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aCTIvITy 1.14
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About the Author
Frederick Douglass (1818?–1895) was born into slavery in Maryland. He learned to read as a house servant in Baltimore. In 1838, Douglass escaped from his plantation and settled in Massachusetts. After spending two years abroad, he published an antislavery newspaper and was an advisor to President Lincoln during the Civil War. He was later appointed to positions in the U.S. government never before achieved by an African American.
autobiography
my Notes
from The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass,
an American Slave
by Frederick Douglass
1 I felt assured that if I failed in this attempt, my case would be a hopeless one—it would seal my fate as a slave forever. I could not hope to get off with anything less than the severest punishment and being placed beyond the means of escape. It required no very vivid imagination to depict the most frightful scenes through which I should have to pass in case I failed. The wretchedness of slavery, and the blessedness of freedom, were perpetually before me. It was life and death with me. But I remained firm, and, according to my resolution, on the third day of September, 1838, I left my chains, and succeeded in reaching New York without the slightest interruption of any kind. How
I did so—what means I adopted—what direction I travelled, and by what mode of conveyance—I must leave unexplained, for the reasons before mentioned.
2 I have been frequently asked how I felt when I found myself in a free State. I have never been able to answer the question with any satisfaction to myself. It was a moment of the highest excitement I ever experienced. I suppose I felt as one may imagine the unarmed mariner to feel when he is rescued by a friendly man-of-war from the pursuit of a pirate. In writing to a dear friend, immediately after my arrival at New York, I said
I felt like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions. This state of mind, however very soon subsided; and I was again seized with a feeling of great insecurity and loneliness.
I was yet liable to be taken and subjected to all the tortures of slavery. This in itself was enough to damp the ardor of my enthusiasm. But the loneliness overcame me. There
I was in the midst of thousands, and yet a perfect stranger; without home and without friends, in the midst of thousands of my own brethren—children of a common Father, and yet I dared not to unfold to any one of them my sad condition. I was afraid to speak to any one for fear of speaking to the wrong one, and thereby falling into the hands of money-loving kidnappers, whose business it was to lie in wait for the panting fugitive, as the ferocious beasts of the forest lie in wait for their prey. [I]n the midst of plenty, yet suffering the terrible gnawing of hunger—in the midst of houses, yet having no home— among fellow–men, yet feeling as if in the midst of wild beasts, whose greediness to swallow up the trembling and half-famished fugitive is only equalled by that with which the monsters of the deep swallow up the trembling and half-famished fish upon which they subsist—I say let him be placed in this most trying situation—the situation in which I was placed—then, and not till then, will he fully appreciate the hardships of, and know how to sympathize with, the toil-worn and whip-scarred fugitive slave.
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Unit 1 • The Challenge of Heroism 81
Word CoNNeCTIoNS
Prefixes and Suffixes
In the word subjected, the Latin prefix sub- means “below” or “less than.” It has the same meaning in submarine and subset. The Latin root -ject- means “to throw.” It appears in words like trajectory and reject.
mariner: one who works on a ship
damp: lessen
ardor: strong devotion
fugitive: one who flees
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