In the first narrative of my experience in slavery, written nearly forty years ago, and in

various writings since, I have given the public what I considered very good reasons for

withholding the manner of my escape. In substance these reasons were, first, that such

publication at any time during the existence of slavery might be used by the master

against the slave, and prevent the future escape of any who might adopt the same means

that I did. The second reason was, if possible, still more binding to silence: the

publication of details would certainly have put in peril the persons and property of those

who assisted. Murder itself was not more sternly and certainly punished in the State of

Maryland than that of aiding and abetting the escape of a slave. Many colored men, for

no other crime than that of giving aid to a fugitive slave, have, like Charles T. Torrey,

perished in prison. The abolition of slavery in my native State and throughout the

country, and the lapse of time, render the caution hitherto observed no longer

necessary. But even since the abolition of slavery, I have sometimes thought it well

enough to baffle curiosity by saying that while slavery existed there were good reasons

for not telling the manner of my escape, and since slavery had ceased to exist, there was

no reason for telling it. I shall now, however, cease to avail myself of this formula, and,

as far as I can, endeavor to satisfy this very natural curiosity. I should, perhaps, have

yielded to that feeling sooner, had there been anything very heroic or thrilling in the

incidents connected with my escape, for I am sorry to say I have nothing of that sort to

tell; and yet the courage that could risk betrayal and the bravery which was ready to

encounter death, if need be, in pursuit of freedom, were essential features in the

undertaking. My success was due to address rather than courage, to good luck rather

than bravery. My means of escape were provided for me by the very men who were

making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery.

It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require the free colored people to have

what were called free papers. These instruments they were required to renew very often,

and by charging a fee for this writing, considerable sums from time to time were

collected by the State. In these papers the name, age, color, height, and form of the

freeman were described, together with any scars or other marks upon his person which

could assist in his identification. This device in some measure defeated itself—since

more than one man could be found to answer the same general description. Hence many

slaves could escape by personating the owner of one set of papers; and this was often

done as follows: A slave, nearly or sufficiently answering the description set forth in the

papers, would borrow or hire them till by means of them he could escape to a free State,

and then, by mail or otherwise, would return them to the owner. The operation was a

hazardous one for the lender as well as for the borrower. A failure on the part of the

fugitive to send back the papers would imperil his benefactor, and the discovery of the

papers in possession of the wrong man would imperil both the fugitive and his friend. It

was, therefore, an act of supreme trust on the part of a freeman of color thus to put in

jeopardy his own liberty that another might be free. It was, however, not unfrequently

bravely done, and was seldom discovered. I was not so fortunate as to resemble any of

my free acquaintances sufficiently to answer the description of their papers. But I had a

friend—a sailor—who owned a sailor's protection, which answered somewhat the

purpose of free papers—describing his person, and certifying to the fact that he was a

free American sailor. The instrument had at its head the American eagle, which gave it

the appearance at once of an authorized document. This protection, when in my hands,

did not describe its bearer very accurately. Indeed, it called for a man much darker than

myself, and close examination of it would have caused my arrest at the start.

In order to avoid this fatal scrutiny on the part of railroad officials, I arranged with Isaac

Rolls, a Baltimore hackman, to bring my baggage to the Philadelphia train just on the

moment of starting, and jumped upon the car myself when the train was in motion. Had

I gone into the station and offered to purchase a ticket, I should have been instantly and

carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested. In choosing this plan I considered the

jostle of the train, and the natural haste of the conductor, in a train crowded with

passengers, and relied upon my skill and address in playing the sailor, as described in

my protection, to do the rest. One element in my favor was the kind feeling which

prevailed in Baltimore and other sea-ports at the time, toward "those who go down to

the sea in ships." "Free trade and sailors' rights" just then expressed the sentiment of the

country. In my clothing I was rigged out in sailor style. I had on a red shirt and a

tarpaulin hat, and a black cravat tied in sailor fashion carelessly and loosely about my

neck. My knowledge of ships and sailor's talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a

ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an

"old salt." I was well on the way to Havre de Grace before the conductor came into the

negro car to collect tickets and examine the papers of his black passengers. This was a

critical moment in the drama. My whole future depended upon the decision of this

conductor. Agitated though I was while this ceremony was proceeding, still, externally,

at least, I was apparently calm and self-possessed. He went on with his duty—examining

several colored passengers before reaching me. He was somewhat harsh in tome and

peremptory in manner until he reached me, when, strange enough, and to my surprise

and relief, his whole manner changed. Seeing that I did not readily produce my free

papers, as the other colored persons in the car had done, he said to me, in friendly

contrast with his bearing toward the others:

"I suppose you have your free papers?"

To which I answered:

"No sir; I never carry my free papers to sea with me."

"But you have something to show that you are a freeman, haven't you?"

"Yes, sir," I answered; "I have a paper with the American Eagle on it, and that will carry

me around the world."

With this I drew from my deep sailor's pocket my seaman's protection, as before

described. The merest glance at the paper satisfied him, and he took my fare and went

on about his business. This moment of time was one of the most anxious I ever

experienced. Had the conductor looked closely at the paper, he could not have failed to

discover that it called for a very different-looking person from myself, and in that case it

would have been his duty to arrest me on the instant, and send me back to Baltimore

from the first station. When he left me with the assurance that I was all right, though

much relieved, I realized that I was still in great danger: I was still in Maryland, and

subject to arrest at any moment. I saw on the train several persons who would have

known me in any other clothes, and I feared they might recognize me, even in my sailor

"rig," and report me to the conductor, who would then subject me to a closer

examination, which I knew well would be fatal to me.

Though I was not a murderer fleeing from justice, I felt perhaps quite as miserable as

such a criminal. The train was moving at a very high rate of speed for that epoch of

railroad travel, but to my anxious mind it was moving far too slowly. Minutes were

hours, and hours were days during this part of my flight. After Maryland, I was to pass

through Delaware—another slave State, where slave-catchers generally awaited their

prey, for it was not in the interior of the State, but on its borders, that these human

hounds were most vigilant and active. The border lines between slavery and freedom

were the dangerous ones for the fugitives. The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry

hounds on his trail in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did

mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia. The passage of the

Susquehanna River at Havre de Grace was at that time made by ferry-boat, on board of

which I met a young colored man by the name of Nichols, who came very near betraying

me. He was a "hand" on the boat, but, instead of minding his business, he insisted upon

knowing me, and asking me dangerous questions as to where I was going, when I was

coming back, etc. I got away from my old and inconvenient acquaintance as soon as I

could decently do so, and went to another part of the boat. Once across the river, I

encountered a new danger. Only a few days before, I had been at work on a revenue

cutter, in Mr. Price's ship-yard in Baltimore, under the care of Captain McGowan. On

the meeting at this point of the two trains, the one going south stopped on the track just

opposite to the one going north, and it so happened that this Captain McGowan sat at a

window where he could see me very distinctly, and would certainly have recognized me

had he looked at me but for a second. Fortunately, in the hurry of the moment, he did

not see me; and the trains soon passed each other on their respective ways. But this was

not my only hair-breadth escape. A German blacksmith whom I knew well was on the

train with me, and looked at me very intently, as if he thought he had seen me

somewhere before in his travels. I really believe he knew me, but had no heart to betray

me. At any rate, he saw me escaping and held his peace.

The last point of imminent danger, and the one I dreaded most, was Wilmington. Here

we left the train and took the steam-boat for Philadelphia. In making the change here I

again apprehended arrest, but no one disturbed me, and I was soon on the broad and

beautiful Delaware, speeding away to the Quaker City. On reaching Philadelphia in the

afternoon, I inquired of a colored man how I could get on to New York. He directed me

to the William-street depot, and thither I went, taking the train that night. I reached

New York Tuesday morning, having completed the journey in less than twenty-four

hours.

My free life began on the third of September, 1838. On the morning of the fourth of that

month, after an anxious and most perilous but safe journey, I found myself in the big

city of New York, a FREE MAN—one more added to the mighty throng which, like the

confused waves of the troubled sea, surged to and fro between the lofty walls of

Broadway. Though dazzled with the wonders which met me on every hand, my thoughts

could not be much withdrawn from my strange situation. For the moment, the dreams

of my youth and the hopes of my manhood were completely fulfilled. The bonds that had

held me to "old master" were broken. No man now had a right to call me his slave or

assert mastery over me. I was in the rough and tumble of an outdoor world, to take my

chance with the rest of its busy number. I have often been asked how I felt when first I

found myself on free soil. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I

could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is

more than breath and the "quick round of blood," I lived more in that one day than in a

year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely

describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: "I felt as

one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions." Anguish and grief, like darkness

and rain, may be depicted; but gladness and joy, like the rainbow, defy the skill of pen or

pencil. During ten or fifteen years I had been, as it were, dragging a heavy chain which

no strength of mine could break; I was not only a slave, but a slave for life. I might

become a husband, a father, an aged man, but through all, from birth to death, from the

cradle to the grave, I had felt myself doomed. All efforts I had previously made to secure

my freedom had not only failed, but had seemed only to rivet my fetters the more firmly,

and to render my escape more difficult. Baffled, entangled, and discouraged, I had at

times asked myself the question, May not my condition after all be God's work, and

ordered for a wise purpose, and if so, Is not submission my duty? A contest had in fact

been going on in my mind for a long time, between the clear consciousness of right and

the plausible make-shifts of theology and superstition. The one held me an abject slave—

a prisoner for life, punished for some transgression in which I had no lot nor part; and

the other counseled me to manly endeavor to secure my freedom. This contest was now

ended; my chains were broken, and the victory brought me unspeakable joy.

But my gladness was short-lived, for I was not yet out of the reach and power of the

slave-holders. I soon found that New York was not quite so free or so safe a refuge as I

had supposed, and a sense of loneliness and insecurity again oppressed me most sadly. I

chanced to meet on the street, a few hours after my landing, a fugitive slave whom I had

once known well in slavery. The information received from him alarmed me. The

fugitive in question was known in Baltimore as "Allender's Jake," but in New York he

wore the more respectable name of "William Dixon." Jake, in law, was the property of

Doctor Allender, and Tolly Allender, the son of the doctor, had once made an effort to

recapture MR. DIXON, but had failed for want of evidence to support his claim. Jake

told me the circumstances of this attempt, and how narrowly he escaped being sent back

to slavery and torture. He told me that New York was then full of Southerners returning

from the Northern watering-places; that the colored people of New York were not to be

trusted; that there were hired men of my own color who would betray me for a few

dollars; that there were hired men ever on the lookout for fugitives; that I must trust no

man with my secret; that I must not think of going either upon the wharves or into any

colored boarding-house, for all such places were closely watched; that he was himself

unable to help me; and, in fact, he seemed while speaking to me to fear lest I myself

might be a spy and a betrayer. Under this apprehension, as I suppose, he showed signs

of wishing to be rid of me, and with whitewash brush in hand, in search of work, he soon

disappeared.

This picture, given by poor "Jake," of New York, was a damper to my enthusiasm. My

little store of money would soon be exhausted, and since it would be unsafe for me to go

on the wharves for work, and I had no introductions elsewhere, the prospect for me was

far from cheerful. I saw the wisdom of keeping away from the ship-yards, for, if pursued,

as I felt certain I should be, Mr. Auld, my "master," would naturally seek me there

among the calkers. Every door seemed closed against me. I was in the midst of an ocean

of my fellow-men, and yet a perfect stranger to every one. I was without home, without

acquaintance, without money, without credit, without work, and without any definite

knowledge as to what course to take, or where to look for succor. In such an extremity, a

man had something besides his new-born freedom to think of. While wandering about

the streets of New York, and lodging at least one night among the barrels on one of the

wharves, I was indeed free—from slavery, but free from food and shelter as well. I kept

my secret to myself as long as I could, but I was compelled at last to seek some one who

would befriend me without taking advantage of my destitution to betray me. Such a

person I found in a sailor named Stuart, a warm-hearted and generous fellow, who, from

his humble home on Centre street, saw me standing on the opposite sidewalk, near the

Tombs prison. As he approached me, I ventured a remark to him which at once enlisted

his interest in me. He took me to his home to spend the night, and in the morning went

with me to Mr. David Ruggles, the secretary of the New York Vigilance Committee, a co-

worker with Isaac T. Hopper, Lewis and Arthur Tappan, Theodore S. Wright, Samuel

Cornish, Thomas Downing, Philip A. Bell, and other true men of their time. All these

(save Mr. Bell, who still lives, and is editor and publisher of a paper called the

"Elevator," in San Francisco) have finished their work on earth. Once in the hands of

these brave and wise men, I felt comparatively safe. With Mr. Ruggles, on the corner of

Lispenard and Church streets, I was hidden several days, during which time my

intended wife came on from Baltimore at my call, to share the burdens of life with me.

She was a free woman, and came at once on getting the good news of my safety. We were

married by Rev. J. W. C. Pennington, then a well-known and respected Presbyterian

minister. I had no money with which to pay the marriage fee, but he seemed well

pleased with our thanks.

Mr. Ruggles was the first officer on the "Underground Railroad" whom I met after

coming North, and was, indeed, the only one with whom I had anything to do till I

became such an officer myself. Learning that my trade was that of a calker, he promptly

decided that the best place for me was in New Bedford, Mass. He told me that many

ships for whaling voyages were fitted out there, and that I might there find work at my

trade and make a good living. So, on the day of the marriage ceremony, we took our little

luggage to the steamer John W. Richmond, which, at that time, was one of the line

running between New York and Newport, R. I. Forty-three years ago colored travelers

were not permitted in the cabin, nor allowed abaft the paddle-wheels of a steam vessel.

They were compelled, whatever the weather might be,—whether cold or hot, wet or

dry,—to spend the night on deck. Unjust as this regulation was, it did not trouble us

much; we had fared much harder before. We arrived at Newport the next morning, and

soon after an old fashioned stage-coach, with "New Bedford" in large yellow letters on

its sides, came down to the wharf. I had not money enough to pay our fare, and stood

hesitating what to do. Fortunately for us, there were two Quaker gentlemen who were

about to take passage on the stage,—Friends William C. Taber and Joseph Ricketson,—

who at once discerned our true situation, and, in a peculiarly quiet way, addressing me,

Mr. Taber said: "Thee get in." I never obeyed an order with more alacrity, and we were

soon on our way to our new home. When we reached "Stone Bridge" the passengers

alighted for breakfast, and paid their fares to the driver. We took no breakfast, and,

when asked for our fares, I told the driver I would make it right with him when we

reached New Bedford. I expected some objection to this on his part, but he made none.

When, however, we reached New Bedford, he took our baggage, including three music-

books,—two of them collections by Dyer, and one by Shaw,—and held them until I was

able to redeem them by paying to him the amount due for our rides. This was soon done,

for Mr. Nathan Johnson not only received me kindly and hospitably, but, on being

informed about our baggage, at once loaned me the two dollars with which to square

accounts with the stage-driver. Mr. and Mrs. Nathan Johnson reached a good old age,

and now rest from their labors. I am under many grateful obligations to them. They not

only "took me in when a stranger" and "fed me when hungry," but taught me how to

make an honest living. Thus, in a fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I was safe in

New Bedford, a citizen of the grand old commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Once initiated into my new life of freedom and assured by Mr. Johnson that I need not

fear recapture in that city, a comparatively unimportant question arose as to the name

by which I should be known thereafter in my new relation as a free man. The name

given me by my dear mother was no less pretentious and long than Frederick Augustus

Washington Bailey. I had, however, while living in Maryland, dispensed with the

Augustus Washington, and retained only Frederick Bailey. Between Baltimore and New

Bedford, the better to conceal myself from the slave-hunters, I had parted with Bailey

and called myself Johnson; but in New Bedford I found that the Johnson family was

already so numerous as to cause some confusion in distinguishing them, hence a change

in this name seemed desirable. Nathan Johnson, mine host, placed great emphasis upon

this necessity, and wished me to allow him to select a name for me. I consented, and he

called me by my present name—the one by which I have been known for three and forty

years—Frederick Douglass. Mr. Johnson had just been reading the "Lady of the Lake,"

and so pleased was he with its great character that he wished me to bear his name. Since

reading that charming poem myself, I have often thought that, considering the noble

hospitality and manly character of Nathan Johnson—black man though he was—he, far

more than I, illustrated the virtues of the Douglas of Scotland. Sure am I that, if any

slave-catcher had entered his domicile with a view to my recapture, Johnson would have

shown himself like him of the "stalwart hand."

The reader may be surprised at the impressions I had in some way conceived of the

social and material condition of the people at the North. I had no proper idea of the

wealth, refinement, enterprise, and high civilization of this section of the country. My

"Columbian Orator," almost my only book, had done nothing to enlighten me

concerning Northern society. I had been taught that slavery was the bottom fact of all

wealth. With this foundation idea, I came naturally to the conclusion that poverty must

be the general condition of the people of the free States. In the country from which I

came, a white man holding no slaves was usually an ignorant and poverty-stricken man,

and men of this class were contemptuously called "poor white trash." Hence I supposed

that, since the non-slave-holders at the South were ignorant, poor, and degraded as a

class, the non-slave-holders at the North must be in a similar condition. I could have

landed in no part of the United States where I should have found a more striking and

gratifying contrast, not only to life generally in the South, but in the condition of the

colored people there, than in New Bedford. I was amazed when Mr. Johnson told me

that there was nothing in the laws or constitution of Massachusetts that would prevent a

colored man from being governor of the State, if the people should see fit to elect him.

There, too, the black man's children attended the public schools with the white man's

children, and apparently without objection from any quarter. To impress me with my

security from recapture and return to slavery, Mr. Johnson assured me that no slave-

holder could take a slave out of New Bedford; that there were men there who would lay

down their lives to save me from such a fate.

The fifth day after my arrival, I put on the clothes of a common laborer, and went upon

the wharves in search of work. On my way down Union street I saw a large pile of coal in

front of the house of Rev. Ephraim Peabody, the Unitarian minister. I went to the

kitchen door and asked the privilege of bringing in and putting away this coal. "What

will you charge?" said the lady. "I will leave that to you, madam." "You may put it away,"

she said. I was not long in accomplishing the job, when the dear lady put into my hand

TWO SILVER HALF-DOLLARS. To understand the emotion which swelled my heart as

I clasped this money, realizing that I had no master who could take it from me,—THAT

IT WAS MINE—THAT MY HANDS WERE MY OWN, and could earn more of the

precious coin,—one must have been in some sense himself a slave. My next job was

stowing a sloop at Uncle Gid. Howland's wharf with a cargo of oil for New York. I was

not only a freeman, but a free working-man, and no "master" stood ready at the end of

the week to seize my hard earnings.

The season was growing late and work was plenty. Ships were being fitted out for

whaling, and much wood was used in storing them. The sawing this wood was

considered a good job. With the help of old Friend Johnson (blessings on his memory) I

got a saw and "buck," and went at it. When I went into a store to buy a cord with which

to brace up my saw in the frame, I asked for a "fip's" worth of cord. The man behind the

counter looked rather sharply at me, and said with equal sharpness, "You don't belong

about here." I was alarmed, and thought I had betrayed myself. A fip in Maryland was

six and a quarter cents, called fourpence in Massachusetts. But no harm came from the

"fi'penny-bit" blunder, and I confidently and cheerfully went to work with my saw and

buck. It was new business to me, but I never did better work, or more of it, in the same

space of time on the plantation for Covey, the negro-breaker, than I did for myself in

these earliest years of my freedom.

Notwithstanding the just and humane sentiment of New Bedford three and forty years

ago, the place was not entirely free from race and color prejudice. The good influence of

the Roaches, Rodmans, Arnolds, Grinnells, and Robesons did not pervade all classes of

its people. The test of the real civilization of the community came when I applied for

work at my trade, and then my repulse was emphatic and decisive. It so happened that

Mr. Rodney French, a wealthy and enterprising citizen, distinguished as an anti-slavery

man, was fitting out a vessel for a whaling voyage, upon which there was a heavy job of

calking and coppering to be done. I had some skill in both branches, and applied to Mr.

French for work. He, generous man that he was, told me he would employ me, and I

might go at once to the vessel. I obeyed him, but upon reaching the float-stage, where

others [sic] calkers were at work, I was told that every white man would leave the ship,

in her unfinished condition, if I struck a blow at my trade upon her. This uncivil,

inhuman, and selfish treatment was not so shocking and scandalous in my eyes at the

time as it now appears to me. Slavery had inured me to hardships that made ordinary

trouble sit lightly upon me. Could I have worked at my trade I could have earned two

dollars a day, but as a common laborer I received but one dollar. The difference was of

great importance to me, but if I could not get two dollars, I was glad to get one; and so I

went to work for Mr. French as a common laborer. The consciousness that I was free—

no longer a slave—kept me cheerful under this, and many similar proscriptions, which I

was destined to meet in New Bedford and elsewhere on the free soil of Massachusetts.

For instance, though colored children attended the schools, and were treated kindly by

their teachers, the New Bedford Lyceum refused, till several years after my residence in

that city, to allow any colored person to attend the lectures delivered in its hall. Not until

such men as Charles Sumner, Theodore Parker, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Horace

Mann refused to lecture in their course while there was such a restriction, was it

abandoned.

Becoming satisfied that I could not rely on my trade in New Bedford to give me a living,

I prepared myself to do any kind of work that came to hand. I sawed wood, shoveled

coal, dug cellars, moved rubbish from back yards, worked on the wharves, loaded and

unloaded vessels, and scoured their cabins.

I afterward got steady work at the brass-foundry owned by Mr. Richmond. My duty here

was to blow the bellows, swing the crane, and empty the flasks in which castings were

made; and at times this was hot and heavy work. The articles produced here were mostly

for ship work, and in the busy season the foundry was in operation night and day. I have

often worked two nights and every working day of the week. My foreman, Mr. Cobb, was

a good man, and more than once protected me from abuse that one or more of the hands

was disposed to throw upon me. While in this situation I had little time for mental

improvement. Hard work, night and day, over a furnace hot enough to keep the metal

running like water, was more favorable to action than thought; yet here I often nailed a

newspaper to the post near my bellows, and read while I was performing the up and

down motion of the heavy beam by which the bellows was inflated and discharged. It

was the pursuit of knowledge under difficulties, and I look back to it now, after so many

years, with some complacency and a little wonder that I could have been so earnest and

persevering in any pursuit other than for my daily bread. I certainly saw nothing in the

conduct of those around to inspire me with such interest: they were all devoted

exclusively to what their hands found to do. I am glad to be able to say that, during my

engagement in this foundry, no complaint was ever made against me that I did not do

my work, and do it well. The bellows which I worked by main strength was, after I left,

moved by a steam-engine.