Frederick Douglass' Search for Identity

Introduction

There are good reasons for choosing Douglass' search for identity as the subject matter to be discussed in this essay. A principle reason is that in the course of Douglass' search for identity readers can find one of the central themes of White American ideology, that is the self-made man's rise to fame and fortune (Elliott, 359-360). What is more interesting is that the person who reiterates the theme is an ex-slave who is once considered as a piece of property, a chattel personal by his masters.

Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Maryland. He taught himself to read and write, escaped to Massachusetts by disguising himself as a sailor, and become one of the most effective orator of his day, an influential newspaper editor, an abolitionist, a reformer, and a respected diplomat. What he finally achieved in his life did not automatically fall from the sky. Instead, it was a series of hard work which was finally rewarded by "success." He started from the lowest level of a human existence and ended up as a respected diplomat. Therefore, his achievement seems to confirm what has been believed by many Americans to fabulous wealth and fame through his own effort.

In this essay, Douglass's struggle from bondage to freedom and fame will be analyzed to show that his achievement is indeed a result of years of hard work. Furthermore, to support some ideas being discussed, some important figures in American history will be included in the analysis. Since there are differences in the life and treatment of slave on the plantation and in the city, Douglass' experience as plantation slave, urban slave, and free man will be discussed separately.

Frederick Douglass as Plantation Slave

The plantation environment forced the two races-Black and White-to live in close proximity. This kind of circumstance could rise every sort of human relationship. Had their relationship been based on mutual need and understanding life on the plantation might have been more agreeable for both of them, but history had proved differently. The whites, who were the owners of the plantations, masters or overseers, felt themselves superior to the blacks, who were merely considered as plantation chattels; therefore, they treated them very brutally, inhumanly. As a child Douglass have witnessed his master's cruelty in punishing his aunt Hester. He wrote, "...he used to tie up to a joist, and whip her naked back till she was literally covered with blood.... The louder she screamed, the louder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped the longest" (Quarles,28).

"As slaves, Blacks were systematically deprived of all citizenship rights and priviliges and subjected not merely to prejudice and ethnic discrimination but an attrocious racism that declared them virtually subhuman" (Thomson, 3). Early in his childhood young Douglass had sensed this injustice. Whenever he wanted to know about his identity-his date of birth, his parentage, etc.-he would never get satisfactory answers. He never knew for sure who his father was; some said that his master (Captain Anthony) was his father, but he never knew about the correctness of that opinion. "A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood" (Quarles, 23).

The Blacks were considered as property. When Douglass was about ten or eleven years old, his old master, Captain Anthony, died, leaving only his son Andrew and daughter Lucretia to share his estate. Douglass, who served in town at that time, was immediately sent for, to be valued with the other property. "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" (Quarles, 74).

The teenage Douglass, who had gained a prospect on life in the city that changed him and made him forever 'unfit' to be a slave, became a refractory field hand. Therefore, his new master, Thomas, deemed the services of a "nigger breaker" essential. Thus, Douglass was hired out to Mr. Covey, a stern trainer of young slaves. The cruel treatment of Mr. Covey made him contemplate again and again about his fate. As a man, he did not want to be treated as a brute. He wrote, "O, why was I born a man, of whom to make a brute! Why am I a slave? O God, save me! Let me be free!" (Quarles, 96). Eventually, he couldn't stand his condition anymore. At one occasion he knocked Mr. Covey down. This fight was a proof of his revolt against the unjust treatment he had experienced. He wanted to be a man and he didn't want to be treated as an animal.

His triumph over Mr. Covey became the turning point in his career as a slave. It revived his sense of manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence and inspired him again with a determination to be free. This even brought Douglass to the resolution which he recorded as follows: "I now resolved that, however long I might remain a slave in form, the day had passed forever when I could be slave in fact" (Quarles, 105). Physical liberty and spiritual dignity became his goals. In the year 1835 he made a dangerous and unsuccessful attempt to escape bondage. As a consequence he was returned to the service of Hugh Auld in Baltimore.

Frederick Douglass as Urban Slave

Slavery was a cruel institution whether on the plantation or in town or city, whether for the field hand or for he skilled black artisan. Even so, there were noteworthy variations in the life and treatment of the slave from plantation and also some striking differences in the lot of farm and city slaves (McPherson, 56). In the narrative of The Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave it can be seen clearly that slavery underwent significant alterations when it moved to the city.

Frederick Douglass was only seven when he was sent to Baltimore for the first time to serve Mr. Hugh Auld. He had for a long time the strongest desire to see Baltimore; therefore, he left the plantation without regret, and with the highest hope of future happiness. He believed that God had chosen him to serve in town from among the other slaves. His removal to the city not only enabled him to escape brutalizing field labor that would have been his fate if he had remained on the Lloyd plantation but also provided him with a vision of human possibilities and opportunities for improvement that would not have come his way in the plantation. His life in Baltimore laid the foundation, and opened the gateway, to all his subsequent prosperity.

Despite legal restrictions, black slaves were receiving education in various part of the South. Some masters themselves taught their slaves. This was what happened to Douglass. Mrs. Sophia Auld, his new mistress, taught the young Douglass the basic knowledge of literacy and thus became the agent of his discovery of what he called 'the pathway from slavery to freedom.' Mr. Auld, upon learning what was going on, forbade his wife at once to instruct him further. He scolded his wife severely by saying: "Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now ... if you teach that nigger ... how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave" (Quarles, 58).

Nevertheless, Douglass was well on his way to becoming the literate slave, whose vast readings convinced him that liberty was the natural condition of human being. He also realized that education was the only way to improve the status of his race. White people considered that Negroes could not absorb educative experiences because they were not fully human. That was why Douglass wanted to prove that Negroes were also human, that they could also learn as well as the Whites, that "the slave's literacy testified to his humanity" (Elliot, 359). Since there were no schools or teachers for negro children in Baltimore, Douglass had to find a way to educate himself. He often tricked white boys or girls by giving them some cookies in exchange for some lessons. Besides, when his masters were away he would take his master's son's book and imitated what he learned at school. Whenever he had time he would read whatever book he could get hold of. In this way he learned how to read and write.

During his residence in town Douglass observed a marked difference, in the treatment of slaves, from what he had witnessed in the country. A city slave was almost a freeman, compared with a slave on the plantation who was treated like a brute. He was much better fed and clothed, and enjoyed priviliges altogether unknown to the slave on the plantation. In short, it could be said that a city slave was treated as a human being. A city slaveholder was anxious to give his slaves enough to eat and moreover he was afraid of having the reputation of being a cruel master.

"An important feature of urban slavery was the leasing of slaves, which released them from the immediate control of their owners and enabled them to save part of the wages they earned toward purchase of their own freedom" (McPherson, 57). Even though being treated as a human being, a city slave was still far from being a free man. He was still a slave who had no rights and therefore was subjected to a good deal of injustice treatments. A city slave was exploited by his master in different ways.

After an absence of three years and one month, he was once more permitted to return to his old home in Baltimore. He was once again an urban slave. His master, Hugh Auld, in his attempt to make Douglass a more valuable property, oversaw the young slave's instruction; therefore, he hired him to Mr. William garner, an extensive ship-builder. There he was forced to fight to defend his self-esteem. As a human being he didn't want to be treated tyrannically, that was why he fought the white men. Even though it was not his fault there was nothing he could do to defend himself because no white man would volunteer his testimony on his behalf, and against white man. Here it could be seen how injustice was the law at that time. A negro had no voice in the law court; he could not testimony. "If I had been killed in the presence of a thousand colored people, their testimony combined would have been insufficient to have arrested one of the murderers" (Quarles, 131).

Slaves were without rights, Slaveholders would rob them of all they got, as soon as they got it. As a coulker, Douglass earned a lot of money, about 6-9 dollars a week. He was a good coulker; therefore, he was paid as high as the most experienced one. But, as a slave, he didn't have the right to possess the money he got out of his own hands. He had to give all his earnings to his master. "I was now getting, as I have said, one dollar and fifty cents per day. I contracted for it; I earned it; it was paid to me; it was rightfully my own; yet, upon each returning Saturday night, I was compelled to deliver every cent of that money to master Hugg (Quarles, 133).

It was true that Douglass' ability to read and write had made him unfit to be a slave. He was getting more and more restless. He always though of the injustice of his enslavement. He could see no reason why he should give all the money he earned to his master. Sometimes Mr. Hugh would give him some money to encourage him, but the effect was the opposite. Finally, he determined to hire his time, during which he worked hard in order to be able to save some money to buy his freedom.

Frederick Douglass as Free Man

Disguised as a free black seaman, he caught a train from Baltimore to Philadelphia and then continued his journey to New York. On the third day of September 1838 he gained his liberty. On his arrival in New York he felt very excited, he felt "like one who had escaped a den of hungry lions." This state of mind, however, very soon subsided; and he was seized with a feeling of insecurity and loneliness. He had no home, no friend, and no money. Fortunately this distressing situation didn't last long; Mr. David Runggles helped him out of that situation. Not long after that he married his fiancee, Anna Murray, a free woman of Baltimore. They moved to New Badford, Massachusetts, immediately after their wedding and quickly became respected members of black community. One important thing which should be noticed after his freedom was that he immediately changed his name from Frederick bailey to Frederick Johnson. He seemed to do that not simply to avoid nay suspicion that he was a runaway slave but also to show his new acquired freedom. He was free to change his name as he liked because he was master of himself. But when he reach New Bedford he felt the necessity to change his name again into Frederick Douglass. What was interesting here was the fact that he wanted to keep using the name "Frederick" in order "to preserve a sense of my identity" (Quarles, 148).

It seemed that his willingness to preserve the name "Frederick" which was given by his mother indicated that Douglass did not want to completely change his identity and became a "new person." He realized that he was once a slave and he did not deny that. He wanted to be accepted as he was, but it seemed that his expectation was still far from being the reality. A negro was a negro. Society could not accept him as a full human being yet. That was why he still had to struggle for equality.

Having escaped slavery, Douglass devoted a long and productive life to the service of human liberty. He was attending black abolitionist meeting in new Bedford and soon he became a famous anti-slavery orator. Being public speaker was really something for Douglass because his ability to express his thought publicly meant freedom for him. He was free to say whatever he wanted to say. In the summer of 1841, he delivered a stirring address to a white abolitionist convention at Nantucket. Unfortunately, speaking to white people distressed him; he could not help feeling himself a slave. Of course his feeling of inferiority was understandable. It was a result of years of enslavement and he needed time to get rid of that feeling. Moreover, he learned the truth that even the best-disposed white man regarded the black as a cause than as a man. He wrote, "was generally introduced as a 'chattel'-'thing'-a piece of southern property-the chairman assuring the audience that it could speak" (Killian, 28).

In fact being abolitionist orator Douglass did not have freedom to speak what he wanted to-his own piece-instead, his abolitionist friends insisted him to give them the facts. Douglass could not pay attention to their command for long; he became increasingly independent. When he eventually became his own man, with his own philosophy of abolitionist, which conflicted with his friends, it led to a separation with his first friends in the North, Garrison. Douglass was not satisfied with what the white abolitionist had done because it still reflected their tendency to regard the slave as a cause. He wrote "I felt that the work of the society was not done and that it had not fulfilled its mission which was not merely to emancipate, but to elevate the enslaved class" (Killian, 29). Douglass wanted to make the blacks equal members of American society. He insisted that freedom for blacks required not only emancipation but full equality, social and economic as well as political (Garraty, 225). But he constantly tested the limits of the freedom and dignity that white Americans allowed black. Since he was never willing to accept anything but full human dignity, his life was filled with a series of high hopes and bitter disappointments.

Douglass seemed o consider that all human beings were equal, regardless of race and color. He proved this by marrying a white woman for his second wife, despite his family's and friend's disagreement. It clearly showed his strong will and his freedom. He as free to do what he would like to do. Nobody dictated him what he should or should not do. If he could only marry a black woman it meant that he was not free, because freedom meant open to alternatives.

Conclusion

Slavery was indeed a cruel institution whether on the plantation or in town or city, whether for the field hand or for the skilled black artisan. Its injustice needed no proof. Less obvious was the fact that slavery had a corrosive effect on the personalities of the blacks, slave and free alike. The system bore heavily on all slaves' sense of their own worth. Some found the condition absolutely unbearable and attempted to release themselves from slavery. But most of them seemed to accept their fate; they attempted to resist oppression and injustice while adjusting to the system (McPherson, 56).

Frederick Douglass, who was born a slave, was one of the representatives of those who rebelled against the injustice inflicted on his race by the white people. As a self-educated person he realized that slavery had dehumanized the blacks. That was why he made great efforts to improve the conditions of his race, One of his efforts was to educate the slaves because their literacy would testify to their humanity. He himself learned the alphabet not merely in response to the abolitionists' propaganda needs but also out of his own desire to establish the origins of the only identity he had in front of his white audience-that which his literacy gave him (Elliot, 359).

All human beings were essentially equal. Either black or white had the same brain structure and there was no real scientific proof which declared that the brain of the white was better that that of the black. No single race in the world was considered higher than the others. What was different was simply physical. Therefore, if the blacks were equipped with good education they would be as smart as the whites. Besides, individual effort also determined one's success. Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington were examples of the blacks who finally achieved names in history through their own effort.

In a way Douglass' experience was similar to Franklin's. Both started very low and ended up with a name in history. Franklin had proved that being the fifteenth child of a poor candlemaker was no obstacle to becoming a wealthy publisher, writer, inventor and respected diplomat through his habit of self-discipline and industry (Marsden, 41). Washington seemed to adopt the same ideology. Since most blacks could neither escape not conquer white society, he insisted on self-help as one of the alternative routes to improvement. Washington himself was the son of a slave woman and a white man who he never knew. He worked his way through school and in 1881 founded Tuskgee Institute, a vocational school for blacks (Norton, 589). He did so in his attempt to improve the condition of his race.

Indeed, negroes could be certain of an improved status only in the field education. That was why the pursuit of education came to be one of the great preoccupations of negroes. Besides, many viewed enlightenment as the greatest single opportunity to escape "the increasing prescription and indignities that whites were heaping upon black" (Franklin, 268). Both Douglass and Washington realized this; therefore, they worked hard to educate themselves in order to achieve success-to be somebody-and finally to become pathfinder for their race.

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S. Ita Farida is a lecturer of Faculty of Letters, Airlangga University in Surabaya, Indonesia.