Frederick Douglass: The escaped slave who became an advisor to presidents

Two years later, when he’d reached adulthood, Douglass was sent to Baltimore where he learned to caulk ships; his wages going straight into his master’s pocket. But then, in September 1838, when he was 20 years old, he successfully made a break for freedom. Putting on a red shirt, a sailor’s hat and a black cravat, he jumped on a train that sent him on a journey that would eventually see him settle in New York.

It was Douglass’ second attempt at escaping slavery – but his first step in becoming a powerful abolitionist, that would see him go on to advise presidents Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson on the suffrage of Black people.

After writing his compelling memoir in 1845, entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass – which sold 13,000 copies and was his first of three autobiographies – the young man fled to the UK. Suspecting vitriol as a result of the book’s publication, while aware it might alert his master to his whereabouts, it seemed the logical solution. 

Over the course of 19 months, Douglass spoke more than three hundred times to thousands of people in Leeds, Newcastle, Exeter, Belfast, Edinburgh and elsewhere, as he gave lectures against slavery. He was met by standing-room-only crowds, tears and ovations, and made his audience laugh by mimicking his former slave master.

The British people loved Douglass, eventually paying for his liberation, so he could return home a free man, and be reunited with his loving wife Anna Murray, whom he’d left behind in New York City. From there he continued his work as a speaker and writer, and became a national leader of the abolition movement. It’s also reported that he and his wife provided support and a roof for more than four hundred escaped slaves.

When September 1848 marked the 10 year anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to Thomas Auld, his former master, It read:  

Oh! sir, a slaveholder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. … The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.

This month sees a new edition of Douglass’ first autobiography published by the Folio Society, which contains an introduction by Ghanaian poet and professor Kwame Dawes, reflecting on how his work remains relevant to the struggle for the equality of people of African descent today. 

Of the book, Dawes says: ‘Douglass accepts that his story is a tool of doctrine…The presumed value of [the] story is to affect some grander change, to defend the humanity of the Black persona, to demonstrate that they are also human, and to translate for the white world the inscrutable story of their existence. 

‘It is a peculiar American lineage that keeps repeating itself whether it is the story of Douglass, Bigger Thomas, Maya Angelou, Malcolm X or Will Smith.’

Speaking to Metro.co.uk, Dr Dawes explains how Douglass’ teachings impact us still today. 

‘One of the striking things about Douglass is that he was so well-photographed – he remains one of the most photographed individuals, certainly in America, in the 19th century,’ he explains. ‘His face appeared in newspapers and magazines but also on postcards and posters and all kinds of things.

‘There’s a fascinating way in which he was constantly being photographed. And as with social media today, you can’t control the message behind why somebody is is popular, or is well known. Douglass was both cause célèbre for the anti slavery movement, but also vilified and hated by those people who supported slavery. And that was part of the grand monstrosity of his popularity.

‘At the end of the day, he made use of it to garner large crowds to be able to speak against slavery and to pursue the battle against it.’

Imagining how the abolitionist would spread his message if he were alive today, Dr Dawes adds: ‘It is not difficult to extrapolate that Douglass would embrace and make full use of viral culture.’

Never smiling – so as not to perpetuate any kind of ‘happy slave’ narrative – Douglass would look straight into the lens as he posed for pictures, his demeanour confident and strong.

He used his image as a weapon to fight back against the caricatures and cartoons depicting Black people. ‘Am I not a man?’, he famously wrote. The images travelled far further than Douglass himself could.

As Dr Dawes says: ‘He sat for over 160 portraits. These were not snapshots. These were orchestrated and calculated events, and Douglass mobilised his image as a weapon, as an affront to white supremacy.’