Tuesday, June 14, 2022

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass: Book Review

(Book Review--History , Classic Books)

Started: April 24, 2022
Finished: May 8, 2022
(This review is written using my new format for book reviews.) 

Why I Read This Book

Frederick Douglass has been on my list of "historical people I'm vaguely interested in, and keep meaning to read up on" for years now.  
I don't remember hearing a lot about Frederick Douglass during my school days.  Of course, I recognized the name.  (Frederick Douglass is one of those names that everyone recognizes.)  But I don't remember learning anything about his biography at school.
Sometime during my mid-20s, I started to become more interested in Frederick Douglass's life story.  My memory is a little bit hazy, but I think this started as an off-shoot of my interest in John Brown.  While reading up on John Brown's life on Wikipedia, I started reading about Frederick Douglass's association with John Brown, and then I got curious about Frederick Douglass himself and started reading his Wikipedia page.  

[...wow, that was 15-16 years ago now.  I suppose it's kind of pathetic that it took me that long to finally get around to reading a book on Frederick Douglass.  But then, I'm a slow reader, and only manage to read a handful of books every year.  So sometimes it does take me several years to work my way around to reading up on an area of interest.]

I also remember being very impressed by Frederick Douglass's famous speech "What, to the Slave, is the Fourth of July," which I first saw performed on The People Speak .  (And subsequently, I've posted that clip on this blog to mark the 4th of July).

More recently, Steve Donoghue praised Frederick Douglass's autobiography on his Youtube channel a couple years ago. 



So that made me all the more curious to read this book.  

And then in October, I was browsing Book Street here in Ho Chi Minh City, and saw the Collins Classic version of this book, and decided to snatch it up.  (see video of the book haul HERE).  My reading list was full at the time, so I waited until I had a free slot, but then finally started the book in April.

Background Information

Frederick Douglass lived a fascinating life.  Go over to Wikipedia and check out his bio.  The dude had an absolutely fascinating story.  He started life as a slave.  He escaped and became a celebrity in the abolitionist movement in both Britain and the United States--going around and giving speeches to huge crowds.  He had some association with John Brown, and although Frederick Douglass ultimately decided he didn't want anything to do with Harpers Ferry, the fallout from Harpers Ferry still resulted in Frederick Douglass having to temporarily flee the country.  During the Civil War, he was an active supporter of the union and met with Lincoln.  After the Civil War, he was active in reconstruction era politics.  
There is a really interesting story to be told about his life.

And Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is Frederick Douglass's autobiography, so you get to hear his story in his own words.  

[The publisher's introduction from Collins Classics informs me that slave memoirs were a popular genre at the time, and were often ghostwritten by white writers.  But because Frederick Douglass was already a well-known orator when this book was published, and because Frederick Douglass had developed his own distinct rhetorical style which was also the same style that this book was written in, it was clear that Douglass had written this book himself.]
  
This books is actually the first of three autobiographies that Frederick Douglass published during his life.  
This book (the book I'm reviewing now) was published in 1845.  Douglass later expanded on this material and included more details in a second autobiography published in 1855: My Bondage and My Freedom.  And then finally, near the end of his life, he published  in 1881 Life and Times of Frederick Douglass which apparently includes his account of not only his slave life, but also an account of his activism and political activities post slavery.

Of these 3 autobiographies, it sounds like the final one would be the most interesting.  That one would include Frederick Douglass's retelling of all the great historical and political events he was involved with (according to Wikipedia, it includes his relationship with John Brown, Lincoln, Grant, etc).  I'll have to remember to try to track down that book down someday.

But upon further research, it turns out that, despite being the shortest, the 1845 autobiography is the most famous of the three.  It was hugely influential in the abolitionist movement back in its day, and because of that huge influence, it is the book that Douglass is best remembered for today and that is now regarded as part of the canon of Western Literature.  And, no doubt, that's why this autobiography (and not the other two) is the one widely available in bookstores nowadays, and why I happened to stumble upon it when browsing the book displays here in Vietnam.
It's a short little book.  (The Collins Classics edition that I read is only 122 pages).  And only covers the life of Frederick Douglass up until he escaped from slavery.  (In other words, it's a memoir of his slavery years, and not his abolitionist years.)

Summary of the Plot
The version I got (Collins Classic) starts out with a brief publishers introduction giving some of the background, and then we move into not one but two prefaces, both original to the 1845 publication, written by William Lloyd Garrison (W) and Wendell Phillips (W), respectively.  (William Lloyd Garrison was a name I recognized, Wendell Phillips was not, but according to Wikipedia they were both famous abolitionists.)
Then on page 15, the narrative proper starts.
Frederick Douglass was born as a slave in Maryland.  (Garrison and Phillips both note in their prefaces that Maryland was actually not the worst place to be a slave--the deep south was supposedly far worse.  So if what Frederick Douglas is describing sounds horrific, just imagine what the slaves in Georgia and Mississippi were experiencing!)
Douglass describes how slavery affected him right from the beginning--being separated from his mother at a young age, not knowing when his birthday was, not knowing who his father was, etc.
For the first few years of his life he was under the care of his grandmother, and separated from the really harsh realities of slavery, but he observed the other slaves (including his aunt) being brutally whipped by the master.  (The narrative is not only an account of the brutalities that occurred to Frederick Douglas personally, but also all the brutalities he witnessed on the plantation.)
Frederick Douglass was somewhat unique in that he moved around a lot as a young slave.  (I think this is unique, right?)  He was sent off of the plantation to the city of Baltimore to become the house-servant of a family, and there he had a much easier time of it than the slaves at the plantation.  (And also began to learn to read and write).
But eventually, he was returned to the plantation.  
Douglass is deemed to be unmanageable as a plantation slave.  (Perhaps his time in Baltimore made him unaccustomed to plantation work.)  And he is sent to live for a year on the plantation of Mr. Covey, who had a reputation as a "Negro-breaker".  But after enduring several beatings from Mr. Covey, Douglass finally stands up to him and refuses to be beaten.  Covey, astonishingly, backs down.  (Mr. Covey could have had Douglass hauled in before the authorities, and it's somewhat puzzling that he didn't, but Douglass surmises that Mr. Covey would  have lost his reputation as a Negro Breaker if he had had to get the authorities involved, and that is why he did not.)

After this, Douglass begins to plan how to escape.  Although the actual details of the escape are omitted from the narrative, because back in 1845 Douglass didn't want to make public any details about how slaves were able to escape.
As Douglass himself explains in Chapter 11:
I now come to that part of my life during which I planned, and finally succeeded in making, my escape from slavery. But before narrating any of the peculiar circumstances, I deem it proper to make known my intention not to state all the facts connected with the transaction. My reasons for pursuing this course may be understood from the following: First, were I to give a minute statement of all the facts, it is not only possible, but quite probable, that others would thereby be involved in the most embarrassing difficulties. Secondly, such a statement would most undoubtedly induce greater vigilance on the part of slaveholders than has existed heretofore among them; which would, of course, be the means of guarding a door whereby some dear brother bondman might escape his galling chains. I deeply regret the necessity that impels me to suppress any thing of importance connected with my experience in slavery. It would afford me great pleasure indeed, as well as materially add to the interest of my narrative, were I at liberty to gratify a curiosity, which I know exists in the minds of many, by an accurate statement of all the facts pertaining to my most fortunate escape. But I must deprive myself of this pleasure, and the curious of the gratification which such a statement would afford. I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations which evil-minded men might suggest, rather than exculpate myself, and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother slave might clear himself of the chains and fetters of slavery. (p.99 in my edition)

Also largely absent from this book is Anne Murray, who Frederick Douglass met and fell in love with while he was still a slave, and how helped Douglass escape, and then married him after he escaped.  (See Wikipedia.)   I'm guessing that the omission of Anne Murray's role was for her own protection at the time.

Extended Quotation

The overseer’s name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women’s heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.

This occurrence took place very soon after I went to live with my old master, and under the following circumstances. Aunt Hester went out one night,—where or for what I do not know,—and happened to be absent when my master desired her presence. He had ordered her not to go out evenings, and warned her that she must never let him catch her in company with a young man, who was paying attention to her belonging to Colonel Lloyd. The young man’s name was Ned Roberts, generally called Lloyd’s Ned. Why master was so careful of her, may be safely left to conjecture. She was a woman of noble form, and of graceful proportions, having very few equals, and fewer superiors, in personal appearance, among the colored or white women of our neighborhood.

Aunt Hester had not only disobeyed his orders in going out, but had been found in company with Lloyd’s Ned; which circumstance, I found, from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offence. Had he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same time a d——d b—-h. After crossing her hands, he tied them with a strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist, put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her hands to the hook. She now stood fair for his infernal purpose. Her arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the ends of her toes. He then said to her, “Now, you d——d b—-h, I’ll learn you how to disobey my orders!” and after rolling up his sleeves, he commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood (amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen any thing like it before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody scenes that often occurred on the plantation.  (From Chapter 1)

The Reading Experience

I guess the first thing to note is that the prose is very easy to read.  
You can't always take that for granted with a 19th century book, but in this case it is.  Hopefully the above quotation illustrates that well enough.  It's written in a bit of an older style, but you quickly get used to that after a couple pages, and then it flows smoothly enough.

It is also both enraging and depressing to read.  (And again, hopefully the above quotation illustrates this.) 
Because this book is so small and portable, I had been using this book as my lunch-break book at work, but it can be pretty depressing lunch time reading.

It can also make you very angry to read.
I suspect I speak for most people when I say that reading about these horrible cruelties makes your blood boil with outrage.  It is, of course, an entirely irrational reaction.  After all, the injustice committed is a fact of history, and is now beyond our power to remedy.  Everyone connected with the horrors of slavery died 150 years ago, what good does it do to get angry about it?
And yet, for whatever reason, we humans react with anger when reading about these great historical injustices.  Why is that?  I guess it's just another one of those strangely irrational characteristics of human nature.  

But although this book can be both enraging and depressing, it's never boring.  In fact, the book can be quite gripping.  When Douglass is describing one of the  confrontations between a master and a slave, or when he's describing some sort of cruel punishment, you feel like you can't put the book down.  (More than once, I lingered over this book after I finished eating my lunch, reluctant to put it down until I had finished the chapter.)  There's a macabre fascination with the horror and the tragedy on display in this book. 
The publisher's introduction to my edition (Collins Classics) informed me that in the 1840s and 50s, slave memoirs (both real and fictional) were a popular genre with the reading public.  Nowadays we are only familiar with the most famous ones (Uncle Tom's Cabin, 12 Years a Slave, and of course Frederick Douglass) but apparently the market was flooded with many more of them at the time.  But, as Collins Classics informs:
Many of these slave narratives were also tied into the American Romantic movement and audiences demand for sensationalist stories, so their prevalence didn't always have humanitarian or politically-minded roots. (p.viii)
In other words, people read these books as much for the sensationalist entertainment as for the humanitarian reasons.  As terrible as that is, I do have to admit to kind of seeing the appeal.  

Finally, the book is very short and easy to get through.  In my case, I took my sweet time reading it in small doses over the course of a couple weeks, but it could easily be read in a day or two.  (In fact The audiobook is only 4 hours long, so assuming you kept the same pace as the audiobook narrator, you could theoretically even finish this book off in one long afternoon.)

Evaluation / Commentary

This is a short little book, but it will really get you thinking about a lot of things.  While reading this, I found myself thinking about human nature, religion, society, etc.  I'm not going to attempt to write down all my rambling thoughts here, but I will jot down a few jumping off points that could easily be long discussions.

* The preface by William Lloyd Garrison is very powerful.  It's a reminder that the abhorrence of slavery is not just a modern phenomenon.  People at the time realized that it was wrong.  (And thus, we should not make excuses for slaveholders by saying they were just products of their time.)
But, one can also read in William Lloyd Garrison's preface a tired attitude from someone who has been arguing for too long against people who refuse to acknowledge the basic facts:
So profoundly ignorant of the nature of slavery are many persons, that they are stubbornly incredulous whenever they read or listen to any recital of the cruelties which are daily inflicted on its victims. They do not deny that the slaves are held as property; but that terrible fact seems to convey to their minds no idea of injustice, exposure to outrage, or savage barbarity. Tell them of cruel scourgings, of mutilations and brandings, of scenes of pollution and blood, of the banishment of all light and knowledge, and they affect to be greatly indignant at such enormous exaggerations, such wholesale misstatements, such abominable libels on the character of the southern planters! ... Skeptics of this character abound in society. In some few instances, their incredulity arises from a want of reflection; but, generally, it indicates a hatred of the light, a desire to shield slavery from the assaults of its foes, a contempt of the colored race, whether bond or free. (Preface p.7-8)
You can tell them every fact you want, but they just keep choosing to ignore the facts!
Reminds you of the extreme polarization of today, doesn't it?  
Yet another reminder that human beings don't base their political beliefs on rational discussions or facts.  It was as true in 1845 as it is today.

* There's also a lot to be said in this book about Christianity.  A point Frederick Douglass makes throughout the book is that Christianity did not make the slaveholders any more kind to their slaves.  In fact, the more Christian a slaveholder was, the more cruel he was.
This is a point which actually comes up repeatedly.  For example in chapter 9:
 In August, 1832, my master attended a Methodist camp-meeting held in the Bay-side, Talbot county, and there experienced religion. I indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate, make him more kind and humane. I was disappointed in both these respects. It neither made him to be humane to his slaves, nor to emancipate them. If it had any effect on his character, it made him more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest pretensions to piety. His house was the house of prayer. He prayed morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his brethren, and was soon made a class-leader and exhorter. His activity in revivals was great, and he proved himself an instrument in the hands of the church in converting many souls. His house was the preachers’ home. They used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for while he starved us, he stuffed them. ...
...I have said my master found religious sanction for his cruelty. As an example, I will state one of many facts going to prove the charge. I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote this passage of Scripture—“He that knoweth his master’s will, and doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes.”
Master would keep this lacerated young woman tied up in this horrid situation four or five hours at a time. I have known him to tie her up early in the morning, and whip her before breakfast; leave her, go to his store, return at dinner, and whip her again, cutting her in the places already made raw with his cruel lash. The secret of master’s cruelty toward “Henny” is found in the fact of her being almost helpless. When quite a child, she fell into the fire, and burned herself horribly. Her hands were so burnt that she never got the use of them. She could do very little but bear heavy burdens. She was to master a bill of expense; and as he was a mean man, she was a constant offence to him. He seemed desirous of getting the poor girl out of existence. He gave her away once to his sister; but, being a poor gift, she was not disposed to keep her. Finally, my benevolent master, to use his own words, “set her adrift to take care of herself.” Here was a recently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, and at the same time turning out her helpless child, to starve and die! Master Thomas was one of the many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the very charitable purpose of taking care of them.
And again this point comes up in Chapter 10:
I assert most unhesitatingly, that the religion of the south is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes,—a justifier of the most appalling barbarity,—a sanctifier of the most hateful frauds,—and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest, grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel and cowardly, of all others.
One can't help but think of Christopher Hitchens when reading these passages.
In his many debates with religionists, Christopher Hitchens was frequently pressed to admit that there were some circumstances in which Christianity could be a moderating or improving influence on a situation.  Hitchens never conceded the point, and argued that Christianity always made people worse.
And here is Frederick Douglass back in 1845 making the same exact point.  You think Christianity makes slaveholders more humane?  No, it made them more cruel.
But it's important to remember Frederick Douglass was not Christopher Hitchens.  In fact, after he escaped from slavery, Frederick Douglass actually became a Christian preacher.   

Frederick Douglass is however aware that he has given a very hostile account of Christianity throughout his narrative, so he tries to clarify this in the Appendix:
I find, since reading over the foregoing Narrative, that I have, in several instances, spoken in such a tone and manner, respecting religion, as may possibly lead those unacquainted with my religious views to suppose me an opponent of all religion. To remove the liability of such misapprehension, I deem it proper to append the following brief explanation. What I have said respecting and against religion, I mean strictly to apply to the slaveholding religion of this land, and with no possible reference to Christianity proper; for, between the Christianity of this land, and the Christianity of Christ, I recognize the widest possible difference—so wide, that to receive the one as good, pure, and holy, is of necessity to reject the other as bad, corrupt, and wicked. To be the friend of the one, is of necessity to be the enemy of the other. I love the pure, peaceable, and impartial Christianity of Christ: I therefore hate the corrupt, slaveholding, women-whipping, cradle-plundering, partial and hypocritical Christianity of this land....
He goes on for a few more pages about this, but you get the idea.
There is a whole long discussion to be had about the nature of Christianity in theory and in practice, but I'm not going to get into it in this particular review.  (I'm supposed to be keeping these things short, after all.)  All I'll say is that this book makes you think a lot about these things.

Connections with Other Books I've Read

* Frederick Douglass appeared as a minor character in Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser. Fraser also includes details about Frederick Douglass's life in the endnotes at the back of the book.

10 out of 10 Stars.  It's hard to find much fault with the book.  Perhaps I could take a star off for being depressing.  But this kind of book needs to be depressing.  Maybe I could take a star off for being too short.  But then, this was as long as it needed to be for its purpose.  10 out of 10 it is.

April 24, 2022 publisher's introduction i-ix
May 8, 2022 p.50-122 (finished)
May 29, 2022 2nd Reading p.i-ix, p.1-6
June 5, 2022 2nd Reading: p.6-16
June 12, 2022 2nd Reading: p.16-44

Video Review (Playlist HERE)


Update June 21, 2022
* Addendum 1: A Parody (Heavenly Union): Poems ESL Listening  (This poem is included in the Appendix of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.  It is a parody of The Heavenly Union)
* Addendum 2: The Farewell of a Virginia Slave Mother to her Daughters sold into Southern Bondage by John Greenleaf Whittier: Poems ESL Listening (A section of this poem is quoted in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass).
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