Frederick Douglass for Kids

by Nancy I. Sanders

  Douglass and Remond were swept up in the tide of abolitionist fervor. Their tireless efforts were not in vain. Money was raised and arrangements were made to purchase George Latimer’s freedom. He was set free. A petition was written, signed by 65,000 outraged citizens, and submitted to the Massachusetts government. A new law was passed, stating that Massachusetts state jails and state officials were no longer allowed to play a part in the capture of runaway slaves.

  Hundred Conventions

  A grand idea ignited the abolitionist fire to its most heroic efforts yet. With the victory of the Latimer case burning in their souls, the plan for a “Hundred Conventions” tour rocked the North and was soon set in motion. State by state, county by county, town by town, the goal of the Hundred Conventions was to reach every northern community in the hope of enlisting supporters for the antislavery movement. Frederick Douglass and Charles Lenox Remond embarked for the tour across the northern states along with several other small groups of speakers. The plan was to travel individually or in pairs, regrouping from time to time, and meeting up together for exciting and glorious events at key locations.

  The six-month tour was grueling. The men never knew if they would be met with crowds eager to hear their words or by mobs bent on violence. At times Douglass and Remond traveled together. At other times, the two men were joined by another speaker. And still other times, Douglass traveled and spoke alone.

  Douglass, Remond, and the other men traveled and spoke all across the North including Massachusetts, Vermont, and into New York.

  While in New York, Douglass and Remond attended the National Convention of Colored Citizens. A fiery radical, Reverend Henry Highland Garnet, spoke at the convention urging slaves to revolt and be willing to fight and shed blood if necessary. Frederick Douglass and Charles Lenox Remond, both supporters of William Lloyd Garrison’s philosophy of using persuasion rather than violence to end slavery, were directly opposed to Garnet’s viewpoints. Douglass took his turn lecturing, passionately expressing his nonviolent views in direct contrast to Garnet’s.

  George Latimer (c. 1819-c. 1900)

  The arrest and imprisonment of George Latimer united abolitionists in this 1842 landmark case for freedom. Douglass and others like him argued for the freedom of this fugitive … and won. The result? A new law was passed in Massachusetts forbidding state jails or state officials to be instrumental in the recapture of runaway slaves.

  After being set free, George Latimer and his fugitive wife joined the antislavery campaign. They started a family. Their son, Lewis H. Latimer, grew up to become a member of the Edison Pioneers, a prestigious group of inventors who worked with Thomas Edison.

  Henry Highland Garnet (1815-1882)

  As a youth, Henry Highland Garnet experienced various instances of racial violence. An ordained minister, he used the pulpit, the pen, and the speaker’s platform to call Americans to fight to bring an end to slavery.

  Frederick Douglass initially opposed Garnet, siding with the Garrisonians. However, as the government’s grip tightened more firmly and took away more and more of their rights, abolitionists such as Douglass began to support Garnet’s radical views.

  Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  CARPETBAG

  As did most people of his day, Frederick Douglass carried a carpetbag on his travels. Inside were his personal items and essentials for the trip. A sturdy type of suitcase, carpetbags were made from real carpet.

  Materials

  Newspaper

  Craft scissors

  Ruler or measuring tape

  1 yard 56-inch-wide heavy upholstery fabric

  Fabric scissors

  Yardstick

  Pencil or chalk

  Safety pins or straight pins

  Sewing machine Thread

  Pair of bamboo oval purse handles, 8½ x 5½ inches (or similar handles)

  Adult supervision required

  Cut a 16 x 20-inch rectangle from newspaper. This will be the pattern you use.

  Fold the upholstery fabric in half, right sides together, to measure 1 yard by 28 inches. Use the fabric scissors to trim or cut away the selvage, or unfinished edge, of the fabric.

  Starting at the right corner of the fabric (not the corner that is on a fold), measure 14 inches from both sides, and mark a dot with a pencil or chalk.

  Place the newspaper pattern on the fabric so that the two corners are on the two dots. Draw a dashed line around three sides of the newspaper on the fabric. Use the fabric scissors to cut along the dotted lines through both pieces of fabric.

  Fold the finished point 5½ inches down, over the handle, right side over to the underside. Stitch an X near the point to hold the handle in place.

  Sew both pieces of prepared fabric together along the sides and bottom, right sides together. Turn the bag right side out. Carry your carpetbag by the handles for a sturdy tote.

  Prepare both pieces of fabric in the following way:

  Fold 1½ inches of the point right side over to the underside of the fabric. Pin in place. Fold the right side over to the underside ½ inch along the edges on both sides of the point. Hold in place with safety pins or straight pins. Using the sewing machine, sew both these edges and the folded point to lie flat.

  The Philadelphia Vigilance Committee included Thomas Garrett, Robert Purvis (middle row, right), William Still (bottom row, right), Passmore Williamson, N. W. Depee, Melloe McKim, James Miller, Jacob White, and Charles Wise. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department

  After the convention was over in New York, Douglass continued to speak in states such as Ohio, Indiana, and Pennsylvania. The final stop of the tour for Douglass and his companions was in Philadelphia during December for the 10th anniversary celebration of the American Antislavery Society. Robert Purvis, vice president of the society and leader among the black abolitionists in Philadelphia, led the ceremonies.

  In spite of the troubles they frequently encountered from mob violence or hardships they experienced along the road, the Hundred Conventions was declared a success. In an era when communication was difficult and travel was hard, Douglass and his fellow lecturers had reached the northern states with their antislavery message.

  Questioning His Past

  By now, Frederick Douglass had become a polished and powerful orator. He read constantly. The education he received from books and newspapers influenced his lectures. His speeches rang out across the northern states and persuaded countless numbers to join the abolitionist cause. He dominated the speaker’s platform. People often came to meetings just to hear him speak and left as soon as he was done, even if the meeting was not yet over.

  Robert Purvis (1810-1898)

  Because of his work organizing the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, Robert Purvis became known as the Father of the Underground Railroad. He was rich, and he looked white. However, his grandmother had been a slave, putting him under the full legal restrictions of US law denying African Americans their rights.

  Purvis was close friends with his father-in-law, wealthy African American sail maker James Forten from Philadelphia. Together they championed equal rights, were active in many antislavery and reform groups, and fought for equal education and women’s rights. Robert Purvis’s wife, Harriet, was active in leadership roles and the antislavery cause as well. Their home was a stop on the Underground Railroad.

  Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department

  And then it happened. People began to doubt that this famous, educated, and polished speaker ever could have been a slave. They thought he was an imposter! Frederick Douglass heard the people in the audience whisper as he walked past them on his way to the podium, “He’s never been a slave, I’ll warrant ye.”

  The day had come. It was time for Frederick Douglass to throw off the veil he was hiding behind. It was time for him to tell the truth about his real name, his birthplace, and the name of his owners.

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nbsp; At the peril of death, Frederick Douglass decided to write his autobiography.

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  “DEDICATED TO THE PROPOSITION THAT ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL …”

  New Heights of Achievement

  Frederick Douglass, famous orator, was very different from Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, slave. The four years spent in freedom had transformed him. Yes, he was still the same person, but Frederick Douglass spread his wings as a free man and flew to heights never before thought possible for a former slave.

  He was educated now, through the books and newspapers he read and the company he kept. He was a powerful speaker, his skills at debate sharpened with the passion for his cause. He was famous and had many influential friends, a key player in the whirlwind of the abolitionist movement that was sweeping across the northern United States, making its presence known among the slaveholders and in the slave cabins in the Deep South and blowing across the Atlantic to the ears of sympathetic listeners in Great Britain.

  Stepping back from the speaking circuit, Frederick Douglass spent 1844 to 1845 focused on writing his autobiography. He decided to tell the truth about his identity, the identity of the men and women who owned him, and the names of the places he lived and worked as a slave.

  This was a dangerous step. He was a fugitive, hiding from those who were looking to capture him and return him to his owner, Thomas Auld. After all, a young, strong man in his prime was a valuable piece of property—worth over $700, a considerable amount of money in those days. Kidnappers and slave hunters itched with greed to collect payment on his capture.

  The Upper-Ground Railroad

  During the years leading up to the Civil War, it became popular for fugitives to publish their successful escapes. Frederick Douglass called this the Upper-ground Railroad. He never told the details of his escape until after the end of the Civil War. In his autobiography, he explained why:

  I have never approved of the very public manner, in which some of our western friends have conducted what they call the “Underground Railroad,” but which, I think, by their open declarations, has been made, most emphatically, the “Upper-ground Railroad.” Its stations are far better known to the slaveholders than to the slaves…. We owe something to the slaves, south of Mason and Dixon’s line, as well as to those north of it; and, in discharging the duty of aiding the latter, on their way to freedom, we should be careful to do nothing which would be likely to hinder the former, in making their escape from slavery.

  On one hand, Douglass had many close and influential friends who would fight against anyone who dared try to capture him. He shared, “It is not probable that any open attempt to secure me as a slave could have succeeded, further than the obtainment, by my master, of the money value of my bones and sinews. Fortunately for me, in the four years of my labors in the abolition cause, I had gained many friends, who would have suffered themselves to be taxed to almost any extent to save me from slavery.”

  On the other hand, however, the possibility of recapture was very, very real. “I was constantly in danger,” Douglass admitted, “of being spirited away, at a moment when my friends could render me no assistance. In traveling about from place to place—often alone—I was much exposed to this sort of attack.”

  Still a Secret

  In his autobiography, however, there was one detail of his life that Frederick Douglass determined would yet remain a secret. He refused to tell the details of his escape. Uncomplicated as it was, he did not want to destroy the opportunity for other slaves to do as he did. He knew it was a common practice among slaves to dress like a sailor, borrow a sailor’s protection papers, and escape by train, steamboat, and carriage from the South to the North.

  “Such is my detestation of slavery, that I would keep the merciless slaveholder profoundly ignorant of the means of flight adopted by the slave.” —Frederick Douglass

  This was a common practice whispered from one slave to another, but it was not publicly known among slaveholders. Yes, slave owners and officials in southern states suspected this type of thing. Papers were checked carefully on every train or boat heading north. But these were only suspicions. If Douglass had shared in his autobiography that he had successfully escaped using this method, it then would have been impossible for any other slave to try it. Douglass decided never to tell his secret or explain the details about his escape as long as slavery still existed in America.

  His Narrative Published

  After Frederick Douglass finished writing his autobiography, he showed it to his closest friends. They were concerned that publishing his manuscript would put him in extreme danger. Douglass said, “My true friends, Mr. Garrison and Mr. Phillips, had no faith in the power of Massachusetts to protect me in my right to liberty.”

  After reading Douglass’s manuscript, Wendell Phillips cautioned Frederick Douglass. “Mr. Phillips, especially,” Douglass explained, “considered me in danger, and said, when I showed him the manuscript of my story, if in my place, he would throw it into the fire.”

  Famous Escapes

  Ellen and William Craft escaped together. Ellen, who was light-skinned, disguised herself as a sick, wealthy southern white man traveling north. Her husband, William, pretended to be a slave attending the young “gentleman.” They took public transportation and successfully traveled openly in their disguise.

  Ellen Craft Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  The “Saltwater Slave” held onto a steamboat, washed by the waves of the sea for three days and nights in his hiding place. The boat landed on free soil in a northern port, and he was free.

  Henry “Box” Brown hid inside a wooden crate. A friend mailed the box to an abolitionist living in a northern state. This cartoon shows Frederick Douglass, second from left, helping to open the box.

  Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  Abolitionists (left to right) Wendell Phillips, William Lloyd Garrison, and George Thompson. Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Print Department

  “Sincerely and earnestly hoping that this 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 my self a new t o the sacred cause, —I subscribe myself,”

  —Frederick Douglass, Lynn, Massachusetts, April 28, 1845

  It was a risk, however, that Douglass decided to take. In 1845 he published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. In the front of his book, he included a preface written by William Lloyd Garrison and a letter from Wendell Phillips.

  Fleeing from Danger

  After publishing his Narrative, Frederick Douglass moved his family from New Bedford to Lynn, Massachusetts. Anna and Frederick settled into the pretty cottage they built. Their son Charles Remond was born. By now, their oldest daughter, Rosetta, was six years old.

  Just as their life was beginning in their new surroundings, however, dark storm clouds gathered overhead. Slaveholders throughout the South expressed their furious reaction to the Narrative. Now the truth about Frederick Douglass was known. Slave hunters and kidnappers could trace his whereabouts. His life was in grave danger. Even Anna, who had helped in his escape, was in danger because she had aided a fugitive.

  It was an anxious time. His friends urged Douglass to flee the country. How could he, though? His wife and four children would be left alone—unprotected and unprovided for!

  Friends rallied around for support. Abigail and Lydia Mott, cousins of famed women’s rights activist Lucretia Mott, invited young Rosetta into their home to watch over her and ease Anna’s burden of caring alone for the children.

  Anna found work binding shoes to bring in an income while raising the children alone.

 
; Their many friends in the Antislavery Societies of Lynn and Boston promised to help Frederick and Anna in any way they could. They promised to guard the family while Douglass was away.

  “Flee!” friends urged Douglass from all sides. “Go now, before it’s too late!”

  And so it was with a heavy and anxious heart that Frederick Douglass said good-bye to Anna and his four children, booked passage on a steamer to England, and sailed across the Atlantic to live in safety, out of reach of the men who wanted to capture him and sentence him back into life—or death—as a slave.

  An Anxious Time

  True to their word, the friends in the Antislavery Societies of Lynn and Boston helped Anna and the children during the anxious years while Frederick Douglass was away from home. They invited Anna to the weekly meetings of a ladies’ sewing circle that prepared items to sell during the annual Antislavery Fair held in Faneuil Hall in Boston. Prior to each meeting, the other women from Lynn came to the Douglass house and helped complete that day’s household responsibilities so Anna could be free to come in the afternoon.

  Anna was an active member in various societies. Her daughter Rosetta later recalled that “no circle was felt to be complete without her presence.” During these years, Anna was in charge of a committee of women who provided the refreshments for the sewing circle.