50 Fun Facts About Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Which new mistress, a former weaver, began teaching the young Frederick Douglass his alphabet?

Sophia Auld taught him his letters until her husband forbade it as unlawful and unsafe. Douglass wrote that owning a slave then turned her kindness into rage.

Which notorious slave-breaker did a sixteen-year-old Frederick Douglass fight for nearly two hours?

Edward Covey never whipped him again after that fight. Douglass called it the turning point that revived his sense of his own manhood.

Which famous anti-slavery newspaper editor wrote the preface that opens Frederick Douglass's Narrative?

William Lloyd Garrison first heard Douglass speak at an 1841 convention and wrote that he would never forget it. Four years later he introduced the book to its first readers.

Which city did Frederick Douglass call the gateway to his later prosperity after being sent there at about seven?

Baltimore gave him what plantation life never could: the chance to learn to read. He saw the move as the first sign of a kind providence watching over him.

What did young Frederick Douglass hand to poor white street boys in exchange for secret reading lessons?

Bread was always plentiful in his master's house, while the boys he met on errands were often hungry. He longed to name them in thanks but feared it would embarrass them.

Frederick Douglass wrote that slave songs, often misread in the North, really expressed what?

Sorrow was their true subject: Douglass wrote that slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. He said the memory of those songs could still bring him to tears.

Frederick Douglass opens his Narrative by saying that he, like most slaves, never knew what?

His exact age was hidden because masters preferred to keep slaves ignorant of such things. He worked it out after overhearing his master call him about seventeen in 1835.

Which anti-slavery effort did Frederick Douglass fault because its western friends ran it too publicly?

The Underground Railroad had become, he joked, an upperground railroad that only warned slaveholders. He honoured its agents' daring but thought the publicity did more to enlighten masters than slaves.

Frederick Douglass took his new surname from a character in a poem by which Scottish author?

Walter Scott's The Lady of the Lake was what his host in Massachusetts had just been reading. Douglass let him choose the surname but insisted on keeping Frederick.

What did a fellow slave give Frederick Douglass to carry on his right side to ward off whippings?

A root from the woods, Sandy Jenkins promised, would make it impossible for any white man to whip him. Douglass was sceptical but carried it into his famous fight.

Frederick Douglass's Narrative opens with his birth in Talbot County, in which slaveholding state?

Maryland is where he spent about twenty years enslaved before escaping in 1838. His birthplace lay roughly twelve miles from the town of Easton.

Which first master of Frederick Douglass, clerk to a far richer planter, was whispered to be his father?

Captain Anthony probably earned his title sailing a craft on local waters, Douglass guessed. He never learned whether the rumour about his father was true.

Whose whipping, the first he ever saw, did Frederick Douglass call the entrance to the hell of slavery?

Aunt Hester was whipped by their master for going out to meet a young man named Ned Roberts against his orders. The terrified boy hid in a closet until long after it was over.

Hired out twelve miles away, Frederick Douglass's mother could come to see him only at what time?

At night was her only chance: she walked the whole way after work and had to be in the field again by sunrise. He saw her just four or five times before she died.

In Frederick Douglass's Narrative, what does Colonel Lloyd smear on his garden fence to catch fruit thieves?

Tar found on a slave was taken as proof of raiding the garden and earned a whipping. Douglass wrote that people came to fear it as much as the lash.

What name does Frederick Douglass give the food slave children scooped from a trough with oyster shells?

Mush was coarse cornmeal boiled and set on the ground in a wooden trough. Whoever ate fastest got most, Douglass wrote, and few children left satisfied.

Which book did Frederick Douglass get hold of at about twelve and read at every chance?

The Columbian Orator included a dialogue in which a slave argues his master into freeing him. Douglass said such pieces gave tongue to thoughts he could not yet put into words.

In which free city did the newly escaped Frederick Douglass live in fear of kidnappers, trusting no one?

New York thrilled him at first: he felt like a sailor rescued from a pirate. Soon he was afraid to speak to anyone and lived by the motto of trusting no man.

Which subtitle follows the author's name in the full title of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass?

An American Slave was the literal truth: Douglass was still legally another man's property when the book appeared. Publishing it put him at real risk of recapture.

Which kind of slaveholder did Frederick Douglass call the worst, meanest and most cruel of all he had met?

Religious masters were the worst, he argued, because Southern faith served as a cover for horrid crimes. He counted belonging to one the greatest calamity short of slavery itself.

Which overseer in Frederick Douglass's Narrative shot a slave named Demby for refusing to leave a creek?

Mr. Gore coolly explained that Demby had become unmanageable and a dangerous example to the others. He kept his post, and the killing was never investigated.

Frederick Douglass compared slaves picked for errands to the Great House Farm to men elected to what?

Congress was his comparison because an errand meant an overseer's trust and a day away from the driver's lash. Those chosen sang through the woods the whole way there.

In Frederick Douglass's Narrative, old Barney and young Barney tend which of Colonel Lloyd's animals?

Horses were the colonel's obsession, and no excuse could shield the father and son who tended them. Douglass saw old Barney made to kneel for more than thirty lashes.

In Frederick Douglass's Narrative, what befell the slave who unknowingly told Colonel Lloyd he was ill-used?

Sold to a Georgia trader, he was chained and torn from his family without warning. Douglass said this was why slaves told strangers that their masters were kind.

Which promised reward made young Frederick Douglass spend three days scrubbing himself in a creek?

A pair of trousers was a thrilling prospect for a boy who had only ever worn a knee-length linen shirt. Mrs. Lucretia promised them once he had washed off the plantation dirt.

Frederick Douglass's master stopped his reading lessons, warning that a slave given an inch would take what?

An ell was his master's shorthand for the danger of a slave who could read and would be forever unfit for bondage. Douglass wrote that he now understood the pathway to freedom.

Which strangers, whom Frederick Douglass helped unload stone on a wharf, urged him to run away to the North?

Two Irishmen told him it was a pity so fine a fellow should be a slave for life. He feigned indifference in case it was a trap, but resolved from then on to escape.

Which relative of Frederick Douglass was turned out to live alone in a hut in the woods by new owners?

His grandmother had raised twelve children and tended her old master from his cradle to his deathbed. Douglass wrote that this base ingratitude deepened his loathing of slaveholders more than anything else.

What nickname did Frederick Douglass and other field hands give the slave-breaker who spied on them?

The snake would crawl through the corn on his hands and knees, then leap up shouting at the workers. He even pretended to ride off to town and doubled back to spy on them.

A despairing Frederick Douglass spoke aloud to the white-sailed ships crossing which body of water?

Chesapeake Bay lay within sight of the farm, and its sails seemed to him like freedom's swift-winged angels. He envied the ships for being loosed from their moorings.

What did Frederick Douglass say masters pushed slaves into at Christmas to sour them on freedom?

Getting drunk was treated almost as a duty, and masters even bet on which slave could hold the most whisky. Douglass called the holidays safety valves against insurrection.

Which farmer did Frederick Douglass call the best master he ever had until he became his own master?

William Freeland gave his hands enough to eat and, unlike the man before him, enough time to eat it. He worked them hard, but only between sunrise and sunset.

What did Frederick Douglass secretly run at a free Black man's house for over forty fellow slaves?

A Sabbath school had to stay hidden because local masters would rather see slaves wrestling and boxing than learning to read. Douglass called the teaching his sweetest work.

How did Frederick Douglass and four friends plan to flee before their Easter escape plot was betrayed?

By canoe they meant to paddle seventy or eighty miles north and then walk on as free men. Douglass wrote each man a pass, and burned his own when they were seized.

Which shipyard trade did Frederick Douglass master, soon earning his owner up to nine dollars a week?

Caulking earned him the highest wages paid to experienced hands within a year of leaving his first yard. Handing over every cent of it made him more determined to be free.

What did Frederick Douglass nearly lose when four white apprentices attacked him at a shipyard?

His left eye was nearly knocked out while some fifty white carpenters watched and none stepped in. A magistrate said no warrant could be issued unless a white man came forward to testify.

Under which arrangement did Frederick Douglass find his own work and pay his master three dollars a week?

Hiring his time left him to pay for his own tools, board and clothes on top of the weekly fee. He still managed to lay up a little money every week for his escape.

Which Black activist sheltered Frederick Douglass days after his escape and sent him on to Massachusetts?

David Ruggles took him into his boarding house and hosted his wedding there. He sent the newlyweds off with a five-dollar bill for the journey.

Which free Black woman followed Frederick Douglass north and married him twelve days after his escape?

Anna Murray came as soon as he wrote to say his flight had succeeded. The Narrative prints an exact copy of their marriage certificate.

Which surname, his mother's, did Frederick Douglass carry through his years in slavery?

Bailey was the last of the four names his mother gave him: Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. He had dropped the two middle names long before he escaped.

Which Massachusetts seaport amazed the newly free Frederick Douglass with wealth built without slaves?

New Bedford overturned his belief that people without slaves must be poor. His first job there was loading a sloop with oil, and for once the pay was all his own.

Which anti-slavery weekly did Frederick Douglass say set his soul on fire when he began reading it?

The Liberator became, in his words, his meat and his drink, though at first he was too poor to pay for it. Its attacks on slavery drew him into the movement.

Where did Frederick Douglass address the anti-slavery convention of August 1841 that closes his Narrative?

Nantucket is where the story stops: the thought of addressing white people weighed him down, yet he soon spoke with ease. He had pleaded the cause of the enslaved ever since.

Whose letter at the front of Frederick Douglass's Narrative recalls the fable of the man and the lion?

Wendell Phillips was glad the lions were at last writing history instead of the masters. He likened Douglass to the signers of 1776, declaring his freedom with danger all around.

Which title-page phrase told doubtful readers that Frederick Douglass's Narrative had no ghostwriter?

Written by Himself mattered because many who heard him speak doubted so fine a speaker had ever been a slave. Their disbelief is what pushed him to write the book.

In which city did the Anti-Slavery Office publish Frederick Douglass's Narrative in the spring of 1845?

Boston was home to the Anti-Slavery Office at 25 Cornhill, which issued the first edition. Five thousand copies sold within four months.

After Frederick Douglass's Narrative exposed him to recapture, who paid to buy his legal freedom?

British supporters paid his owner 150 pounds sterling while he spent two years lecturing overseas. He could then go home without fear of being seized.

Which second autobiography did Frederick Douglass publish ten years after his Narrative?

My Bondage and My Freedom appeared in 1855, the second of three life stories he published. The last came in 1881 and was revised in 1892.

Which weekly newspaper did Frederick Douglass found on returning from his lecture tour abroad?

The North Star put a press in the hands of a man once forbidden to learn his letters. He started it soon after coming back to the United States.

What did Frederick Douglass deliberately leave out of his Narrative to protect people still enslaved?

His escape route stayed secret so that masters could not close it to others. He wanted slaveholders left in the dark, imagining invisible tormentors all around them.