American History Hit - Frederick Douglass: Enslavement & Escape

Episode Date: February 6, 2025

Born enslaved in 1818, by the time of the Civil War Frederick Douglass was famous around the United States and Europe for his work in the abolition movement. So how did this famous orator learn his trade, having never been to school? How did he escape enslavement? And how did his ideals change as war was brewing?Sidney Morrison introduces us to Frederick Douglass in this first of two episodes. Sidney is the author of 'Frederick Douglass: A Novel'.Produced by Sophie Gee. Edited by Aidan Lonergan. Senior Producer was Charlotte Long.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  You can take part in our listener survey here.All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries, with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. July 5th, 1852. At Corinthian Hall in Rochester, New York,

members of the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society sit attentively focused on the speaker before them. The hall, its tall windows lining both sides and a high-paneled ceiling trapping the heat and humidity feels close, stifling. Guests shift in their seats, billowing skirts brushing against one another. Under most any other circumstances,

this assembly would be restless, impatient, longing for a breath of fresh air. But today, they are riveted upon the podium before them, where stands Frederick Douglass, the noted African-American writer and orator, commanding the room with his remarkable presence, as he addresses a theme dear to all Americans, the meaning of the Fourth of July. I am glad, fellow citizens, that your nation is so young, he says to his audience. 76 years, though a good old age for a man, is a mere speck in the life of a nation.

Douglas proceeds to draw this parallel analogy between the life of a man and the life of a country. Three score years and ten is the allotted time for individual men, but nations number their years by thousands. According to this fact, you are even now only in the beginning of your national career, still lingering in the period of childhood. I repeat, I am glad this is so. Why is he glad? This man, who spent the earlier years of his life enslaved in the South, who has had to fight prejudice and hatred all his 30-some years to cast off those shackles. Because somehow, in such a young nation, and in the mind of this optimistic man, there is still hope. Though there are dark clouds gathering on the horizon, dark clouds that were forborebordes, that were forebordes.

the coming civil war, Douglas says. The United States is still young enough to correct its path. Hey, it's American History Hit. I'm Don Wildman. Greetings and thanks for listening. In February 1818, on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay, a boy named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born enslaved. Such was the system across the American South in those days. If you were born to a mother enslaved than most likely you were and for all your living days to come enslaved as well. Such were the inescapable rules of chattel slavery in America, which would over the course of this boy's life become the wedge issue between the northern and southern states leading to the civil war. But somehow, against all odds, this boy's life and destiny would prove to be

astonishingly different. His name would be changed as well to Frederick Douglass. And in this episode today, we'll discuss the remarkable biography of this legendary figure, who broke free from his bondage to become one of the most admired and accomplished Americans of his day and ours, having dedicated his work as a skilled writer, celebrated orator, journalist, and publisher, to the abolition of slavery, to racial and gender equality to the courageous advocacy of social justice ideals. And to understand how he did this, we are joined now by author Sidney Morrison, whose 2004 work Frederick Douglass,

a novel, imagines the personal side of this man's very public life. Sydney has worked as a history teacher and high school principal in the Los Angeles area, and it's very nice to have you on the show. Hello, Sydney Morrison. Hello, what a pleasure it is for me to be with you today, Don, and to talk

about a man I have admired, respected, and marveled at his extraordinary life that you've captured for well. His is a very long life, Frederick Douglass, I'm curious how and why you chose to explore it in a narrative form as a novel. I chose the novel as an act of liberation because Frederick Douglass, as you indicated, that a very public life and the documents show whatever he was doing as a speaker was noted down by reporters from the moment he emerged as a public speaker until he died.

We now know where he was almost an everyday where he was lecturing, where he was speaking. However, he was very reticent in talking about his personal life. And in his books, and he wrote three of them, he rarely talked about his wife or his children and his relationships with women who were very important in his life. It's so interesting. Yeah, and because of those omissions, I felt that without documentation, then a novelist would have permission and give himself permission to imagine that personal life. And the novelist, as Hillary Manchell said, brings the dead to a life. And that's why I chose

to write a novel rather than a biography. So let's sketch out that biography. It all begins, as I say before, in Maryland, 1818, where he was born to his mother Harriet Bailey. The father, however, was a mystery to him all his life. Take us through those early years. which were spent many of them mostly apart from his mother, who passed away when he was seven. Yes, he was born on the Aitcent Shore. He, in fact, did not even know his birth date. He thought he was from his recollections. He thought he was born in 1817.

And if you go to his grave site in Rochester, New York, his grave site is marked 1817 to 1895. An historian, thankfully, discovered the records of his original enslaver, and there he is listed as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, February 1818. And from there, Douglas had a remarkable good fortune in being born enslaved to Aaron Anthony, who I believe was his biological father. And Aaron Anthony, when he died, he left his enslaved to his children. And fortunately for Frederick, he was left to his daughter, Lucretia. Lucretia left instructions to take care of Frederick. And he was sent to Baltimore, which was a very transformational change for him. Because he left plantation slavery and experienced urban slavery, which many people do not know about.

And this gave him a great deal of freedom and expose. to a life of freedom that he would have never had on the eastern shore. I just want to underscore a few of the things you've mentioned already. Father of mystery, even in his own autobiographies, but you're mentioning Aaron Anthony, who was the clerk and overseer of a whole bunch of, he had large responsibilities as a slaveholder in those days. This was something that was repeated all over the South, of course. Owners or masters, if you will, of enslaved people, raping, essentially, the women that

were their possessions. That's very likely the situation in Frederick Douglass's case. It's very indelicate. It's a hard thing to talk about, but that was the truth of one of the hidden crimes of slavery, really, was this aspect of it. And then you're talking about how much movement this young boy did through his early years from one place to the other. And this is hard to keep up with, but that was the other aspect of enslavement in those days. You were a product. You were a service that was leased out or purchased or any number of ways that you would have found yourself away, family connection didn't matter. They broke up families.

They utilized young boys especially as a very important product. Oh, you know, I could get a lot of money for that. That informed his entire childhood until he finally, as you say, ends up in Baltimore in a whole different kind of experience, which is this urban enslavement. One of the things that you allude to, John, that is very important to recognize is, is that enslavers had privileges and opportunities that, in some cases, were very destructive. Because Aaron Anthony owned one family, the Bailey family. The family was such that he owned, or as we say enslaved, Betsy Bailey, who he allowed to live

somewhat independently. This was Frederick's grandmother. And Betsy had five daughters. and Aaron Anthony's relationships with these daughters, one of whom was Frederick's mother, was quite sexual and exploitative. And from these relationships, there were several children. But what was really interesting is Frederick Douglass says in his first book, My father was a white man.

He says that unequivocally. And so the question was, who was this white man? And for me, the answer, it must have been Aaron Anthony, Because throughout this young boy's life, the interventions of Aaron Anthony and his daughter and his daughter's husband play out in such ways that it makes it at least appear to me that there was a significant connection. And even later, when Douglas could have been sent away for doing things that slaves were not supposed to do, like teaching other slaves how to read or learning how to read and reading. Wright himself because of the intervention of one of the members of this family, he could have been separated and sent away to the Deep South to work on distant plantations. But that never happened. He was sent to Baltimore three times by this family. And that to me demonstrated a special

relationship, but it also demonstrated that his experiences in Baltimore forever changed him. because he had a vision of freedom that he would not have had if he remained on the eastern shore. His great achievements are many, but one of them is to be such a writer and publisher. And it is in Baltimore at the age of eight that he's at first taught to read, or at least given the rudimentary instruction to how to read by Sophia Aldi, the wife of the man who has taken possession of him. This begins this career of his, this literate career. How difficult was it for a boy like him to learn to read and write?

That was not done, was it? It was not allowed because enslavers knew that if someone learned to read, they more and likely would encounter information about freedom, either newspapers from abolitionists or some of the famous speeches and letters from the founders about freedom. And so they didn't want enslaved people to have such exposure. He was originally taught out his letters by Sophia Old so that he could read the Bible. But when it was discovered that she was doing this by my husband, he absolutely forbade any further instruction. But the cat or whatever I was out of the bag, because his reaction showed the power of language.

And so this remarkable little boy went out onto the streets and created games like, what's this? What's that? So little boys on the streets, he would use them to point words on signs and on the streets. And sometimes he even bribed them with stolen biscuits from Sophia Old's kitchen so that he could learn these words. And from there, he collected words. And he did this throughout his life.

I used to do the same thing, collect words, especially words that sounded very resonant and powerful. And then when he saw students reciting speeches, he asked him, what were these speeches? Where were these speeches from? and they told them about a book that they were studying because they had to recite in class, and he found out where this book could be purchased, and he saved up his little money that he earned from doing certain things, because he was allowed to do that in, again, urban slavery created more allowances for children to do things like that.

And he went to the store, to this bookstore and bought this book. And it changed everything because he was reading Patrick. Henry and other founders about freedom and justice, and it inspired him. And he kept that book his entire life. Wow. Resourceful is hardly the word for this boy. Yes. Not only resourceful, but determined to actualize the meaning of those words. Exactly. By the time he's 16, he's been in Baltimore for about eight years at that point, right? He's sent back, as happens, rented out to a farmer named Edward Covey.

And this man was right out of the book, the textbook slave breaker type. And there, Douglas's not yet Douglas, Bailey is beaten several times and actually fights back. This is a curious incident to me. It's mentioned every time, I suppose, is part of his autobiography. He actually strikes back at the man and beats him at the fight.

This changes their relationship forever. I always wondered how would he have managed to do that. and not get into a lot of trouble. That encounter, that fight, that experience was transformational. And in fact, Frederick Douglass in his book says that it changed him forever, that he became a man, a man who was committed to freedom after that fight. He was sent back to the eastern shore because of the dispute between two brothers. And so, and as a punishment to the brother who did not do what,

the other, his legal owner wanted, he said, send them back. So he was sent back. And by now, having been in Baltimore for so long, he was not a plantation slave. And therefore, he was very presumptuous. He was considered to be troublesome. And because of that, Thomas Old, who was his legal owner now, Thomas Old, the husband of Lucretia, who had passed away, he was sent to Edward Covey for his spirit to be broken. Literally, his spirit to be broken. And Edward Covey was notorious for doing this. And Frederick had to experience plantation, had to farm slavery, and verbal and physical abuse

for months. And he even tells in his first book that at one point he contemplating, jumping into the Chesapeake Bay. He was so desperate. He even ran back to Thomas Old and said, you know, he's. doing this to me, please, please save me, save me. And Thomas Old said, no, you need to go back. You need to be subdued. You are just not cooperating. So he went back and at one point he decides he will not put up with this anymore. And they had this tremendous fight that is talked about

in many, many contexts. I was watching the Rachel Maddow show one evening. And she started talking about Edward Covey and House where Edward Covey beat Frederick Douglass again and again. And so one of the major questions that have been asked is why did have to be, you know, fighting this man that he did not, he was not punished for it. And I speculated about this because I was quite curious myself. And I think there are a couple of factors here. one that that Frederick was was the property of Thomas Oll and so I think that even though he could have justified killing Frederick in you know or

or doing something really damaging there was a still fact that Edward Covey did not own Frederick Douglas he was rented to him and so he in one sense saw that he would be losing his money if he killed him because, you know, it was very avaricious and wanted that money to continue. And the question is, well, what happened to his reputation? Because Frederick, after this point, was even more arrogant, you know, because he was now strutting around as the man who bought Edward Covey. And that was his reputation. And it did have impacted his life. But Covey, I believe was one of these people who just decided to balance his losses and his gains and decided it was not worth it to him to do more. Because after the year was up, he got another person to

brutalize. And he just had this one exception. And he was pretty sure that Douglas would eventually get into even more trouble, which he did. It's around 1836. And by this time he is around 18 years old, that we're talking about escape. I mean, this is his great, it is his cause. I'm curious if he ever ran across Harriet Tubman. I mean, that's the same region she's working in, right? Yes, that's correct. And one of the most moving letters or pieces of work that he did was years later, he was asked to write about Harriet Tubman. And yet they never met. And so they lived concurrent lives but never met. But he heard of her and he in fact praised her for doing in her private, in her life what he did not do, which was help others escape in a very private way

at great risk to her. And he admired that and praised her for it, but they never met. Extraordinary. Those two are just, you know, tips of the iceberg of these lives that were lived so boldly. Yeah. To operate outside the lines of enslavement is amazing, considering how defeating that is every moment of your life to then have the vision of Frederick Douglass or Harry Tubman. It just boggles the mind how a human being could maintain any kind of hope and sustain that kind of dream, much less accomplish it.

That's what so inspired me about Frederick Douglass. By the way, in the State House in Maryland, in Annapolis, there are two statues that standout and they're both of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman and opposite sides of the room. So the state of Maryland has come to recognize that these are favorite sons and daughters. And it's because they had led such extraordinary lives of hope. So they're inspirational to me as an African American, also as an American. And I would hope that their lives, and especially Frederick, as I studied him so much, is an inspiration for people who believe in freedom.

and hope for the future. Because he never gave that up, although it was strongly tested, especially in the latter part of his life, when Reconstruction was abandoned and the Ku Klux Klan was ascendant, and lynching was pervasive in the South in the 1880s and 90. He despaired of that, but he still managed to maintain hope and the promise of America. I'll be back with more American history after this short break.

does he escape? What is the actual means with which he gets to the north? When Anna Murray, whom he met in Baltimore at an improvement society, she proposes to help him escape because she could tell that he had a future and that she wanted to be a part of that future. So he had to figure out how to escape without endangering her or the lives of his friends who knew that he had a future elsewhere, that he was not going to. to stay. And Baltimore was so close to the Pennsylvania border that there was a lot of slave catchers who were waiting for people to try to escape and make money from it. And there were even black people who saw opportunities for financial advancement by turning in people

who tried to escape. Anna Murray, who you're talking about is in Baltimore, and she's actually a freeborn woman. That's right. She's a freeborn. Not enslaved. So she is able to, operate this, and she manages to get him papers. That's right. And also a sailor's outfit, I suppose. That's right. That's right. And he actually stows away on a boat. Actually, he gets on a train first. And he describes the scene where on the train, he knows he's going to encounter conductors, because in the 19th century, conductors would walk through the train and ask people to show their papers. But what Frederick Douglas counted on was the respect that was given to sailors. You know, Annapolis is the home of the Naval Academy, and sailors were highly respected,

though he had papers that had a general description, but anyone who looked at them in detail would see they didn't match. But he was counting on just the impression. You know, he was a big guy, he had this impressive sailor suit. And so when the conductor approached him, He was the conductor was solicitous and saying, where are you going? And I see you're a sailor. You know, thank you for, you know, serving. And that's what got him through. It was just an act.

And so he managed to cross the line into and then, you know, to get on a boat and arrives at Philadelphia and, you know, steps on the ground of freedom for the very first time. But that was all possible. because of Anna Murray's support and assistance with him. And eventually, when he got to New York, that's where he was going. He got to New York, and she arrived there following him, and they got married. And they will stay married for 44 years, which is amazing. 44 years.

We need to skip through a few things and touch down briefly here. His travels, his escape plan, takes him through Philadelphia onto New York, which was actually not a very safe place. There was a lot of the same thing was going on on the borders, as in New York because, of course, it's a hub. And so he needed to get out of that city. But that's where he first changes his name from Bailey to Johnson, which was also a temporary change as well.

But he's basically on his way to New Bedford in Massachusetts, which in those days would have been known already as an abolitionist center, right? Right. Yes, correct. His intention was to be a New Yorker. And for me, as a New Yorker, I found that somewhat ironic. But because it was an urban center and it promised many, many jobs. But he learned very quickly that there were many people waiting for people like him to apply for jobs along the waterfront of New York.

And there were even black people willing to betray him for income. So the man who he was receiving help from, David Buggles, who was very well known in circles for abolitionists in New York recommended that his change his name. and he changed it to Johnson. But he was told he can't stay in New York. So he was sent to New Bedford, a place that he had never heard of, never been. Right. New Bedford is on Cape Cod, famous for the Moby Dick story. It's a big, was a whaling capital, but a large seaport.

And you're mentioning this because he had actually been trained as a ship's cocker and he could get down that, which is a very important craft, which will enable him to get work in that town. Why did he eventually change it to Douglas? He changed his name because he was told there are too many John. In fact, his host was a Johnson. So Frederick decides that he needs to have a different name. And he was reading a book by Sir Walter Scott called Lady of the Lake. And the hero name is Douglas.

So he decides that he liked the sound of it. And so he decides to take on the name of Douglas. And with one slight addition, he wanted to add a, an extra S because in Lenia of the Lake is a single S that he wanted two. And that was his S and his way of saying, I am different. So his name is, you know, is Frederick Augustus, Washington, Bailey, Douglas. There you go. But his marriage certificate has him as Frederick and Anna Johnson. They marry 1838. He's 20 years old. And New Bedford is really his launch pad. And this is vis-a-vis a man named William Lloyd Garrison and the work that is being done in the abolitionist circles,

this is where he ends up at a convention in Nantucket, which was, you know, the Athenium there is very famous even those days, around the age of 23, actually, about 1841, he lands in Nantucket and makes a speech at the anti-slavery society, which becomes the Massachusetts anti-slavery society. And is that where Garrison hears him speak? I've always been confused about that. Yes. Now, interesting enough, Douglas started speaking against slavery while he was living in New Bedford because he was very much against the idea of colonization, which was the idea that to solve the race problem and the slavery problem, all black people should leave the country and go to either Africa or South America. So he was already in the habit of doing

talked. And then he heard about this convention that was going to be on Nantucket. And he had been reading the Liberator at William Lloyd Garrison's newspaper. And so, and he had been encouraged to go to this, this convention. So he went to this convention and he spoke. And that's where Garrison heard him and knew, he says, this man is amazing. He can really talk about slavery. very well, and he will really engage audiences, especially white audiences, because of his eloquence and his vivid descriptions. And it was a comparison that really changed his life in terms of his career. This is the pivot point, and we all have seen this happen in various venues. We see great actors, any kind of performer just has it, you know, that's star quality.

And that's what you know Frederick Douglass owns. He's a self-educated man. He certainly has not orated much, but there he is given a chance in this particular situation where oration is the key, and he has got that star quality. And so if you're looking for these pivot points, you mentioned one before, the fight that he has where he stands up for, you know, against his enslaver. And then here in this anti-slavery society meeting, he suddenly is noticed. And this is going to be the skill set that really carries him forth, not only his ability to speak, but also his ability to write. All of these things that he's trained himself to be, which is what, you know, brings tears to the eyes to imagine how brave and bold this man was to grab him on. And we are

decades from the Civil War. Yes. There's no reason that anyone would think anything is going to change in America in any radical way. And yet he's finding his way through this. Frederick Douglass, for several years, Don, gave a speech called the self-made man. And he said there's no such thing. He says that self-made men are the products of their interactions with other people. And his life is a testament to the intervention of key figures. And so that his story is a story of not only his own ambition and his own perseverance, but also the good luck of having people supporting him, reinforcing his star quality. You know, Anna saw his star quality in Baltimore. Thomas Old saw that this was a special kid who was so special that he had to be essentially subdued.

But when the time came, when he tried to escape and could have been sent away by Thomas Old to the deep south and made money, because Frederick by then was a strapping six-foot teenager and he could have gotten thousands of dollars for him. Instead, he sent him back to Baltimore. And that saved his life, not only physically, but in terms of the trajectory of his future. And so what I want to assert here is that Frederick Douglass's life is not only a testament to his own perseverance, his own ambition, but also is a testament to what you said earlier, that there are key figures that can transform people's lives. And so therefore, as a leader, I have asked people, who are you mentoring? Because mentorship is so key to development of great careers. And if you have someone who sees something in you, that is important to validate and then to become an instrument of that development.

And so Garrison was crucial in changing the trajectory of his life because now he was on a public stage where his gift or language was going to be recognized. And he gave thousands of speeches. And he was, and, you know, speechgiving was the primary, was the major form of public entertainment. And Douglas was good at it. So good at it that sometimes his voice was, got raw because he talked, you know, for a long time because many people were expected to give long speeches

two hours at length. It's an amazing thing that this man never went to school a day of his life. He studied the Bible. He studied Shakespeare. He read Dickens. He had an extraordinary verbal memory. And to quote pages and pages of poems and speeches. And he used this in his eloquent speeches.

But they were a product of his exposure to other writers. Yes. But also it was a product of his own natural gift. I'm glad we're talking ahead because, believe it or not, for the listeners, he's only 27 at the point where we've left off. A 27-year-old, gorgeous person. I mean, that's the other thing. We're not mentioning. This man walks in a room, everybody notices him.

That's right. He's an extraordinarily handsome man and tall and strong and all the rest of it. Which was unusual for that time. Yeah. And he's bringing in a positive energy into the room. He is, he's, all these star qualities, basically. 1845, I mentioned, 27 years old. He heads off to the UK.

Again, extraordinary. This formerly enslaved man is now heading off. He's still officially enslaved. He's still a fugitive slave. They haven't passed the law yet, but it's coming. And he's sent off by the crowd that he's in, wants to send him away. I suppose he's under pressure to do so because he could get caught, right? That's correct.

When he wrote, when he wrote his first book, narrative of the life of Frederick Douglas, an American slave, he wrote it to validate that he was a legitimate slave because he was being accused of not being a real slave because he was so sophisticated, so articulate. So he wrote a book to prove that he was who he was. And he is now in the process of naming his enslavers and where he was from and all of that. So he is basically putting a sign on himself, find me. And so he's encouraged to go to England where he's in high demand. He's written a book that's a bestseller.

But he also has to get out of the country because he might be captured. And then he goes to England. And that's again another transformative phase of his life. Of course, yes. There he meets English abolitionists who decide to liberate him technically by making connections with Thomas Old and essentially, raising money for his purchase. Right. The word is is manumission, which

is when someone raises the money to purchase their freedom. That is done through this circle of friends over in England. They raise $711.66, which in those days was a lot more. And as of 1845, another pivot moment, he is a free man.

Not only a free man, but one who is a best-selling author, which is amazing. Right. Yeah. He becomes a star in England and Scotland. Ireland because of this book and because of his speeches. He's a rock star of the 19th century. Of course. He looks the part. He speaks the part. But he considered the possibility of moving to England and staying there because his reception was so positive. And he didn't face the

discriminations that he experienced in America. So he thought maybe his wife and children would come, but they refused. And so his English friends made it possible for him to return to America. But now he's now even more famous when he returns to America. And now he's now given an real chance to go throughout the country and speak about slavery, which is what he does. He's turning into a tremendous leader is what's really happened. And he's being supported by a tremendous network of folks. Because he's the real deal. You know, I mean, this is the, he is, he is, speaking from experience, not just the intellectual, spiritual quality that the norther's abolitionists have been doing for so long at this point.

1848, 30, he's back in the United States. Now he's a free man, by the way, so he can move freely around this country. How would that have been proven? Would you have literally carried papers? Yes. The interesting thing, those papers were very important to Frederick, and he kept him in a strong box at his home. because when he finally moved to Rochester and the Fugitive Slave Act was passed in 1850 where literally all government agencies, including local agencies, were now required to return potential fugitives.

And Douglas kept those papers on it, took them sometimes with him and also had them locked to protect, to make sure that he could verify that he was legally free. 12 years of slave, Samuel Northup's account of his own enslavement, illegal enslavement, is a good comparison. Again, documentation is so important that he had to prove his being a free person. And yet later on, when the Supreme Court decides that black person has no rights as a citizen, this was devastating to Frederick Douglass because he counted on his citizenship as a vehicle. for proclaiming the greatness of America. And so the Supreme Court devastated him.

That Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act disavowed his ability to be an American citizen, right? Yes. It didn't necessarily mean that he could have been taken back to the South, right? No, no. The right of property was a right that was acknowledged even in slavery. Right. It's a property thing. So here he had proved that he is.

because he was sold by Thomas Old and so that he was a free person. But he saw himself as a citizen of New York State but also a citizen of America. And the Dred Scott decision of 1857 said declared that no, black people were not worthy of any rights of protection and were not citizens of the United States. And you imagine what that news meant to this guy. Yes. I mean, come on. Right. It was, it infuriated him, and it radicalized not only other abolitionists, but many Northerners, both the fugitive slave act and the Red Scott decision, made abolitionists of many

people who before were somewhat different. The flame that lit the tinder. It really truly was. I'll be back with more American history after this short break. We're talking about New York State, and I want to understand how he ends up there, Rochester areas where he and his five children, I mean, he's along the way, he's had this, he's also created a massive family. He goes there to start a newspaper. Why Rochester? Why that place? It's interesting that you referred earlier that he had relationships with key figures in the Boston community of abolitionists. The basic problem is he returned. He wanted to do more than just

be a speaker against slavery. And he was essentially wanting to now write about slavery to discuss the necessary tactics for instant slavery. And Garrison and his cohorts felt that Frederick was stepping out of his lane. That his goal was to be a speaker against slavery by telling his personal story. And Douglas wanted to do more. And because he wanted to do more, he felt he needed to get out of the Boston area. So he did some research about areas where he could possibly go.

And he chose Western New York because the Western New York community was very well known for its support of abolitionism, but also in helping fugitive slaves because Rochester was one of the last, you know, was the last post for the Underground Railroad before going to Canada. So he visited Rochester, met some. of the abolitionists there and can see it was a relatively liberal area compared to other areas in the country. So he decides to go to Rochester. At the age of 30, he begins the North Star, which is his newspaper for such a long time, which is really his megaphone for these causes. Some of which, and this is visiting on your book here, he becomes involved with other progressive

causes, namely, especially women's rights, which has such a home out there at the Seneca Falls, regioned with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and also Susan B. Anthony. All this stuff has happened and up there in northern New York. It's so exciting and so interesting, especially to us New Yorkers to take pride in the fact. So he was right in the hotbed of everything. He'd also broken with William Lloyd Garrison over issues of the Constitution, right? That's correct. And he started exploring what ways were more effective in slavery.

And because Garrison was a moral, what we'd call a moral abolitionist, he felt that people's consciences should be appealed to and they would give up enslavement, give up slavery. And Douglass began skeptical of that because no matter how much he talked about slavery, he came to recognize that people do not give up power willingly without a demand. And so he started thinking that perhaps there were other ways to bring about change. And so he started looking at, you know, political change, which was anathema of the garrison. We saw politics that's just totally corrupt. And he saw the U.S. Constitution.

He called it a covenant with death and an agreement with hell. So he was very much opposed to the Constitution and, in fact, got into trouble for burning copies of the Constitution publicly. And once a time agged and mobbed for it. But Douglas re-examined the Constitution, and he was influenced by a man that many people, people don't know, but I hope more people will know about, which is Jared Smith, who was a congressman from upstate New York, very wealthy. And in fact, he gave away land that he owned so people who could move to upstate New York have property and be able to vote in state election.

You call it Timbuktu, right? Yes. And yes, but Douglas was not interested in farming land after being with Edward Covey for that year. He was not interested in being a farmer. But Jared Smith helped him start the newspaper financially. Also, it encouraged him to reexamine the Constitution. And also, Jared Smith was a cousin of Elizabeth Cady Stanton. So they were all in this milieu of abolition and the suffrage movement. And they visit each other. They talk to each other. He was very close friends with all of these people in this area. And so he became more and more political in his thinking to the point that Garrison felt that Douglas betrayed the cause by changing his

views about the Constitution. And so he eventually considered Douglas an apostate or changing his mind and denounced Frederick publicly for doing so. Because when you were an apostate and Garrison's world. You were cast aside. He believed and saw the hope of working from within the system of America, changing it from within in order to get it to change from without. I'm being poetic when I need to be much more specific. Help me with that understanding of Frederick's view. He came to recognize you have to be in the system to change the system. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah. It's easier to be a zealot in the streets. It's easy. It's easy. He's here. And revolution starts

from the streets usually, but they end up in the committee room. And for some people, for those revolutionary zealous, that's portrayal. That's compromise. You're sitting down with politicians and you don't have to work out compromise. But he came

to realize that you have to be in the system in order to change the system. But that process took time for him. Because as he was becoming more and more interested in politics. Politics is becoming more and more

closed to black people after Dred Scott. And the South was really talking about, if we don't get what we want, we're going to leave. And so, and they saw Abraham Lincoln as a real threat to their sustaining slavery within the Republic. And so eventually, Douglas came to believe also that only violence was going to bring. bring it into slavery. That's why he was attracted to John Brown and his hope for starting slave

rebellions throughout the country. And he helped raise money for John Brown because he saw that for a time that even politics was not going to be viable and that their property had to be taken from them. This was a very controversial moment when they found, I mean, we've almost arrived at the end of this particular conversation because we're almost to the Civil War. But before we get there, there's the attack on the Harper's Ferry station. And that's John Brown's, as you say, that's his strategy to create these rebellions around. Douglas did not take part in that, although they find a letter from him to Brown or between them that is very controversial and sort of raises him up. Yeah, one of the things that when Douglas first met Brown in 1848, he did not agree.

He was a devoted Garrisonian. And so he objected to his plan to start slave rebellions. But as time went on, he saw more and more that Brown was correct that the enslaved had to rise up in rebellion against the system. So and so he supported that. And so when he wrote letters showing that support and raising money, he didn't know that Garrison was going to hold on to these letters and take him to Harper's Ferry. because when, when Brown invited him to Harvard's Ferry to participate in the raid in Harpers Ferry, Frederick said no. That is suicidal. That is not the way to do it.

You will be captured. If you've been to Harpers Ferry, you can see that it was just impossible for escape. Sure. But so he did not participate in Harper's Ferry because he saw it was suicidal. And when John Brown was captured and with his letters, Frederick Douglass was implicated by the federal government and he had to flee the country for a second time because the governor of Virginia wanted his life because he saw him as a rebellious traitor to the stability of the state and of the nation. And so Douglas again left not knowing if ever he was going to return.

He goes to Canada in that case, not to the UK at least. He first went to Canada. He went to Canada because it was easier to get to Canada. But the government was so determined to arrest him, there was talk of him being turned over by the Canadian government to America. And so his friends in Rochester went to him and said, you need to leave Canada because they are talking about having you captured and returned. And this becomes a lecture series in the UK again. Yes, that's correct. At any moment, I so understand why you wrote a historical. novel about this man because at any moment you're into the plot of a movie in this man's life.

You pull out two years and you have the entire two hours as filled with trying to figure out how this man could possibly navigate the waters he's in. It's extraordinary. That's my, Don, I've advocated and tried to get people to see the possibilities of a, rather than a feature film of two hours, because there's so much. But I would think that a television series of 10 to 12 episodes would really do great coverage of this dramatic life. You're right. It's a page turner because even though we know what happens, because of the tensions of that time, it really grips you to see how things could change in a moment's notice

because of circumstance or at the intervention of key people. He's also the nexus for so many of these big stories as well, the John Brown story, the Jared Smith story, all these different people. Yes. Yeah, have all this. We haven't even gotten to Abraham Lincoln yet, the Emancipation Proclamation. And we are going to stop now because we're going to have you back again if you'll have us because we need to talk about the other half of Frederick Douglass's life. I mean, essentially, pre-Civil War, we have arrived where he has his own paper called the Douglas. What is it called?

The Douglas paper. Frederick Douglass's paper. He begins publishing Douglas's monthly, first as a supplement to Frederick Douglass's paper. I mean, that's how much of a story this man who began enslaved has become a world-renowned, best-selling author, orator. It's an extraordinary story. And I'm particularly excited that someone out there might be hearing this who really doesn't know the story of Frederick Douglas. I mean, it's so vast that it almost, you know, it's tough to get in there because it's just a big story. But once you know about him and are curious, oh, my Lord, it opens up a whole portal.

And I, and that has been my hope and my challenge because his story is an American story. It is such a story of struggle and possibility and ambition and building a dream and making it so. and persevering despite the odds. And it's also a miraculous story because here was a verbal genius born in slave and through a lot of his special encounters that he had, he was able to actualize that genius on the stage where he could show

that his supreme gift was the gift of language. And so he became an order and a writer and became actually, as you said, the most famous black man, not only in America, but in the world. And the most photographed person. And the most photograph American of that era, because he was very aware of his own hotness. Well, aren't we all?

He wanted to control that image. And so he got attracted to photography very early. He had a picture taken of him in the 1840s, and he had pictures taken of him for the rest of his life. because he wanted to project this image of strength and of power. And I am a man to be taken seriously because he saw himself as representative of the best of America. Yeah. Just wait to you see where he ends up, folks. It's amazing.

Yeah, right. And talking about that part is really important to me, Don, because most people know of Frederick Douglass as the enslaved man who escapes and eventually becomes a speaker. but they don't know about the Douglas during and after the Civil War. Exactly. It ends up, spoiler alert on 15 acres with a beautiful house. That's right.

It's a great story. With an estate on, you know, outside of Washington, an overlooking community, and becomes an advisor to every president between Lincoln and Grover Cleveland. It's amazing. Amazing life. Yeah, and great. Sidney Morrison is the good man we've been speaking with. His 2024 work is called Frederick Douglass and novel.

It's a historical novel that takes a look at the personal side of this incredible public man. Thank you, Sidney. We'll talk to you again soon. I look forward to it. Hey, thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, all kinds of content from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries.

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