Book Blog #5

Slaves Speak: Black Life under Plantation Slavery

Introduction

As a descriptive window for sampling life on the plantation, the stories of three slaves will be briefly told. Solomon Norman began his life as a free Black but was abducted in 1841. Spending 12 years as a slave, being sold to differing plantations, his varied experiences are instructive. An excellent writer, we can learn directly from his narrative. Secondly, Frederick Douglass, born into slavery in 1818, surreptitiously taught himself to read and write, before escaping to the north where he was able to write his own narratives concerning life as a slave. Thirdly, sampled experiences of Harriet Tubman provide another window into slavery. She was illiterate but her legacy of transcribed oral history is prolific.

12 Years a Slave (Solomon Northrup)[i]

Introduction

Solomon began his life as a free Black; he married, had a family and a productive life. This story begins in 1841 when he was abducted in Washington DC and taken into slavery. Solomon narrated his own story, that was then edited by David Wilson in May 1853. After being rescued in January of 1853. Solomon wrote his story because of the interest he sensed in the North, slavery. In introducing his story, Solomon stated,

I repeat the story of my life without exaggeration, leaving it for others to determine, whether even the pages of fiction presents a picture of more cruel wrong or a severe bondage.

The Abduction

Skipping over the story of Solomon’s early life, here are abbreviated details of his abduction, which give a picture of why Blacks, either fugitive slaves or freemen in the antebellum period had horrific fear about being abducted and sold into the slave states.

Solomon was traveling through Washington DC, accompanying two men for whom he was working. He was drugged and woke up in a dungeon under what was known as a “slave pen” within distance of the Capital. He wrote that he had been put into a ~12 square-foot cell, with concrete walls and a barred window, shuddered to keep out the light. His feet were chained to the floor and he was handcuffed. Three men walked into his cell, including his captor, the owner of the slave pen, and the man whose job it was to inflict punishment.

I inquired the cause of my imprisonment. My “owner” answered that I was his slave — that he had bought me, and that he was about to send me to New-Orleans. I asserted, aloud and boldly, that I was a free man — a resident of Saratoga, where I had a wife and children, who were also free, and that my name was Northup. I complained bitterly of the strange treatment I had received.

During this time Radburn was standing silently by. His business was, to oversee this human, or rather inhuman stable, receiving slaves, feeding and whipping them, at the rate of two shillings a head per day. Turning to him, Burch ordered the paddle and cat-o'-ninetails (lash)… As soon as these formidable whips appeared, I was … divested of my clothing. … Drawing me over the bench, face downwards, Radburn placed his heavy foot upon the fetters, between my wrists, holding them painfully to the floor. With the paddle, Burch commenced beating me. When his unrelenting arm grew tired, he stopped and asked if I still insisted I was a free man. I did insist upon it, and then the blows were renewed, faster and more energetically, if possible, than before. When again tired, he would repeat the same question, and receiving the same answer, continued his cruel labor. All this time, the incarnate devil was uttering most fiendish oaths. At length the paddle broke, leaving the useless handle in his hand. Still I would not yield. All his brutal blows could not force from my lips the foul lie that I was a slave. Casting madly on the floor the handle of the broken paddle, he seized the rope. This was far more painful than the other. I struggled with all my power, but it was in vain. I prayed for mercy, but my prayer was only answered with imprecations and with stripes. I thought I must die beneath the lashes of the accursed brute. Even now the flesh crawls upon my bones, as I recall the scene. I was all on fire. My sufferings I can compare to nothing else than the burning agonies of hell!

At last I became silent to his repeated questions. In fact I was becoming unable to speak. Still he plied the lash without stint on my poor body, until it seemed that the lacerated flesh was stripped from my bones at every stroke.

The torture ended with a hissing of the words that if ever I dare to utter again that I was entitled to my freedom, that I had been kidnapped, or anything whatever of the kind, the castigation I had just received was nothing in comparison with what would follow. He swore that he would either conquer or kill me. Then I was left in darkness.

My wounds would not permit me to remain but a few minutes in any one position; so, sitting, or standing, or moving slowly round, I passed the days and nights. I was heart sick and discouraged. Thoughts of my family, of my wife and children, continually occupied my mind. When sleep overpowered me I dreamed of them —

…After about three days of torture, I was walked up from my cell into a space behind the building surrounded by thick walls 10 or 12 feet high. Looking down from its commanding height upon it, was the Capitol. The voices of patriotic representatives boasting of freedom and equality, and the rattling of poor slaves chains, almost commingled – A slave pen within the very shadow of the Capitol!

The Auction Block

After several days, Solomon and other slaves, including a mother and two children (the latter had been house-slaves accustomed to privileges but had been sold in an estate sale) were transported to a slave pen in Richmond, Virginia. This “pen” included small houses, where potential purchasers could strip prospective slaves to examine them divested of clothes. About 30 slaves were moving about as they entered. “They were all cleanly dressed – the men with hats, women with handkerchiefs tied about their heads.” While bedded down that night, Solomon became acquainted with a sampling of the other slaves in the “pen.”. Couples and mothers and children dreading separation, persons physically and emotionally scarred, bitter. After a night, they were led to the hold of a ship and were on their way to New Orleans, working on the ship during the day and chained up in the hold at night.

After a horrific journey, including escape plans, aborted by the smallpox of a co-conspirator, they disembarked in New Orleans and were marshaled to another slave pen. The yard was enclosed by planks, standing upright, with ends sharpened…

There were now at least 50 of us in the pan.… The keeper of the slave pen was out among his animals early in the morning. With an occasional kick of the older men and women, and many a sharp crack of the whip about the ears of the younger slaves, it was not long before they were all astir… We were required to wash thoroughly, those with beards, to shave. We were then furnished with a new suit each, cheap, but clean. The men had hat, coat, shirt, pants and shoes; women frocks of calico, and handkerchiefs to bind about their heads.… We were exercised in the art of “looking smart,” and of moving to our places with exact precision.

After being fed, in the afternoon, we were again paraded in and made to dance. The next day many customers called to examine the “new lot.”… He would make us hold up our heads, walk briskly back and forth, while customers would feel of our hands and arms and bodies, turn us about, ask us what we could do, make us open our mouths and show our teeth, precisely as a jockey examines a horse which he is about to barter for or purchase. Sometimes a man or woman was taken back to the small house in the yard, stripped and inspected more minutely. Scars upon a slaves back were considered evidence of a rebellious or unruly spirit, and hurt his sale.

… A man purchased the little boy among us… He was made to jump, and run across the floor, and perform many other feats, exhibiting his activity and condition. All the time the trade was going on, his mother was crying aloud, and wringing her hands. She besought the man not to buy him, unless he also bought herself and her little girl. She promised, in that case, to be the most faithful slave that ever lived. The man answered that he could not afford it, then the mother burst into a paroxysm of grief, weeping plaintively. The slave master turned around to her, savagely, with his whip in his uplifted hand, ordering her to stop her noise, or he would flog her.… He would take her to the yard and give her 100 lashes. Yes he would take the nonsense out of her pretty quick – the mother shrunk before him, trying to wipe away her tears, but it was all in vain. She wanted to be with her children, she said, the little time she had to live. All the frowns and threats could not wholly silence the afflicted mother. She kept on begging and beseeching them, most piteously, not to separate the three. Over and over again she told him how she loved her boy. A great many times she repeated her former promises – how very faithful and obedient she would be, how hard she would labor day and night, to the last moment of her life, if he would only buy them altogether. But it was of no avail; the man could not afford it. The boy had to go alone. She ran to him; embraced him passionately; kissed him again and again; told him to remember her – all the while her tears falling in the boy’s face like rain. The slave master damned her, calling her a blubbering, bawling wench, and ordered her to go to her place, and behave yourself and be somebody. He swore he wouldn’t stand that stuff but a little longer. He would soon give her something to cry about … As he departed the boy said, “don’t cry, mama, I will be a good boy. Don’t cry.”

Although this is a very abbreviated treatment of slavery life, it is important to recount the horrific separations of parents and children. The depersonalization of the separations and turning them into numbers has helped enable the continuation of separation policies by the United States government from the founding of our country to the present. Most egregious, are the separations which occurred in slavery, then with the separation of Native American families, sending children to boarding schools, and presently, the separation of immigrants and asylum-seekers at the US-Mexican border. Accordingly, a description, as provided by her enslaved companion, Solomon, of the mother’s separation from her daughter, following on the heels of separation from her son, follows –

Following inspections, a buyer offered to purchase Solomon, another man and the mother, whose separation from her son we have already recounted.

Soloman recalled:

As soon as the mother heard it, she was in agony again. By this time, she had become haggard and hollow-eyed with sickness and with sorrow. It would be a relief if I could consistently pass over in silence the scene that now ensued.. It recalls memories more mournful and affecting than any language can portray. I have seen mothers kissing for the last time the faces of their dead offspring; I have seen them looking down into the grave, as the earth fell with a dull sound upon their coffins, hiding them from their eyes forever; but never have I seen such an exhibition of intense, unmeasured, and unbounded grief, as when this mother was parted from her child. She broke from her place in the line of women, and rushing down where her daughter was standing, caught her in her arms. The child, sensible of some impending danger, instinctively fastened her hands around her mother's neck, and nestled her little head upon her bosom. The slave master sternly ordered her to be quiet, but she did not heed him. He caught her by the arm and pulled her rudely, but she only clung the closer to the child. Then, with a volley of great oaths, he struck her such a heartless blow, that she staggered backward, and was like to fall. Oh! how piteously then did she beseech and beg and pray that they might not be separated. Why could they not be purchased together? Why not let her have one of her dear children? "Mercy, mercy, master!" she cried, falling on her knees. "Please, master, buy my daughter. I can never work any if she is taken from me: I will die." The slave master interfered again, but, disregarding him, she still plead most earnestly, telling how Randall had been taken from her — how she never would see him again, and now it was too bad — oh, God! it was too bad, too cruel, to take her away from Emily — her pride — her only darling, that could not live, it was so young, without its mother!

Finally, after much more of supplication, the purchaser of the mother stepped forward, evidently affected, and said to the slave master he would buy her daughter, and asked him what her price was. "What is her price? Buy her?" was the responsive interrogatory of the slave master. And instantly answering his own inquiry, he added, "I won't sell her. She's not for sale." The man remarked he was not in need of one so young — that it would be of no profit to him, but since the mother was so fond of her, rather than see them separated, he would pay a reasonable price. But to this humane proposal the slave master was entirely deaf. He would not sell her then on any account whatever. There were heaps and piles of money to be made of her, he said, when she was a few years older. There were men enough in New-Orleans who would give five thousand dollars for such an extra, handsome, fancy piece as Emily would be, rather than not get her. No, no, he would not sell her then. She was a beauty — a picture — a doll — one of the regular bloods — none of your thick-lipped, bullet-headed, cotton-picking niggers — if she was might he be d — d.

When the mother heard Freeman’s (the slave auctioneer’s) determination not to part with Emily, she became absolutely frantic. "I will not go without her. They shall not take her from me," she fairly shrieked, her shrieks commingling with the loud and angry voice of Freeman, commanding her to be silent. Meantime Harry and myself had been to the yard and returned with our blankets, and were at the front door ready to leave. Our purchaser stood near us, gazing at the mother with an expression indicative of regret at having bought her at the expense of so much sorrow. We waited some time, when, finally, Freeman, out of patience, tore Emily from her mother by main force, the two clinging to each other with all their might. "Don't leave me, mama — don't leave me," screamed the child, as its mother was pushed harshly forward; "Don't leave me — come back, mama," she still cried, stretching forth her little arms imploringly. But she cried in vain. Out of the door and into the race to the street we were quickly hurried. Still we could hear her calling to her mother, "Comeback — don't leave me — come back, mama," until her infant voice grew faint and still more faint, and gradually died away, as distance intervened, and finally was wholly lost.

Slave Life on the Plantations

Plantations were organized for work, but varied in structure according to the commercial monocrop that they were producing, e.g., tobacco, cotton, or sugar. Based on slave labor however, they secondarily became the structure within which slave families and community developed.

Generally, slaves lived as families and/or groups in one room huts, often formed in a circle or a row some distance from the “main house.” Often of shoddy construction, they were cold with dirt floors and windows without glass. Furniture was also minimal. Slaves were expected to do the upkeep and if necessary, rebuilding. Slave culture developed both visibly and invisibly from the eyes of the Masters.

Work hours were long, often up to 16 hours, leaving what was left for upkeep of home and family life. Children three years and older were often given work tasks. Diets were generally poor, in conjunction with exhaustion, leaving slaves susceptible to illness. On some plantations there were opportunities for gardening and chickens, perhaps a couple of hogs, that would improve the diet.

Most plantations gave Sunday off plus a couple of holidays, usually Christmas and 4 July. The degrees of severity of living and working conditions depended on the character of the overseers and plantation owners. Overseers of fieldwork generally operated with a whip. Plantation owners had complete discretion over the lives and families, including buying and selling, either as a unit or separating family members. Some owners responded kindly to problems that came up for individual slaves or families, but always demanding a subservient demeanor and absolute obedience.

Solomon’s varied experiences with overseers and slave masters, ranging from the villainous and cruel to relatively kind are telling of a slave’s life as he was sold from plantation to plantation. Here is his description of his first plantation owner, perhaps the kindest of those he encountered –

… It never was a more kind, noble, candid, Christian man than William Ford. The influences and associations that had always surrounded him blinded him to the inherent wrong at the bottom of the system of slavery. He never doubted the moral right of one man holding another in subjection.… Had he been brought up under other circumstances and other influences, his notions would undoubtedly have been different.

Unluckily for Solomon, Master Ford ran into financial difficulties that led him to be sold to a Master Tibeats. Solomon described him as

a small, crabbed, quick-tempered, spiteful man. I was now compelled to labor very hard. From earliest dawn until late at night I was not allowed to be a moment idle. Notwithstanding which, Tibeats was never satisfied. He was continually cursing and complaining.… I went to my cabin nightly, loaded with abuse and stinging epithets. (I would soon) be guilty of an act, punishable with death. It was my first fight with my Master. Tibeats came out of the house to where I was, hard at work. He seemed to be that morning even more morose and disagreeable than usual. He was my Master, entitled by law to my flesh and blood, and to exercise over me such tyrannical control as his mean nature prompted; but there was no law that could prevent my looking upon him with intense contempt. I despised both his disposition and his intellect. I had just come round to the keg for a further supply of nails, as he reached the weaving-house. "I thought I told you to commence putting on weather-boards this morning," he remarked. "Yes, Master, and I am about it," I replied. "Where?" he demanded. "On the other side," was my answer. He walked round to the other side, examined my work for a while, muttering to himself in a fault-finding tone. "Didn't I tell you last night to get a keg of nails from Chapin?" he broke forth again. "Yes, Master, and so I did; and the overseer said he would get another size for you, if you wanted them, when he came back from the field." Tibeats walked to the keg, looked a moment at the contents, then kicked it violently. Coming towards me in a great passion, he exclaimed. "G — d d — n you! I thought you knowed something."

I made answer: "I tried to do as you told me, Master.. I didn't mean anything wrong. Overseer said —’ “ But he interrupted me with such a flood of curses that I was unable to finish the sentence. At length he ran towards the house, and going to the piazza, took down one of the overseer's whips. The whip had a short wooden stock, braided over with leather, and was loaded at the butt. The lash was three feet long, or thereabouts, and made of raw-hide strands. At first I was somewhat frightened, and my impulse was to run. I knew he intended to whip me, and it was the first time any one had attempted it since my arrival. I felt, moreover, that I had been faithful — that I was guilty of no wrong whatever, and deserved commendation rather than punishment. My fear changed to anger, and before he reached me I had made up my mind fully not to be whipped, let the result be life or death. Winding the lash around his hand, and taking hold of the small end of the stock, he walked up to me, and with a malignant look, ordered me to strip. "Master Tibeats, said I, looking him boldly in the face, "I will not." I was about to say something further in justification, but with concentrated vengeance, he sprang upon me, seizing me by the throat with one hand, raising the whip with the other, in the act of striking. Before the blow descended, however, I had caught him by the collar of the coat, and drawn him closely to me. Reaching down, I seized him by the ankle, and pushing him back with the other hand, he fell over on the ground. Putting one arm around his leg, and holding it to my breast, so that his head and shoulders only touched the ground, I placed my foot upon his neck. He was completely in my power. My blood was up. It seemed to course through my veins like fire. In the frenzy of my madness I snatched the whip from his hand. He struggled with all his power; swore that I should not live to see another day; and that he would tear out my heart. But his struggles and his threats were alike in vain. I cannot tell how many times I struck him. Blow after blow fell fast and heavy upon his wriggling form. At length he screamed — cried murder — and at last the blasphemous tyrant called on God for mercy. But he who had never shown mercy did not receive it. The stiff stock of the whip warped round his cringing body until my right arm ached.

His screams had been heard in the field. The overseer was coming as fast as he could ride. I struck him a blow or two more, and pushed him from me with such a well-directed kick that he went rolling over on the ground. Rising to his feet, and brushing the dirt from his hair, he stood looking at me, pale with rage. We gazed at each other in silence. Not a word was uttered until Chapman galluped up to us.

The episode was not over as Solomon’s Master left the premises, coming back with two cohorts and proceeded to tie up Solomon, dragging him to a tree with intention to hang him. But Chapman also left and returned, this time with pistols in each hand, rescuing Solomon. Reconciliation with his Master would be temporary, with escalation into another primordial fight in which Solomon would take first a hatchet and then an axe away from his Master who was endeavoring to slay him; then, fleeing to safety through dark swamps flush with snakes and alligators, well being chased by hounds.

Solomon’s setting lines beyond which the violation of his dignity could not be tolerated, was true not only of abducted freemen but also of many born into slavery, leading to the plenitude of runaways, despite the risking of death, and the organization of resistance and insurrections within slave communities. To cite another example of such spirited self-defense, following is part of the story told by runaway slave Frederick Douglass, who went on to be an integral part of organizing the abolition movement.

Frederick Douglass

Introduction by William Lloyd Garrison

To introduce Mr. Douglas, the following remarks are collated from abolitionist warrior, William Lloyd Garrison, as written in his preface to The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.[ii]

In the month of August, 1841, I attended an anti-slavery convention in Nantucket, at which it was my happiness to become acquainted with Frederick Douglass, the writer of the following Narrative. He was a stranger to nearly every member of that body; but, having recently made his escape from the southern prison-house of bondage, and feeling his curiosity excited to ascertain the principles and measures of the abolitionists,—of whom he had heard a somewhat vague description while he was a slave,—he was induced to give his attendance, on the occasion alluded to. Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence!—fortunate for the millions of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from their awful thraldom!—fortunate for the cause of negro emancipation, and of universal liberty!—fortunate for a large circle of friends and acquaintances, whose sympathy and affection he has strongly secured by the many sufferings he has endured, by his ever-abiding remembrance of those who are in bonds, as being bound with them!— to the great work of breaking the rod of the oppressor, and letting the oppressed go free!

I shall never forget his first speech at the convention—the extraordinary emotion it excited in my own mind—the powerful impression it created upon a crowded auditory, completely taken by surprise—the applause which followed from the beginning to the end of his felicitous remarks. I think I never hated slavery so intensely as at that moment; certainly, my perception of the enormous outrage which is inflicted by it, on the godlike nature of its victims, was rendered far more clear than ever. There stood one, in physical proportion and stature commanding and exact—in intellect richly endowed—in natural eloquence a prodigy—in soul manifestly "created but a little lower than the angels"—yet a slave, ay, a fugitive slave,—trembling for his safety, hardly daring to believe that on the American soil, a single white person could be found who would befriend him at all hazards, for by the terms of the slave code, he was only a piece of property, a beast of burden.

Mr. Douglass has very properly chosen to write his own Narrative, in his own style, and according to the best of his ability, rather than to employ some one else. –

Frederick Douglass wrote, (collated)

I was born in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age.

My mother was quite dark. My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing… My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant – before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, too-part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its 12th month, his mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child was placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor.

I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of these times was very short in duration, and at night. She lives about 12 miles from my home and made her journeys to see me in the night, traveling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of a day’s work. She was a field hand, and the whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise… I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I wake she was gone. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my Masters farms. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, after death, or burial.

A Child of the Master

The whisper that my master was my father, is a but little consequence to my purpose but the fact remains, in all its glaring obviousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases be of the condition of their mothers; and this is done to obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable…

(Slaves who are children of their masters) invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with him, than others. They are, in the first place, a constant offense to their mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom do anything to please her; she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash… The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife; and, cruel as the deed may strike anyone to be, for a man to sell his own children to human flesh-mongers, for unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but a few shades darker complexion than himself, and fly the gory lash to his naked back; and if he list one word of disapproval, it is set down to his parental partiality, and only makes a bad matter worse, both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend.

Every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves.… A statesman of the South predicted the downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of population. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled or not, it is nevertheless plain that a very different -looking class of people are springing up at the South,… Thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, will their existence to white fathers those fathers most frequently their own masters.

The Overseers

(My first master employed an overseer whose name was Plumner. He was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel have known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day of the most heart-rending shrieks of an aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whipped on her naked back until she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.…

The overseer who called our cabin to the field was “Mr. Severe,” rightly named.… I have seen him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time; and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for the mother’s release.… The field was the place to witness his cruelty and profanity. His presence made it both the field of blood and of blasphemy. From the rising until the going down of the sun, he was cursing, raping, cutting, and slashing among the slaves of the field, the most frightful manner.

A Child Slave Hired Out

As a juvenile, Frederick was farmed out to be a slave caretaker for a young child in Baltimore. His mistress was at first “very kind” but soon learned to treat a slave differently. Nevertheless, she began to teach him to read; that is until her husband discovered what she was doing. Mr. Douglas tells the story –

After I had learned the ABCs, my mistress assisted me in learning to spell words in three or four letters. When her husband found out what was going on, he at once forbade her to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe to teach a slave to read.… “If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master – to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now,” said he, “if you teach that nigger how to read there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himsel it would do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy.” These words sank deep into my heart, stirred up sentiments within that lay slumbering and called into existence an entirely new train of thought.… I now understood what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty – to wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man.… From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.… Whilst I was saddened by the thought of losing the aid of my kind mistress, I was gladdened by the invaluable instruction which, by the merest accident, I had gained from my master.

Though conscious of the difficulty of learning without a teacher, I set out with high hope, and a fixed purpose, at whatever cost of trouble, to learn how to read. The very decided manner with which he spoke, and strove to impress his wife with the evil consequences of giving me instruction, served to convince me that he was deeply sensible of the truths he was uttering. It gave me the best assurance that I might rely with the utmost confidence on the results which, he said, would follow from teaching me to read.… In learning to read, I owe almost as much to the bitter opposition of my master, as to the kindly aid of my mistress, who now became petulantly punitive when she found me with any reading material..

The plan which I adopted, and the one by which I was most successful, was that of making friends of all the little white boys whom I met in the street. As many of these as I could, I converted into teachers. When I was sent on errands, I always took my book with me, and by going one part of my errand quickly, I found time to get a lesson before my return. I used also to carry bread with me, enough of which was always in the house, and to which I was always welcome; for I was much better off in this regard than many of the poor white children in our neighborhood. This bread I used to bestow upon the hungry little urchins, who, in return, would give me that more valuable bread of knowledge.

Awakening to Slavery Consciousness

… I was now about 12 years old, and the thought of being a slave for life began to bear heavily upon my heart. About this time I got hold of a book entitled “the Colombian Orator, (which contained) a dialogue between the master and his slave.” The dialogue represented the conversation which took place…, when a runaway slave was retaken the third time. (The slave was so persuasive to his master) that the conversation resulted in the voluntary emancipation of the slave.… The more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.

(In an almost continuous state of anguish) I was a ready listener. Every little while, I could hear something about the abolitionists.… If a slave ran away and succeeded in getting clear, or if a slave killed his master, set fire to a barn, or did anything very wrong in the mind of a slaveholder, it was spoken of as the fruit of abolition. After a patient waiting, I got one of our city papers, containing an account of the number of petitions from the north, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and of the slave trade between the states. From this time I understood the words abolition and abolitionist and always drew near when that word was spoken…

My copy-book (for learning to write) was the board fence, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump of chalk.… The idea as to how I might learn to write was suggested to me by being in the ship-yard, and frequently seeing the ship carpenters, after hewing, and getting a piece of timber ready for use, write on the timber the name of that part of the ship for which it was intended. When a piece of timber was intended for the larboard side, it would be marked thus—"L." When a piece was for the starboard side, it would be marked thus—"S." (Etc) I soon learned the names of these letters, and for what they were intended. I immediately commenced copying them, and in a short time was able to make the four letters named. After that, when I met with any boy who I knew could write, I would tell him I could write as well as he. The next word would be, "I don't believe you. Let me see you try it." I would then make the letters which I had been so fortunate as to learn, and ask him to beat that. In this way I got a good many lessons in writing, which it is quite possible I should never have gotten in any other way. After a long tedious effort for years, I finally succeeded in learning how to write.

Being Valued As Property

When Frederick reached the age of 10 or 11, his primary master on his home plantation died and a valuation and division of the estate followed; they sent for Frederick to be part of the property valuation.

It was necessary to have a valuation of the property, that it might be equally divided between Mrs. Lucretia and Master Andrew. I was immediately sent for, to be valued it’s with the other property. Here again my feelings rose up in detestation of slavery. I had now a new conception of my degraded condition. Prior to this, I had become, if not insensible to my lot, at least partly so. I left Baltimore with a young heart overborne with sadness, and a soul full of apprehension.

We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine, all holding the same rank in the scale of being, and were all subjected to the same narrow examination. Silvery-headed age and sprightly youth, maids and matrons, had to undergo the same indelicate inspection. At this moment, I saw more clearly than ever the brutalizing effects of slavery upon both slave and slaveholder. After the valuation, then came the division. I have no language to express the deep anxiety felt among us poor slaves during this time. Our fate for life was now to be decided. We had no more voice in that decision than the brutes among whom we were ranked. A single word from the white men was enough—against all our wishes, prayers, and entreaties—to sunder forever the dearest friends, dearest kindred, and strongest ties known to human beings. In addition to the pain of separation, there was the horrid dread of falling into the hands of Master Andrew. He was known to us all as being a most cruel wretch. We all felt that we might as well be sold at once to the Georgia traders, as to pass into his hands; for we knew that would be our inevitable condition,—a condition held by us all in the utmost horror and dread.

I suffered more anxiety than most of my fellow-slaves. I had known what it was to be kindly treated; they had known nothing of the kind. They were in very deed men and women of sorrow, and acquainted with grief. Their backs had been made familiar with the bloody lash, so that they had become callous; mine was yet tender; for while at Baltimore I got few whippings, and few slaves could boast of a kinder master and mistress than myself; and the thought of passing out of their hands into those of Master Andrew—a man who, but a few days before, to give me a sample of his bloody disposition, took my little brother by the throat, threw him on the ground, and with the heel of his boot stamped upon his head till the blood gushed from his nose and ears—was well calculated to make me anxious as to my fate. After he had committed this savage outrage upon my brother, he turned to me, and said that was the way he meant to serve me one of these days,—meaning, I suppose, when I came into his possession.

Thanks to a kind Providence, I fell to the portion of Miss. Lucretia, and was sent immediately back to Baltimore, to live again in the family of Master Hugh. Their joy at my return equalled their sorrow at my departure. It was a glad day to me. I had escaped a fate worse than lion's jaws. I was absent from Baltimore, for the purpose of valuation and division, just about one month, and it seemed to have been six.

Grandmother Put out to Die in an Estate Sale

Very soon after my return to Baltimore, my mistress, Lucretia, died, leaving her husband and one child, Amanda; and in a very short time after her death, Master Andrew died. Now all the property of my old master, slaves included, was in the hands of strangers. Not a slave was left free.

If any one thing in my experience, more than another, served to deepen my conviction of the infernal character of slavery, and to fill me with unutterable loathing of slaveholders, it was their base ingratitude to my poor old grandmother. She had served my old master faithfully from youth to old age. She had been the source of all his wealth; she had peopled his plantation with slaves; she had become a great grandmother in his service. She had rocked him in infancy, attended him in childhood, served him through life, and at his death wiped from his icy brow the cold death-sweat, and closed his eyes forever. She was nevertheless left a slave—a slave for life—a slave in the hands of strangers; and in their hands she saw her children, her grandchildren, and her great-grandchildren, divided, like so many sheep, without being gratified with the small privilege of a single word, as to their or her own destiny. And, to cap the climax of their base ingratitude and fiendish barbarity, my grandmother, who was now very old, having outlived my old master and all his children, having seen the beginning and end of all of them, and her present owners finding she was of but little value, her frame already racked with the pains of old age, and complete helplessness fast stealing over her once active limbs, they took her to the woods, built her a little hut, put up a little mud-chimney, and then made her welcome to the privilege of supporting herself there in perfect loneliness; thus virtually turning her out to die! If my poor old grandmother now lives, she lives to suffer in utter loneliness; she lives to remember and mourn over the loss of children, the loss of grandchildren, and the loss of great-grandchildren. They are, in the language of the slave's poet, Whittier,—

"Gone, gone, sold and gone just To the rice swamp dank and lone, Where the slave-whip ceaseless swings, Where the noisome insect stings, Where the fever-demon strews Poison with the falling dews, Where the sickly sunbeams glare Through the hot and misty air:— Gone, gone, sold and gone To the rice swamp dank and lone, From Virginia hills and waters— Woe is me, my stolen daughters!”

The heart is desolate. The children, the unconscious children, who once sang and danced in her presence, are gone. She gropes her way, in the darkness of age, for a drink of water. Instead of the voices of her children, she hears by day the moans of the dove, and by night the screams of the hideous owl. All is gloom. The grave is at the door. And now, when weighed down by the pains and aches of old age, when the head inclines to the feet, when the beginning and ending of human existence meet, and helpless infancy and painful old age combine together—at this time, this most needful time, the time for the exercise of that tenderness and affection which children only can exercise towards a declining parent—my poor old grandmother, the devoted mother of twelve children, is left all alone, in yonder little hut, before a few dim embers. She stands—she sits—she staggers—she falls—she groans—she dies—and there are none of her children or grandchildren present, to wipe from her wrinkled brow the cold sweat of death, or to place beneath the sod her fallen remains. Will not a righteous God visit for these things?

Frederick Sold and Resold

As Frederick was passed among slave masters, he came to live under Master Thomas. His cruelty among regional slaveholders was egregious for failing to provide his slaves with enough food, a practice frowned upon by his peers. Thomas’ cruelty worsened after he converted to Christianity, where he found sanctions for his behavior. Frederick wrote

I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture—"He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes." Master would keep this lacerated young woman tied up in this horrid situation four or five hours at a time. I have known him to tie her up early in the morning, and whip her before breakfast; leave her, go to his store, return at dinner, and whip her again, cutting her in the places already made raw with his cruel lash. The secret of master's cruelty toward "Henny" is found in the fact of her being almost helpless. When quite a child, she fell into the fire, and burned herself horribly. Her hands were so burnt that she never got the use of them. She could do very little but bear heavy burdens. She was to master a bill of expense; and as he was a mean man, she was a constant offence to him. He seemed desirous of getting the poor girl out of existence. He gave her away once to his sister; but, being we a poor gift, she was not disposed to keep her. Finally, my benevolent master, to use his own words, "set her adrift to take care of herself." Here was a recently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, and at the same time turning out her helpless child, to starve and die! Master Thomas was one of the many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the very charitable purpose of taking care of them.

Frederick, needless to say, was not deferent to master Thomas’s cruelty.

I had lived with him nine months, during which time he had given me a number of severe whippings, all to no good purpose. He resolved to put me out, as he said, to be broken; and, for this purpose, he let me for one year to a man named Edward Covey. Mr. Covey was a poor man, a farm-renter. He rented the place upon which he lived, as also the hands with which he tilled it. Mr. Covey had acquired a very high reputation for breaking young slaves, and this reputation was of immense value to him. It enabled him to get his farm tilled with much less expense to himself than he could have had it been done without such a reputation. Some slaveholders thought it not much loss to allow Mr. Covey to have their slaves one year, for the sake of the training to which they were subjected, without any other compensation. He could hire young help with great ease, in consequence of this reputation. Added to the natural good qualities of Mr. Covey, he was a professor of religion—a pious soul—a member and a class-leader in the Methodist church. All of this added weight to his reputation as a "nigger-breaker." I was aware of all the facts, having been made acquainted with them by a young man who had lived there. I nevertheless made the change gladly; for I was sure of getting enough to eat, which is not the smallest consideration to a hungry man.

I had been at my new home but one week before Mr. Covey gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back, causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large as my little finger. The details of this affair are as follows: Mr. Covey sent me, very early in the morning of one of our coldest days in the month of January, to the woods, to get a load of wood. He gave me a team of unbroken oxen. He told me which was the in-hand ox, and which the off-hand one. He then tied the end of a large rope around the horns of the in-hand ox, and gave me the other end of it, and told me, if the oxen started to run, that I must hold on upon the rope. I had never driven oxen before, and of course I was very awkward. I, however, succeeded in getting to the edge of the woods with little difficulty; but I had got a very few rods into the woods, when the oxen took fright, and started full tilt, carrying the cart against trees, and over stumps, in the most frightful manner. I expected every moment that my brains would be dashed out against the trees. After running thus for a considerable distance, they finally upset the cart, dashing it with great force against a tree, and threw themselves into a dense thicket. How I escaped death, I do not know. There I was, entirely alone, in a thick wood, in a place new to me. My cart was upset and shattered, my oxen were entangled among the young trees, and there was none to help me. After a long spell of effort, I succeeded in getting my cart righted, my oxen disentangled, and again yoked to the cart. I now proceeded with my team to the place where I had, the day before, been chopping wood, and loaded my cart pretty heavily, thinking in this way to tame my oxen. I then proceeded on my way home. I had now consumed one half of the day.

I got out of the woods safely, and now felt out of danger. I stopped my oxen to open the woods gate; and just as I did so, before I could get hold of my ox-rope, the oxen again started, rushed through the gate, catching it between the wheel and the body of the cart, tearing it to pieces, and coming within a few inches of crushing me against the gate-post. Thus twice, in one short day, I escaped death by the merest chance.

On my return, I told Mr. Covey what had happened, and how it happened. He ordered me to return to the woods again immediately. I did so, and he followed on after me. Just as I got into the woods, he came up and told me to stop my cart, and that he would teach me how to trifle away my time, and break gates. He then went to a large gum-tree, and with his axe cut three large switches, and, after trimming them up neatly with his pocketknife, he ordered me to take off my clothes. I made him no answer, but stood with my clothes on. He repeated his order. I still made him no answer, nor did I move to strip myself. Upon this he rushed at me with the fierceness of a tiger, tore off my clothes, and lashed me till he had worn out his switches, cutting me so savagely as to leave the marks visible for a long time after. This whipping was the first of a number just like it, and for similar offences.

Frederick Wrestles with a Broken Spirit

… Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit. My natural elasticity was crushed, my intellect languished, the disposition to read departed, the cheerful spark that lingered about my eye died; the dark night of slavery closed in upon me; and behold a man transformed into a brute! I was sometimes prompted to take my life, and that of Covey, but was prevented by a combination of hope and fear.

Our house stood within a few rods of the Chesapeake Bay, whose broad bosom was ever white with sales from every quarter of the habitable globe. Those beautiful vessels, robed in the purest white, so delightful to the eye of freemen, were to me so many shrouded ghosts, to terrify and torment me with thoughts of my wretched condition.

… With no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul’s complaint to the multitude of ships: – you are loosed from your moorings, and are free; I am fast in my chains, and I’m a slave! You move merrily before the gentle gale, and I sadly before the bloody whip! You are freedom’s swift-winged angels, that fly around the world; I am confined in bands of iron! Oh that I were free! Oh, that I were on one of your gallant decks, and under your protecting wing! Alas! Betwixt me and you,.turbid waters roll. Go on, go on. Oh that I could also go! Could I but swim! If I could fly! Oh, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! The glad ship is gone; she hides in the dim distance. I am left in the hottest hell of unending slavery. Oh God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free! Is there any God? Why am I a slave? I will run away. I will not stand it. Get caught, or get clear, I’ll try it. I have only one life to lose. I had as well be killed running as standing. Only think of; one hundred miles straight north, and I am free! Try it? Yes! God helping me, I will. It cannot be that I shall live and die a slave.

Frederick’s Spirit Returns

After more episodes of severe beatings and recoveries, Frederick was feeding the horses and saw Mr. Covey enter the stable with a long rope.

… Just as I was half out of the loft, he caught hold of my legs, and was about tying me. As soon as I found out what he was up to, I gave a sudden spring, and as I did so, he holding to my legs, I was brought sprawling on the stable floor. Mr. Covey seemed now to think he had me, and could do what he please; but at this moment – from whence came the spirit I don’t know – I resolved to fight; and, suiting my action to the resolution, I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose. He held onto me, and I to him. My resistance was so entirely unexpected that Covey seemed taken all aback. He crumbled like a leaf. This gave me assurance, and I held him uneasy, causing the blood to run where I touched him to the ends of my fingers. Mr. Covey soon called for help and while Covey held me, another attempted to tie my right hand. While he was in the act of doing so, I watched my chance and gave him a heavy kick close under the ribs. He was sickened and left me in the hands of Mr. Covey. Covey (drained of his courage) asked me if I meant to persist in my resistance. I told him I did, come what might; that he had used me like a brute and that I was determined to be used so no longer. He strove to drag me to a stick that was lying just out of the stable door. But just as he was leaning over to get the stick, I seized him with both hands by his collar, and brought him up by a sudden snatch to the ground… We were at it for nearly 2 hours, Covey let me go, hoping and blowing at a greater rate…

(Covey did not try to whip Frederick again, but more importantly) this battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom, and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence, and inspired me again with a determination to be free. The gratification afforded by the triumph was a full compensation for whatever else might follow, even death itself.

It was for a long time a matter of surprise to me why Mr. Covey did not immediately have me taken to the constable, to the whipping-post, and there regularly whipped for the crime of raising my hand against a white man in defense of myself. … Mr. Covey enjoyed the most unbounded reputation of being a first-rate overseer and nigger-breaker. That reputation was at stake; and had he sent me – a boy about 16 years old – to the public whipping-post, his reputation would have been lost; so, to save his reputation, he suffered me to go unpunished.

Frederick’s next Master, he described as a mean, cruel, and religious slaveholder. He believed, "It Is the Duty of a Master to whip a slave, to remind him of his Master’s authority. Does a slave look dissatisfied? It is said, he has the devil in him, and it must be whipped out. Does he speak loudly to his master? Then he is getting high-minded, and should be taken down a button-hole lower. Does he forget to pull off his hat at the approach of a white person? Then he is wanting in deference and should be whipped. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when censured for it? Then he is guilty of impudence, – one of the greatest crimes of which it slave can be guilty. (Etc. etc.)

Building a Community of Slaves

Despite varying degrees of harsh treatment, both slaveholders gave their slaves Sunday off. In some cases it was for religious service, it was also a strategy for keeping slaves alive and functioning. Slaves, however, despite their fatigue often use this day for community caring for one another, planning survival strategies and resistace and for mutual education opportunities. Frederick describes how he used a “Sabbath school to teach reading. He held his classes in a freeman’s house for the sake of privacy and accessible to neighboring plantations.

… Soon were mustered up some old spelling-books… And accordingly I devoted my Sundays to teaching these my loved fellow-slaves how to read. It was understood, among all who came, that there must be as little display about it as possible. It was necessary to keep our religious masters at St. Michael’s unacquainted with the fact, that, instead of spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whiskey, we were trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like intellectual, moral, and accountable beings. My blood boils as I think of the bloody manner in which (they) rested upon us with sticks and stones, and broke up our virtuous little Sabbath school, at St. Michael’s –… But I am digressing. Those who committed the crime of learning to read with me, at one time numbered over 40 scholars. They were great days of my soul. The work of instructing my dear fellow-slaves was the sweetest engagement with which I was ever blessed. We loved each other, and to leave them at the close of the Sabbath was a severe cross indeed. When I think that these precious souls are today shut up in the prison-house of slavery, my feelings overcome me, and I am almost ready to ask, “does a righteous God govern the universe? And for what does he hold the standards in his right hand, if not to smite the oppressor, and deliver the spoiled out of the hand of the spoiler?” These dear souls came not to Sabbath school because it was popular to do so … Every moment spent in that school, they were liable to be taken up, and given thirty-nine lashes.

I was indebted to the society of my fellow-slaves. They were noble souls; they not only possessed loving hearts, but brave ones. We were linked and interlinked with each other. I loved them with a love stronger than anything I have experienced since. … We would have died for each other. We never undertook to do anything, of any importance, without a mutual consultation. We were one; and as much so by our tempers and dispositions, as by the mutual hardships to which we were necessarily subjected by our condition as slaves.

(Joining with others, Frederick began to plan his escape from slavery.) … Our path was beset with the greatest obstacles; and if we succeeded in gaining the end of it, our right to be free was yet questionable – we were yet liable to be returned to bondage. We could see no spot, this side of the ocean, where we could be free. We knew nothing about Canada.

In coming to a fixed determination to run away; we did more than Patrick Henry, when he resolved upon liberty or death. With us it was a doubtful liberty at most, and almost certain death if we failed. For my part, I should prefer death to hopeless bondage.

(After detailed planning, they were betrayed and arrested before it could be implemented.) We had been in jail scarcely 20 minutes, when a swarm of slave traders and agents for slave traders, flopped into jail to look at us, and to ascertain if we were for sale. Such a set of beings I never saw before! I felt myself surrounded by so many fiends from perdition.

(Inexplicably) after an absence of three years, (my master) permitted me to return to my old home at Baltimore to learn a trade. (He) sent me away, because … he feared I might be killed.

Apprenticed to the Baltimore shipyard, Frederick was harassed and beaten by the White workers, having no opportunity to learn any skills. Finally, mangled and kicked in the eye to appearances that it might be coming out –

In danger of being lynched, I returned to my Baltimore Master. After a time of convalescence, my Master took me to a shipyard where he was foreman and I successfully learned the caulking trade. Soon, I was able to earn top dollar for my work, made my own contracts, and collected the money which I earned. I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to my Master.

… And why? Not because he had any hand in earning it, – not because I owed it to him, – not because he possessed the slightest shadow of a right to it; but solely because he had the power to compel me to give it up. The right of the grim-visaged harbor upon the high seas is exactly the same.

Frederick again became fixated on his liberty.

The Escape in 1838

Written in 1842, Frederick in the above Narrative declines to write details out of fear that it would close doors for other slaves, “My Escape from Slavery” in the Century Magazine. His first step to freedom was to borrow the identity papers of a freed slave:

"It was the custom in the State of Maryland to require the free colored people to have what were called free papers. 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."

Hopping A Northbound Train

Armed with these papers, and disguised as a sailor,

Douglass nervously clamors aboard a train heading North on a Monday morning:

"I was not so fortunate as to resemble any of my free acquaintances sufficiently to answer the description of their papers. But I had one 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, I arranged with a Baltimore hackman, to bring mv 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 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 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 clothes 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 stem, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an 'old salt.'

I was well on the way 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 tone 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. 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 borderlines 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 been more anxiously or noisily beating than did mine from the time I left Baltimore till I reached Philadelphia."

New York City and Temporary Refuge

"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.

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

Final Safety - New Bedford Massachusetts

Fleeing New York City, Douglass makes his way north to the sea town of New Bedford where he experiences the exhilaration of freedom:

"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."

Harriet Tubman – called “Moses” for Leading Runaway Slaves to Freedom

Introduction

Harriet Tubman’s legacy and fame began as a young woman runaway slave, a feat seldom accomplished by young women. Her fame increased as she returned to the South again and again bringing back more slaves to freedom. She became known as “Moses” because of all the people she led to freedom. Later she was called Joshua (the Old Testament warrior) because of her role leading an effective spy team in the Civil War.

Understanding the risks that Harriet took as a runaway, amplifies understanding of her courage and savvy. The horrors of slavery had always burdened slaveowners with the onus of using systemic violence to retain their slaves in captivity and the necessity of tracking down the runaways. George Washington complained about a slave of his who escaped to Philadelphia toward “a society of Quakers in the city formed for such purposes.” Not only were slaves fleeing, they had already found accomplices to assist them in crossing to freedom. The Constitution contained a clause that would protect the slave property of Southern representatives. This stipulation (Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3) stated that, “no person held to service or labor” would be released from bondage in the event they escaped to a free state. Then, after the successful 1790 slave revolt in Haiti and the increased motivation for runaways and insurrections, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was passed, enabling slaveowners and their representatives to go to free states with legal authority to bring back slaves and penalize those who aided resistance.[iii]

This law provided substantial fines and prison time for those aiding or abetting slaves in flight. A pass was dated and signed by an owner, giving a slave explicit permission to do his bidding. This is partly why literacy was such a forbidden fruit in the antebellum South: if slaves learned to write, they might forge their own passes – punishment could be extreme.

When they were captured, slaves often faced punishments that could include amputation of toes, limbs, whippings, branding and other tortuous acts.[iv] Branding demonstrated that slaves were in the same property class as cattle and provided detailed identification for runaway advertisements: a wanted poster read, “Adam, 36 years old has several marks of the switch on his back. He had been branded on the right cheek with the letter R for his former villainy.” One master in Columbus, Mississippi, burned his own initials into his slaves, to discourage them from trying to escape. If a slave made repeated attempts to flee, a master might cut the slave’s Achilles tendon to hobble her and prevent her from escaping.[v]

Biographical information regarding Harriet, unless otherwise referenced, is collated or paraphrased from Catherine Clinton’s biography, Harriet Tubman.[vi] Harriet Tubman was born in 1822 to a slave couple who spent a good deal of their married life in close proximity to one another in Dorchester County, Maryland. They struggled, like most enslaved spouses, to create conditions that would allow them to live together, or at least near each other. They negotiated with their owners to try and create a more stable family life. The selling off of family members was the most excruciating threat faced by Harriet’s family. Harriet was deeply aggrieved by the disappearance of siblings, carried off by the slave coffle: “She had watched two of her sisters carried off weeping and lamenting.” One of the sisters was forced to leave two children behind. Harriet was permanently affected by this episode, as she internalized the “agonized expression on their faces.”

Childhood Slavery

When Harriet was only five years old, a woman in the neighborhood, a “Miss Susan,” drove up to her Master’s plantation and requested “a young girl to take care of a baby.” Harriet was sent off without a moment’s hesitation— a common fate for young enslaved females. In her new surroundings, she slept on the floor and would cry herself to sleep.

Harriet remembered being so small that she had to sit on the floor to safely hold the White baby in her lap. Once installed in a new master’s household, she was given a full load of domestic tasks, as well as caring for the infant. After a long day of doing her mistress’s bidding, the five-year-old Harriet remained on duty at night, instructed to rock the cradle constantly to prevent the baby from disturbing the master or mistress. If the baby wailed, this mistress did not go to comfort her child but instead lifted her hand to grab a small whip from its shelf—to punish her slave attendant for negligence. One day, Harriet recalled, she was whipped five times before breakfast – and her neck bore the scars from this incident for the rest of her life.

Harriet’s health deteriorated until she was returned to her family, severely debilitated, weak and undernourished. After her mother nursed her back to health she was sent away again as soon as she recovered. Thus began a pattern in which she was hired out year after year, serving a variety of Masters as a household worker.

Given such a trauma filled childhood, I would have ‘s expected that Harriet’s personality and character would be forever damaged and that she would face extreme challenges to function as a mature adult; however, Harriet developed to be an exceptionally strong and mature person. Part of the explanation is that following incidents of abuse, she went back to her mother for healing. So that rather than experiencing trauma as something that caused alienation from her mother, the traumatic incidents drove mother and child closer together in the context of repeated episodes of healing. This instinctually resonating pattern of healing was reinforced again when she was an adolescent and was nurtured back to health during a several month recovery from brain injury.

Spiritual strength, nurtured by her mother, became a second factor enabling Harriet to overcome these early traumas. She developed a personal faith that included two-way spiritual communication, through which she received answers and information that were responsive to her prayerful questions and dilemmas. As Harriet matured, she experienced a continuous transition from relying upon her mother for healing strength to reliance upon Spiritual relationship as a source of healing strength. She drew upon Spirituality for courage and intuitive judgment when exercising strategies for leading fellow slaves toward freedom.

Although Harriet was illiterate, her Spiritual orientation was reinforced through her internalization of selected Biblical passages that she apparently learned from her mother when she was repeatedly being nursed back to health. A Biblical perspective was also internalized from the slave community and it’s often “invisible” religious gathering.[vii]

From House Servant to Field Work

hBy the age of 12, Harriet became sufficiently strong that she was valued as a field worker and transitioned from domestic work. Now able to work alongside fellow slaves, she gained a sense of camaraderie. When a male coworker left the field to go to a crossroads store, she saw their overseer following him, and rushed ahead to give a warning. The frightened field hand, knowing he would get a severe whipping, rushed from the store. Harriet, blocked the angry overseer’s path of pursuit by standing in the doorway – just as he picked up a lead weight from the counter and threw it at the escapee. It hit Harriet in the head and delivered a stunning blow. She later recalled that she had been wearing a covering on her head and when the weight struck her

It broke my skull and cut a piece of that shawl clean off and drove it into my head. They carried me to the house all bleeding and fainting. I had no bed, no place to lie down on and they laid me on the seat of the loom, and I stayed there all that day and the next.

Subsequent to the injury, throughout her lifetime, Harriet would periodically fall into semi-conscious states wherein she would receive visions, often including Spiritual direction. Subsequently, she also had a recurring nightmare of horsemen riding in to kidnap slaves—hearing the clatter of hooves and the shrieks of women having their children torn from them.

Harriet’s Spirituality continued to strengthen, nurtured both by the closeness to the Earth that she gained while working outside and by the Bible stories told to her by her mother.[viii] In 1849, Harriet began a lengthy prayer vigil, pleading for the soul of her master, but when she heard a rumor that he was planning to “sell her down the river,” and might trade a couple of her brothers for cash as well, she switched strategies:

“[I] changed my prayer, and I said ‘Lord, if you ain’t never going to change that man’s heart, kill him, Lord, and take him out of the way, so he won’t do no more mischief.’”

Harriet expressed guilt when, shortly thereafter, her master died. She regretted her entreaties for his death and proclaimed that she would happily trade places with him. But this was really just a fog into which she disappeared before she faced her future with clarity and flinty determination. The year 1849 became a turning point. To best fulfill her destiny, Tubman realized, she must actively seek a role in God’s plan, rather than letting others dictate her path. This was an important step forward, a significant leap of faith, especially faith in herself.

Harriet Seeks “an Active Role in God’s Plan” – Her Escape

Harriet knew that she needed to combine faith with action. By escaping to the North, she felt, she would be doing God’s will. But there were perplexing questions. What would become of her mother and siblings once they all became the inheritance of the Masters children? Would her family be sold and scattered to the four corners of the South? Tubman, in her early twenties, confronted the possibility of abandoning her parents, her husband, and the Eastern Shore—the only place she had ever called home. Harriet’s sisters had disappeared with a slave coffle and she felt an intensifying need to leave before she too was swallowed up by the void. Years later Tubman likened her decision to an epiphany:

“I had reasoned this out in my mind; there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”

Her escape was remarkable. For one thing, the overwhelming majority of successful fugitives were men. But here was a girl in her twenties, venturing out of her home counties for the first time, hoping to make it to freedom on her own.

That first time out in the open, Harriet must have dreaded the baying of bloodhounds signaling a posse in pursuit. Would she have known to rub asafetida (a foul-smelling herb) on her feet to elude tracking dogs? She knew to follow the North Star, but what if clouds filled the autumn night sky? It must have been a terrifying experience for her, leaving behind loved ones and familiar terrain.

The Underground Railroad, Organized by Slave Resistors

As a boon to Harriet’s escape, the Underground Railroad, the web of assistance for fugitive slaves, conveying them from hiding place to hiding place along clandestine routes, had already begun to emerge. After she got out of her home county, she was able to get assistance from a “safe house.” The barriers to her escape, formidable when she began, laid also in front of her as well.

Harriet recalled that when she reached the first station (safe house), a White woman gave her a paper with two names upon it, and directions how she might get to the next house. Since she was illiterate, the names supplied in writing would mean something only to the person to whom she presented the slip of paper. When she showed the paper to a woman at the house to which she had been directed, the woman brusquely instructed her to take a broom and sweep the yard, so that she would appear to be a slave or servant. When the woman’s husband, a farmer, came home in the evening, he loaded her Into his wagon. After dark, the man transported her to another town, where she was given her directions to the next “station.”

Despite slaveholders’ repressive rule, slave resistance and rebellions leapt into the national headlines during the first third of the nineteenth century. The most famous was Nat Turner’s revolt, which erupted in the summer of 1831, in Southampton County, Virginia, less than a hundred miles from where the young Harriet was living. The slave grapevine and Virginia’s proximity to the Eastern Shore meant Tubman’s family was familiar with the Turner uprising, despite masters’ efforts to suppress the news. Both Black and White households within the upper South were aware of Turner’s actions and the ripple effect the uprising created. Southern Whites demonized Nat Turner, portraying him as a bloodthirsty savage bent on raping White women and murdering children. At the same time, African Americans rejected this racist caricature and he became a heroic figure within Black folklore. Slaves in the Chesapeake and Maryland area were deeply affected by Turner’s rebellion and its aftermath.

Although Harriet Tubman was just a young girl when this slave rebel’s reputation blistered across the southern countryside, he became a towering figure for her. Harriet, versed in Biblical stories and taking directions for her life from mystical communication, must have resonated with stories of Turner and the visions that informed his rebellious mission.[ix] Over the years, many within the Black community took Turner at his word, and believed he was a latter-day prophet. Nat Turner’s story is detailed in the next section of this book. (include page number for cross reference here)

Harriet came to feel that freedom was something worth dying for, a creed by which Turner had lived and finally died. His uprising to defeat the enslaving power may have failed, but he succeeded in stirring generation after generation to contemplate slavery’s evils.

Recapturing Slaves – the Increasing Threat to Runaways:

As Harriet headed north, “Runaway ads” dominated the back pages of southern newspapers as they would on through the Civil War. Of course, as most slaves were headed north, slaveholders used Yankee papers as well to try to locate absent slaves. For fugitives like Harriet the dread of recapture remained acute and continuous. But even if they were constantly forced to look over their shoulders, they knew the land of Egypt would remain behind them, whatever might lie ahead.

In 1842, the US Supreme Court had made a landmark decision in support of slaveowners, Prigg versus Pennsylvania, stating that “the owner of a slave is clothed with entire authority in every State in the Union, to seize and recapture his slave.

.…” When Free states sought ways to get around this decision, Congress added another fugitive slave law in 1850, voiding all such state efforts. Blacks and abolitionists nicknamed it “The Bloodhound Law.” The prospect of the new law’s enforcement propelled as many as 3000 ex-slaves out of their northern homes and into Canada within 90 days.

Frederick Douglass, now publishing his own newspaper, argued,

“the only way to make the fugitive slave Law a dead letter is to make one half dozen or more dead kidnappers.”

William Lloyd Garrison concurred:

“Every fugitive slave is justified in arming himself for protection and defense—in taking the life of every marshal, commissioner, or other person who attempts to reduce him to bondage.”

By March 1851 more than sixty attempts to recapture fugitives were recorded, with over one hundred African Americans involved in these roundups. In the autumn of 1851, amidst spreading abolitionist resistance, a spectacular case burst into the headlines that featured organized and armed resistance to defy the racist law. National delegates from the Liberty Party, the breakaway coalition of Whig and Democratic politicians dedicated to promoting “Free Soil and Free Labor,” gathered for a convention in Syracuse the last week of September 1851. The Fugitive Slave Law was on the agenda. But just as the meeting opened, local federal marshals took a fugitive slave, William “Jerry” Henry, into custody. As he was taken into custody, church bells rang throughout the city to signal members of the local vigilance committee. When the crowd arrived at the commissioner’s office, Henry was being held in handcuffs. In the middle of the hearing, a group of black and white men attempted to free Henry. He was hustled out onto the street, where the sympathetic throng parted to let the ex-slave flee but blocked the lawman in pursuit. However, he was finally apprehended and placed in leg irons as well as handcuffs.

Under heavy guard, Jerry’s hearing resumed at the police station, but it adjourned when a menacing crowd surrounded the building. By evening local abolitionists were in high gear. Gerrit Smith, who would later become a friend and patron of Tubman’s, advocated: “A forcible rescue will demonstrate the strength of public opinion. . . . It will honor Syracuse and be a powerful example everywhere.” A rescue party, armed with clubs, axes, and a battering ram, consisted overwhelmingly of Black faces—largely because most White participants decided to use burnt cork as disguise. When the mob rushed the building, shots were fired. But the attackers refused to back down. They shattered the prison’s wooden door, and Jerry’s guards fled. The rescued fugitive was bundled into a carriage and given safe passage to Canada. Falling on similar incidents elsewhere, this setback made federal authorities howl. Eventually twenty-six men were indicted for their roles in the riot. But when these cases finally went to trial, one man was convicted, another was acquitted—and then, mirroring a judicial outcome in Pennsylvania, the charges against the others were dropped. As one of the participants crowed:

The fugitive, Jerry, is safe in Canada. His honor the President, Millard Fillmore, has received a nice box, by express, containing Jerry’s shackles. . . . Judge Lawrence, who was so officious in kidnapping Jerry . . . has been presented by the ladies of Syracuse, with 30 pieces of silver,—(3 cent pieces)—the price of betraying innocent blood. (The amount that Judas was paid to betray Jesus)

In the wake of the Fugitive Slave Act, so soon after her arrival in Philadelphia, Harriet Tubman saw this climate of fear and resistance mushroom. She had just begun to enjoy the fruits of freedom when the realities of a country divided over slavery became clear. Tubman’s growing realization that all people of color—slave, fugitive, or free, in both North and South—were imperiled by the very existence of racial bondage made 1850 a critical turning point in her life, as her own personal journey to freedom expanded to include the aspirations of all slaves.

Thou shalt not deliver unto his master the servant which is escaped from his master.. —Deuteronomy 23:15

Harriet, the “Rescuer”

Harriet, in addition to becoming a “conductor” on the Underground Railroad (UGRR) became known as “abductor,” who rescued slaves as well as leading them to safety. Among the rare people who took on this dual role, she was the most successful and the most famous.

Her vantage point was unique – being Black, fugitive, and female, yet willing to undertake the risks of her dual role, is what allowed Harriet to become such a powerful voice against slavery. When she spoke out against slavery, she was not attacking it in the abstract but had personally known its evils. She risked the horror of reenslavement with every trip, repeatedly defying the enslavers’ power with her rescues and abductions. These feats elevated the significance of her contributions to the abolitionist movement. She embodied the motto of the “American antislavery Society.”

If you come to us and are hungry, we will feed you, if thirsty, we will give you drink, if naked, we will clothe you; if sick, we will minister to your necessities, if in prison, we will visit you; if you need a hiding place from the face of pursuers, we will provide one that even bloodhounds will not scent out. (Inspired by Matthew: 25:37-40.)

Harriet Returns South in Risky Rescue of Niece from the Auction Block

When Harriet’s master died in 1849, his wife petitioned the court to sell the slave woman, Keziah. Known as Kizzy, she was the daughter of one of Harriet’s sisters sold south, and had been especially close to her aunt Harriet, whom she called Sister. Kizzy, along with two children, was slated for sale in December 1850. Her husband, a free Black, was determined to rescue them, and got word to Harriet in Philadelphia about the impending sale. This message was conveyed only weeks after passage of the infamous Bloodhound Law. The free states were in turmoil over the invasion of slavecatchers, now sanctioned by federal authority.

Would history be repeating itself? Would Kizzy be lost to the Deep South, as her mother was? Would her children be sent elsewhere, left motherless, as Kizzy had been? What could Harriet do to interrupt this tragic cycle? She had tried to put her recurring nightmares of women’s screams and hoofbeats behind her, but with this message from home, she was haunted once again.

Harriet was determined to find a way to bring this favorite niece and her children out to freedom before they were put on the auction block. By the time Kizzy and her offspring were taken to the slave trader in Cambridge, Maryland, a plan to rescue her was in place. Family lore suggests that when the auctioneer went to dinner, her husband, a free black, took the opportunity to smuggle Kizzy and her two children aboard a boat. He rowed them across the bay to Bodkin’s Point on the Chesapeake’s western shore. he delivered them safely to Tubman, who hid the family in Baltimore until she could find a way to transport them out to freedom.

Surely her success with this first operation whetted Tubman’s appetite, particularly with her parents, several siblings, nephews, nieces, and especially her husband all left behind on the Eastern Shore. And so she made her second trip back into Maryland in the spring of 1851. In the autumn of 1851, on her third trip south, Harriet undertook her most desperate gamble. She wanted to persuade her husband, John Tubman, to come away with her. So she returned once again to the Eastern Shore. But on this trip she ventured back even closer to home, flirting with detection by going to Dorchester County, where she was still well known. Her first two rescues were successful and important, but this third raid was far more significant for a variety of reasons.

Harriet was on an even more personal mission than she had been during her first two returns, which had been in response to pleas from her family. This trip was taken on her own initiative and the outcome was much less certain. She approached Cambridge and sent a message to her husband, asking him to meet her and to accompany her on the journey back north. While she was in hiding, Harriet discovered that her husband had taken another wife. As he had in 1849, he again refused to leave. While she risked everything for a chance that they might be together, he turned her down. Worse yet, he would not even go to see her. Not only were her feelings not reciprocated – she had been replaced.

Harriet’s dreams, her imagined future, was dashed. She was holed up in a dangerous place, worried with each daybreak that she might be betrayed and recaptured. This moment may have proved as much of a watershed as her initial escape two years before. For months she had been trying to reconstitute her own family circle, but she realized that so many other slave families were in similarly desperate straits. She had great fears about her future course, and confided,

“The Lord told me to do this. I said, “Lord, I can’t – don’t ask me – take somebody else.” But she also reported that God spoke directly to her: “it’s you I want, Harriet Tubman.”

To that end, in December 1851 she made her first commitment to the UGRR. It would not be a wasted journey. Boston abolitionist Franklin Sanborn described with admiration: “She did not give away to rage or grief, but collected a party of fugitives and brought them safely to Philadelphia.” Members of her fugitive band included not only family members and their acquaintances; for the first time, Harriet guided out strangers as well.

By this time Tubman had decided, “I wouldn’t trust Uncle Sam with my people no longer, but I brought ’em clear off to Canada.” When she took on the role of abductor she took an even more proprietary interest in her flock. Even though she had never been so far north before, she decided that Canada was the new Canaan, and Niagara her new River Jordan. Harriet made her first border crossing in December 1851.

She developed a pattern that allowed her to successfully ferry at least ten fugitives at a time at least once a year. She kept to the backroads and never traveled by day while in the “land of Egypt.” One admirer noted, “She always came in the winter, when the nights are long and dark, and people who have homes stay in them.”

Fearlessness Grounded in Spiritual Intuition

Her fearlessness was legendary, and Thomas Garrett, a Quaker stalwart, integral to the Underground Railroad, confided to a friend: “Harriet seems to have a special angel to guard her on her journey of mercy . . . and confidence [that] God will preserve her from harm in all her perilous journeys.” Divine intervention became a popular rationalization of Harriet’s success during her years behind enemy lines. It was certainly her own explanation, as Garrett again observed: “I never met with any person of any color who had more confidence in the voice of God, as spoken direct to her soul.” Another contemporary confided: She could elude patrols and pursuers with as much ease and unconcern as an eagle would soar through the heavens. She “had faith in God”; always asked Him what to do, and direct her, “which,” she said, “He always did.” She would talk about “consulting with God,” or “asking of Him,” just as one would consult a friend upon matters of business; and she said, “He never deceived [me].” Harriet’s faith reflected words from Psalm 32:8:

“I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with mine eye.”

Harriet confessed, “When danger is near, it appears like my heart goes flutter, flutter.” She believed her ability was a kind of second sight, something she inherited from her father, who she said could forecast the weather and had predicted the war with Mexico. One of her admirers explained that Tubman was “as firm in the conviction of supernatural help as Mahomet.”

Harriet’s Spiritual mettle was second only to her physical endurance. During a particularly difficult time, out in the wilds while smuggling a group, she was in extreme pain over an infection in her mouth. The inflammation was getting worse and worse, so she simply took her pistol and knocked out her own offending teeth, ending her misery. since Losing her top row of teeth, she considered, was a small price to pay for relief.

Harriet would nearly always spend Christmas in Canada with her family, then settle in for the first two months of the year. Most Underground Railroad (UGRR) caravans made the journey to Canada in the dead of winter – primarily before Christmas, as New Year’s Day was the time when masters were most likely to send slaves to the auction block. Winter was a slow season for field work and became the “weeping time” for slaves, when traders came looking for stock to ship south.

During spring thaws. Harriet would travel back to the States to earn wages from laundering, cooking, or other domestic service. She would also connect with UGRR contacts and collect more donations. In the fall, if she had enough funds, Tubman would head south and infiltrate a slave community. UGRR donations came in handy to cover the cost of bribes and expenses while conducting business within the slave states.

Harriet would take on short-term rescue assignments as well as her major expeditions. On several occasions she would return to a community to extract the remaining relatives of already escaped fugitives. Most poignantly, one of those during rescues took out three of her brothers before they were about to be put on the auction block; a visit which also included extraordinary subterfuge to see her father, yet protect him with a veil of secrecy. Her mother was too excitable to be included, but she later brought both parents to Canada.

[i] [ii] Douglass, Frederick. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass . BookRix. Kindle Edition. Just [iii]ii https://fugitiyvesslaveact.weebly.com [v] Ibid. [vi] Clinton, Catherine. Harriet Tubman . Little, Brown and Company. Kindle Edition. [vii] Karl Ostrom, PhD, comments by author [viii] Karl Ostrom, PhD, comments by author [ix] Karl Ostrom, PhD, comments by author