from those Black leaders that came after Douglass, as the fight for Black civil rights had to be continued and still does.

So why haven’t the historians not written very much about Frederick Douglass the American hero and international icon he was during the nineteenth century? During Black History month (each February) we always hear about Martin Luther King, Jr., and his I Have a Dream speech. In my opinion, Black Americans cannot afford to continue to live in a dream world in regards to achieving their full civil rights. Frederick Douglass sought to embody three keys for the success in life for Black Americans during his era. They are as follows:

- Believe in yourself

- Take advantage of every opportunity

- Use the power of the spoken and written language to effect positive change for yourself and society.

Frederick Douglass’s above advice is good for any human being to follow then and now. Any reader of this book will become aware that Frederick Douglass accomplished all three to the fullest.

Frederick Douglass’s adulterous activities over three decades with two well-educated White women, Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assing, have been for the most part the episodes in Douglass’s life that have not been revealed by previous historians. Why is this so? Could it be because here was a Black ex-slave having two White women as lovers? Perhaps such publication of Douglass’s extramarital affairs would in some way pale his greatness? Nevertheless, Douglass did participate in these affairs while he was married to his Black wife, Anna Murray Douglass. These chapters in his life did not dull Frederick Douglass’s overall greatness, a la Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Many women, both Black and White, found Frederick Douglass sexually attractive. He was tall (six feet, which was tall for men during that era), muscular, and a handsome young man with thick, black, curly hair, a pair of piercing eyes, and a somewhat light mulatto skin complexion. Two continents were impressed by Douglass’s characteristics. In addition, he was the brightest and most articulate slave to join the antislave movement. Some people doubted that he was ever a slave. Douglass could mesmerize an audience of two thousand or more for two to three hours at a time. It has been said that when he warmed to the topic of the evils of slavery, he stood on the platform like a Black African prince, dignified in his wrath against slavery.

This literary work is an attempt to portray Frederick Douglass as the brilliant and complex American that he was.

It is reasonably clear that Frederick Douglass was the most important Black in nineteenth-century America. His courage, conviction, and eloquence created admiring audiences in America and in Britain. Frederick Douglass will always have a place in the history of Black emancipation and his platform oratory against slavery. Douglass’s public performances are lost forever, as he lived before the invention of voice recordings or radio. Nevertheless, Douglass invented a distinct personality well worth knowing. George Washington is remembered as the Father of our Country; no doubt, Frederick Douglass is the Father of Black Civil Rights Movement in America. His contributions in the area of civil rights for Blacks in America have influenced America’s present day principles concerning civil rights.

The most important and influential individuals in Frederick Douglass’s life in chronological order:

1. Betsy Bailey—grandmother

2. Harriet Bailey—mother

3. Thomas Auld—slave master

4. Anna Murray Douglass—first wife (Black)

5. William Lloyd Garrison—abolitionist (White)

6. Mrs. Ellen Richardson of Great Britain—raised money to purchase Frederick Douglass’s freedom

7. Julia Griffiths—business assistant and mistress (White)

8. Ottilie Assing—business assistant and mistress (White)

9. Helen Pitts Douglass—secretary and second wife (White)

Frederick Douglass was the foremost Black American abolitionist in antebellum America and a Black leader of national and international stature in American history. His advocacy for the freedom of the Negro slaves for their civil rights and then the right to vote would earn him the recognition as The Father of the Black Civil Rights Movement in America.

Chapter I

The Years in Bondage

Life on the Great Farm

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born on February 14, 1818, on Holme Hill Plantation in Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland, to Harriet Bailey, a slave field worker. His father was a White man believed to be his mother’s master, Captain Aaron Anthony. Frederick’s mother, Harriet Bailey, was the daughter of Isaac and Betsy Bailey. Frederick Douglass noted in his Narrative that his grandmother and grandfather were both fully Black Africans, and quite dark. His mother was of a darker complexion than either. Frederick was separated from his mother when he was only an infant before he ever knew her as his mother. Children born to slave mothers were taken from their mothers at a very early age and the child’s mother was sent to work on a distant plantations. There was no family bond and natural affection for the mother or parents developed by the slave child. Frederick never saw his mother to really know her. He only saw his mother five times in his young life; each time he saw her it was for a very short time at night. Harriet Bailey lived and worked on a plantation about twelve miles from where Frederick lived with his grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. In order to visit Frederick, his mother had to travel the twelve miles at night by foot after a hard day’s work as a field worker. She was due a whipping if she did not make it back to her plantation and was on the job by sunrise. When Harriet Bailey was with her son, Frederick, at night, she would lie down with him on the ground in the slave quarters and he would go to sleep, but long before morning she would have departed back to her plantation twelve miles away. These trips must have taken a great deal out of his mother, both physically and mentally, considering the fact that she had to return to some very arduous work. It would not be unreasonable to deduce that this is the reason why she became ill and died when Frederick was only seven years old. Little Frederick was not allowed to be present during his mother’s illness, at her death, or at her burial. Being the child of a Negro slave, young Frederick was never permitted to be with his mother long enough to bond with her. To him, Harriet Bailey was only a stranger in the night.

At a very young age Frederick began to witness the horrors of being a slave. He vividly recalled the whipping of his Aunt Hester by her master. Her master had told her not to go out in the evenings, and especially she should never let him catch her with a young man who was paying some attention to her on a neighboring plantation. The young man’s name was Ned Roberts. Frederick’s Aunt Hester was a very handsome Black woman of noble form and of graceful proportions. She had very few equals and less superiors in personal appearance among the Black or White women in the area. One evening when her master was not present, Frederick’s Aunt Hester did visit Ned against her master’s orders. Her master was infuriated when he found out about her disobedience. Little Frederick witnessed Aunt Hester’s master taking her into the kitchen and stripping her from her neck to waist—her neck, shoulders and back were completely bare. He told her to cross her hands and tied them and took her to a stool under a large hook in the joist for this very purpose. He then had her get up on the stool and tied her hands to the hook. Frederick’s Aunt Hester was now in a position for him to execute his evil and morbid deed. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood on the ends of her toes. Her master then cursed at her, Now, you damned bitch, I’ll teach you how to disobey my orders! He then rolled up his sleeves and commenced to whip her with a heavy cowskin; soon the red blood came dripping to the floor. Little Frederick always remembered that the louder she screamed, the harder he whipped, and where the blood ran fastest he whipped the longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and he would tell her to hush while he was whipping her. He would not stop whipping her until he was overcome by fatigue. Young Frederick was terrified at the sight of the whipping of his Aunt Hester, of which he would witness many more times to come. This barbarian act was not one of a sane individual. Could it have been that Aunt Hester’s master was sexually attracted to her and wanted her for himself and that whipping her was a sick sexual act for him per se?

Young Frederick’s Slave Family

Young Frederick spent two years of his childhood on the plantation with the family of his master, Colonel Lloyd. His master’s family was composed of two sons, Andrew and Richard. He had one daughter, Lucretia; her husband, Captain Thomas Auld, also lived there. It was here that young Frederick would witness and experience some of the most brutal treatment a human could impel on another. It was here that his first impressions of slavery were molded. The crops that were raised on this plantation were corn, tobacco, and wheat, and they were raised in great abundance. The plantation master kept three to four hundred slaves on the home plantation and he also owned a large number more on the neighboring plantations that belonged to him. There was more than enough work on this plantation to keep the slaves busy. The plantation was highly productive and operated like a business. The slaves were worked very hard from sunrise to sunset. It would not be unreasonable to conclude that the master’s wealth was obtained by the sufferings, blood and sweat of his slaves. If any slave became unmanageable, he/she was severely whipped and carried to Baltimore, Maryland, and sold to slave traders as a warning to the other slaves on the plantation; they would get the some treatment if they did not obey their master or their overseer.

On the plantations the slaves received their monthly ration of food and their allowance of yearly clothing. The adult slaves received as their monthly ration of food eight pounds of pork or eight pounds of fish with one bushel of corn meal. Their clothing for the year consisted of two coarse linen shirts, one pair of linen pants similar to the shirts, one jacket, one pair of pants for the winter, made of coarse Negro Cloth, one pair of stockings, and one pair of shoes. The slave children’s allowances were given to their mothers or an old woman assigned to care for them. The younger children unable to work in the fields were not given shoes, stockings, jackets or pants; their clothing consisted of two shirts per year which were made from Negro Cloth. If those two shirts wore out or failed the children, they had to go naked until they received their next ration of clothing. Slave children under ten years old would have to go naked from year to year. As its name suggests, Negro Cloth was commonly used for slave and prisoner clothing. The number of Southern mills decreased by one-third between 1840-1850, which required slave owners to buy more Negro Cloth from the Northern mills that offered it.

There were no beds given to the slaves, only one Negro Cloth blanket, and only the adult slaves received blankets. The cold ground floor was the bed for the slave families. The clothing of slaves by day and the covering by night was not adequate either for comfort or decency. Virginia: Hon. T. T. Bouldin, a slaveholder, in a speech in Congress, February 16, 1835, said: He knew that many Negroes had died from exposure to weather, and added, They are clad in flimsy fabric that will turn neither wind nor water.

Maryland: The slaves, naked and starved, often fall victims to the inclement weather. (Geo. Buchanan, M.D., of Baltimore, 1791.)

Georgia, &c.: We rode through many rice swamps, where the Blacks were very numerous . . . working up to their middle in water, men and women nearly naked. (Wm. Savery, of Philadelphia, Minister Friends’ Soc., 1791.)

Tennessee, &c.: In every slaveholding State many slaves suffer extremely, both while they labor and when they sleep, for want of clothing to keep them warm. (Rev. John Rankin)

In the South generally: Men and women have many times scarce clothes enough to hide their nakedness, and boys and girls, ten and twelve years old, are often quite naked among their masters’ children. (John Woolman, 1757. Journal,&c., p. 150).

Both males and females go without clothing at the age of 8 or 10 years. (John Parrish, Minister Soc. Friends, 1840, some testimony from many others more recently)

Alabama, 1819: Hardly a rag of clothing on them . . . . Generally the only bedding was a blanket. (S. E. Maltby.)

Virginia: Two old blankets. (Wm. Leftwich) Advertisements of fugitives every year often describe them as ragged or naked.

Florida: They were allowed two suits of clothes a year; viz.: one pair of trousers with a shirt or frock of osnaburgh for the summer and for the winter, one pair of trousers and a jacket of Negro Cloth with a baize shirt and a pair of shoes. Some were allowed hats and some were not, and they were generally, I believe, allowed one blanket in two years. Garments of similar material were allowed to the women. (Wm. Ladd, late of Minot, Me.)

The slaves were generally without beds or bedsteads . . . . I have seen men and women at work in the fields, more than half naked. (Testimony furnished by Rev. C. S. Renshaw, from his friend)

House slaves usually lived better than those who worked in the fields. They usually had better food and were sometimes given the White family’s cast-off clothing.

In early mornings the slaves would sleep till they were summoned to the field by the driver’s horn. At the sound of this horn all of the slaves must rise and go to the field to work. The slaves must rise immediately without hesitation and each one must be at his or her post on time. Those who were not awakened by the horn were by the cowskin whip on their backs with no sex or age finding any favor. The overseer, Mr. Severe, used to stand by the slave house door, armed with a large hickory stick and heavy cowskin, ready to whip any slave who was unfortunate as not to hear or, from some other cause, was not ready to start for the field at the sound of the horn. Frederick Douglass in his book Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, states that, Mr. Severe was rightly named; he was a cruel man. I have seen him whip a Black woman, causing the blood to run, half an hour at a time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for their mother’s release. Mr. Severe would take great pleasure in committing these evil and inhumane acts against the helpless slaves. Severe was not only cruel, he was also a very profane-speaking person. Mr. Severe was like a madman in the performance of his duty in overseeing the work of the slaves in the field. He manifested his tyrant behavior by cursing, raving and cutting and slashing among the working field slaves in a most terrorizing manner. Severe did not live very long after young Frederick came to live on this plantation. Douglass remembered that Severe’s career was short. He died as he lived, uttering, with his dying groans, bitter curses and horrid oaths. His death was regarded by the slaves as the result of a merciful Providence.

After Mr. Severe’s death, a Mr. Hopkins took over as the field overseer. Hopkins was a bit less cruel, less profane and did not make as much noise as an overseer of the field slaves. Mr. Hopkins did whip the slave field workers, but it did not seem as though to take pleasure in doing so. The field slaves called Hopkins a good overseer.

This home plantation of Colonel Lloyd had the appearance of a well-kept country village, which was the result of the slaves’ labor. The mechanical operations for all the farms were performed on this particular plantation of Colonel Lloyd. The shoemaking and mending, the blacksmithing, cart-wrighting, coppering, weaving and grain-grinding were all done by the slaves on this home plantation. The slaves ran the plantation like a business when it came to the actual work. This plantation was called the Great House Farm by the slaves. The slaves of the out-farms look forward to being selected by their master to run errands to the Great House Farm. The out-farm slaves would compete with each other to be selected as one to visit the Great House Farm. To them it was an honor to be selected for; to them, this was a prestigious duty.

Frederick Douglass would later write:

The slaves selected to go to the Great House Farm, for the monthly allowance for themselves and their fellow-slaves, were peculiarly enthusiastic. While on their way, they would make the dense old woods, for miles around, reverberate with their wild songs, revealing their highest joy and their deepest sadness. They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up came out—if not in the word, in the sound;—and as frequently in the one as in the other. They would sometimes sing the most pathetic sentiment in the most rapturous tone and the most rapturous sentiment in the most pathetic tone. Into all of their songs they would manage to weave something of the Great House Farm. Especially would they do this, when leaving home. They would then sing most exultingly the following words:

I am going away to the Great House Farm!

O, yea! O, yea! O!

The slaves would sing in chorus during these treks through the woods. The words of the songs were unmeaningful to the White population; however, they were full of meaning to the Negro slaves. Many slaves used this tactic to send messages in the process of planning and executing their escape from bondage. The White people thought that when the slaves were singing, it was indicative of their happiness; however, those songs told a tale of woe, they were tones loud, long and deep. Every song was a protest against slavery and a prayer for deliverance from the savageness of slavery.

Young Frederick witnessed other horrible deeds committed at Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. Those eerie episodes seemed ironic for the beautiful and restful-looking atmosphere. There were finely cultivated gardens which were nicely kept by the slaves. The garden was a great attraction in the area. In the summer months, visitors would come from far and near, from Baltimore, Easton, and Annapolis, to see the garden. The garden had multiple fruit trees of almost every description, from the hardy apple of the North to the delicate orange of the South. Its fruit was quite a temptation to the hungry slave boys and girls, as well as the adult slaves. Hardly a day passed during the summer that a slave was whipped for stealing some of the fruit. Colonel Lloyd devised all kinds of methods to keep his slaves out of the garden. The most successful device in keeping the slaves out of the garden was the one of putting tar all around the fence. If a slave was caught with any tar upon his person, it was deemed sufficient proof that he/she had either been into the garden, or tried to get in. In either case, that slave was severely whipped with the cowskin by the chief gardener. This scheme to keep the slaves out of the garden worked well, as the slaves became more fearful of getting tar on them as they did the cowskin whip.

The Great House Farm also kept a lavish riding equipage. The stable and carriage-house were as grand as some of the big city livery stables. All of the horses were thoroughbreds. The carriage-house had three fine coaches, at least four gigs, also dearborns and barouches of the highest fashion of the day. The horse stables were taken care of by two slaves: Old Barney, the father and Young Barney, the son. This was their only assignment as slave workers. However, this was not an easy job for the old man and his son for Colonel Lloyd was very particular about the care of his horses and at times he was unpredictable in what he wanted the slave caretakers to do in the performance of their job. Old Barney and Young Barney never knew when they were safe from punishment. They were frequently whipped when they did not deserve it, and not whipped when a whipping might have been justified as they did slack off at times. It depended on Colonel Lloyd’s attitude when his horses were brought to him by the slave caretakers if a horse did not move fast enough or hold his head high enough. Frederick Douglass remembered: It was painful to stand near the stable-door, and hear the various complaints against the keepers when a horse was taken out for use. Colonel Lloyd would complain that a horse had not been properly fed; his food was too wet or too dry; he was fed too soon or not soon enough; the horse was given too much hay and not enough grain; or too much grain and not enough hay. No matter how well Old Barney and Young Barney took care of the horses, Colonel Lloyd would more than not find something wrong to justify whipping the father and/or the son. Colonel Lloyd, like most of the other slave masters and slave overseers, seemed to get great pleasure in whipping his slaves. The White slaveholders believed that they needed to whip their slaves on a regular basis in order to maintain control. They also whipped them out of fear of a slave revolt. When a slave became unmanageable, he/she was sold or killed by his master or his overseer. Frederick witnessed Colonel Lloyd make Old Barney, a man between fifty and sixty years of age, uncover his bald head, kneel down upon the cold, damp ground, and receive upon his naked and toil-worn shoulders more than thirty lashes at the time. Colonel Lloyd had three grown sons who also enjoyed the pleasure of whipping the Negro house servants whenever they felt like it; for no real reason, they just felt like it.

Frederick Douglass intimates in his Narrative that Colonel Lloyd owned so many slaves that he did not know them when he saw them, nor did all of the slaves of the out-farms know him. It was reported of that while Colonel Lloyd was riding along the road one day, he met a colored man and addressed him in the usual manner of speaking to colored people on the public highways of the South: Well, boy, whom do you belong to? To Colonel Lloyd, replied the slave. Well, does the colonel treat you well? No, sir was the reply. What, does he work you too hard? Yes sir. Well, don’t he give you enough to eat? Yes, sir, he gives me enough to eat, such as it is. Colonel Lloyd was obviously not pleased in the way the slave he met on the road answered his questions. Three weeks later, this particular slave paid dearly for not giving his master the answers he wanted to hear. The slave was informed by his overseer that for having found fault with his master, he would now be sold to a Georgia slave trader. Without any warning, the slave was chained and handcuffed and snatched away from his family and friends. This was the penalty a slave received for telling the truth in answering a few simple questions. Frederick Douglass remembered this, and he never spoke any harsh words about any of his masters, even to other slaves. He knew that many of the masters used slaves against each other in order to get information about what they were thinking—if any slaves were plotting against the master, or perhaps planning an escape to the North. This was a tactic used to keep the slaves under control.

Evidently, Mr. Hopkins’s services as an overseer were not well appreciated by Colonel Lloyd. The colonel let him go in short order. Perhaps Hopkins lacked the inhumane character to suit Colonel Lloyd. Mr. Austin Gore replaced Hopkins as the overseer at the Great House Farm. Gore had worked for Colonel Lloyd on an out-farm, and Lloyd was impressed with the way he handled the slaves that he had been assigned to oversee. Gore was one of the cruelest overseers that Frederick had seen up to this point in his young life. Frederick Douglass said, Mr. Gore was proud, ambitious and persevering. He was artful, cruel and obdurate. He was just the man for such a place, and it was just the place for such a man. It afforded scope for the full exercise of all his powers, and he seemed to be perfectly at home in it. His savage barbarity was equaled only by the consummate coolness with which he committed the grossest and most savage deeds upon the slaves under his charge. One of the most morbid examples of man’s inhumanity to man was committed by overseer Gore during young Frederick’s stay at Colonel Lloyd’s Great House Farm; Gore, on one occasion, started to whip a slave named Demby. After he popped Demby several times on his back with the cowskin whip, Demby ran into the creek and stood there in the middle of the creek, the water up to his shoulders. Gore directed Demby to come out of the water and take his whipping. Slave Demby refused; therefore, Gore told Demby that he would count to three and if he was not out of the creek by then, he, Gore, would shoot him with his musket. After Gore’s count of three, Demby was still refusing to exit the creek. Gore then raised his musket and aimed it at Demby’s head, therefore killing Demby instantly. Demby’s body disappeared under the water, leaving his bloody brains to float on the surface of the water where Demby had once stood. When Colonel Lloyd inquired about the murder of Demby, Gore told the colonel that Demby was becoming unmanageable. To him, Demby was setting a bad example for the other slaves and his actions could not go unpunished. Gore told Lloyd that if such behavior was allowed to continue among the slaves, the slaves would become free and the White man would be the slave. It seems that in this case and probably in most similar such cases, cruelty was committed out of fear, fear of the slaves turning the tables on the White population.

In Frederick Douglass’s home in Talbot County, Maryland, Negro slaves were brutally murdered by their White slave masters without any punishment being rendered for those criminal and inhumane actions. In Talbot County, there was a Mr. Thomas Lanman who killed two slaves: one, he killed by knocking his brains out with a hatchet. Frederick Douglass heard him brag about his bloody deed: I have heard him do so laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when others would do as much as he had done, we should be relieved of the d—d niggers." What an ironic statement! The Negro slaves were brought to America against their will, and now Whites as the likes of Thomas Lanman wanted to be rid of them. If this had happened during that period, who would have been left to help build America, on slave labor, to become the greatest country in the world?