MY ESCAPE FROM SLAVERY

by: Frederick Douglass
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.


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