Frederick Douglass for Kids Read online

  A Long Journey

  One warm summer day, a day Frederick could never forget, his grandmother took him by the hand and led him into the woods. He could sense something was wrong, but he did not understand why deep sorrow seemed to weigh down his grandmother’s shoulders like a dark cloak too heavy to bear. Mile after mile, he followed along, at times frightened by the shapes and shadows of the stumps and trees in the woods. Imagining them to be monsters eager to eat him, he clung more tightly to his grandmother’s hand. At times, she toted him on her shoulders, providing a short rest for his tired legs. Finally, their long journey came to an end. Emerging from the woods, Frederick found himself surrounded by a group of children in the midst of unfamiliar buildings and houses, with men and women working in nearby fields.

  Overcome with sadness, his grandmother disappeared while Frederick was being introduced to his new acquaintances, many of them his slightly older cousins. Even his brother, Perry, and sisters Sarah and Eliza were there. He had heard of them but had never met them. When Frederick turned around and discovered his grandmother was gone, he wept inconsolably, eventually sobbing himself to sleep that night. The bitter sadness that filled his heart that day haunted him for the rest of his life and became a seedbed of protest against this terrible system called slavery that held him and his loved ones in its horrible grasp.

  A New Chapter in Life

  Like the other children who lived in his new home at Captain Anthony’s, Frederick was given only a shirt to wear. It was made of rough sackcloth and came down to his knees. The freezing days of Maryland winters were unbearable, but the nights were even worse. Frederick was always cold, and often after everyone else had gone to bed, he snuck from the kitchen closet he slept in and crawled inside a burlap sack that was used to carry corn.

  Frederick Douglass walked 12 miles through these woods along Maryland’s Eastern Shore when his grandmother took him from her log cabin to live at Captain Anthony’s house. Photo by author

  His stomach always gnawed at him with hunger because there was never enough food to eat. Frederick remembers fighting with the dog, Old Nep, over crumbs that fell from the table where the cook prepared food for the master’s family. Dipping a piece of bread into the pot of water that boiled a piece of meat was considered a luxury.

  During these days of extreme hunger and harsh exposure, however, Frederick discovered a friend in Mrs. Lucretia, Captain Anthony’s married daughter. Frederick learned that if he stood outside Mrs. Lucretia’s window and sang a song when he was overcome with hunger, she would give him a piece of bread. This simple act of kindness toward him, as well as her occasional kindness toward others, meant a great deal.

  “The kindness of the slavemaster only gilds the chain of slavery, and detracts nothing from its weight or power.”

  —Frederick Douglass

  Still quite young, Frederick was not yet required to do heavy work. He was assigned small tasks such as carrying firewood, bringing in the cows, or running errands.

  Yet life on a large plantation swirled around Frederick. Overseers drove the field workers. House slaves served Captain Anthony. Men, women, and children worked to supply the needs of the plantation in never-ending ways.

  The things young Frederick saw and heard filled his heart with sorrow and fear. Every day, he watched other slaves be whipped or treated with brutality and cruelty. He witnessed what happened to the older children and adults who were enslaved. He knew that one day he would grow to be as old as the other slaves. Deep inside, he knew that his time of reckoning would come, and it filled him with dread.

  Colonel Lloyd’s Plantation

  Frederick lived in Captain Anthony’s house, which was situated at one end of a large green, or field. Commanding the view of the green was the colonel’s stately mansion, known to everyone on the plantation as the “Great House.” This was where Colonel Lloyd, Captain Anthony’s employer, lived with his family, and it was a place of wealth and prominence. The Great House was the hub of the bustling and prosperous plantation.

  Frederick recalled, “The road, or lane, from the gate to the great house, was richly paved with white pebbles from the beach, and, in its course, formed a complete circle around the beautiful lawn. Carriages going in and retiring from the great house made the circuit of the lawn, and their passengers were permitted to behold a scene of almost Eden-like beauty.”

  The Great House was a large wooden mansion, painted white, with stately columns and wings built on its sides. It was surrounded by a number of buildings, each bustling with activity. “There were kitchens,” Frederick remembered, “wash-houses, dairies, summer-house, greenhouses, hen-houses, turkey-houses, pigeon-houses, and arbors, of many sizes and devices, all neatly painted, and altogether interspersed with grand old trees, ornamental and primitive, which afforded delightful shade in summer, and imparted to the scene a high degree of stately beauty.”

  Colonel Lloyd was a man of immense riches. All the bounties of local game, fish, and oysters from the Chesapeake Bay; vegetables and fruits from carefully tended gardens; and delicacies transported from overseas filled his tables. His family dressed in the finest fashions of the day and entertained dignitaries as well as other wealthy families. The Lloyd plantation was held in high esteem.

  Leaving the Plantation Behind

  When Frederick was about seven years old, his life on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation suddenly came to an end. He was told that his old master, Captain Anthony, had decided to send Frederick to Baltimore, Maryland. He would live with Hugh Auld, the brother of Mrs. Lucretia’s husband.

  Frederick’s young heart filled with joy. The next three days were remembered as some of the happiest of his life. He had heard stories of Baltimore and the fine houses that people lived in. Ever since his mother had died, he had felt lost and lonely. Even though he hadn’t seen her much, he still missed his mother’s warm arms wrapped around him and knowing that someone loved him as her very own. Now he hoped that he would somehow find a home and the comforts of a family, even if he were only to be serving its members as their slave.

  The lane leading up to the Great House. Photo by author

  The Great House, known as “Wye House,” where Colonel Lloyd and his family lived. Photo by author

  For three days young Frederick was sent down to the creek to scrub away the filth and mange, or deadened skin, that he had gotten from his crude living conditions. Mrs. Lucretia promised him his own pair of trousers if he scrubbed himself clean. This seemed like a fine prize indeed.

  Saturday finally arrived and Frederick was put on board a sloop, or small boat, heading for Baltimore. Sailing down the Miles River and away from Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, Frederick took one last look at the only home he had ever known. In his heart, he said what he hoped would be a final good-bye.

  Model of a sloop. Photo by author, courtesy of Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park

  Walking to the bow at the front of the ship, Frederick looked toward Baltimore with dreams of a happy future filling his every breath. For the rest of the trip, he didn’t look back.

  A New Home in Baltimore

  Early Sunday morning, the sloop arrived at Smith’s Wharf in Baltimore. After unloading a flock of sheep, Frederick accompanied one of the sailors to deliver the sheep to the slaughterhouse. From there, the sailor took Frederick to his new home, the residence of Hugh and Sophia Auld.

  The Auld’s house was located on Alliciana Street in an area known as Fell’s Point, near one of the shipyards in Baltimore. It was here that Frederick would spend the next seven years of his boyhood.

  Both Hugh and Sophia were at home when young Frederick arrived. They had a young son named Thomas and introduced him to “Freddy,” as they called their new house member. It would be Frederick’s duty to take care of Thomas and help watch the little boy.

  During the next few years in Baltimore, Frederick learned the power that knowledge offered to those who could read and write. These lessons influenced him and shap
ed him into the great leader he would one day become.

  As Simple as A B C

  It all started innocently enough. Frederick’s new owner, Sophia, taught young Frederick to read the letters of the alphabet shortly after he arrived in their home. Seeing how quickly he learned, she then began to teach him how to group three or four letters together to spell words. During one of these simple spelling lessons the master of the house, Hugh Auld, walked into the room. Seeing his wife teaching a slave to read, he insisted that the lessons stop at once.

  If she taught Frederick to read, Hugh explained passionately, “There would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.” Hugh also reminded his wife that it was against the law to teach a slave to read.

  In that very instant, Frederick Douglass realized the power of reading and writing. “From that moment,” he recalled, “I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.” From that point in time, with a willpower and focus that characterized many of his actions throughout the rest of his life, young Frederick resolved to take determined steps down that path toward liberty.

  Frederick now had a plan. Forbidden to read in the Auld home, he enlisted the poor white children in his Baltimore neighborhood as his personal tutors.

  Each time Frederick was sent on an errand through the streets of Fell’s Point, he was sure to carry a book and morsels of bread with him. Meeting his hungry friends in hidden alleyways, Frederick quickly exchanged the bread for what he hungered for most of all: reading lessons.

  As he grew older, bonds of friendship deepened between Frederick and his white companions. Some days the boys talked about slavery, Frederick’s biggest concern by the time he was about 12 years old. “I would sometimes say to them, ‘I wished I could be as free as they would be when they got to be men.’ … These words used to trouble them; they would express for me the liveliest sympathy, and console me with the hope that something would occur by which I might be free.”

  Buildings along a street at Fell’s Point in Baltimore, Maryland. Photo by author

  “My copy-book was the board fence, brick wall, and pavement; my pen and ink was a lump of chalk,” —Frederipk Douglass

  Even though Frederick could read, he didn’t yet know how to write. He got the idea to learn how to write from his frequent visits to Durgin and Bailey’s shipyard. Watching the carpenters saw the wood, Frederick observed how they wrote letters on each piece to designate its eventual position on the ship they were building. Frederick soon learned to copy and write his first four letters: L for larboard, S for starboard, F for forward, and A for aft.

  HELP A YOUNG CHILD LEARN TO READ

  Materials

  Picture book

  Beginning reader book

  You can help give the gift of reading to a younger child. Select a short picture book. Don’t worry if it’s too hard for your young friend to read or if it’s above his or her independent reading level. Sit together side by side so that both of you can look at the pictures in the book together. Read the picture book aloud to your friend.

  Next, choose a beginning reader book that matches your younger friend’s ability to read. (To help make this choice, ask your friend’s parent or teacher, or a librarian.) Invite your friend to read this book aloud to you. Help your young friend pronounce the difficult words.

  “After that,” Frederick remembered, “when I met with any boy who I knew could write, I would tell him I could write as well as he.” This was sure to bring the response, “I don’t believe you. Let me see you try it,” upon which Frederick would write the four letters he knew. His friend then wrote more letters of the alphabet, and Frederick eventually learned them all.

  “I had now penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression, and had ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man.”

  —Frederick Douglass

  Division of Property

  A series of deaths in Captain Anthony’s family affected the lives of Frederick Douglass and all the slaves “Old Master” had owned. Over the passage of several years, Captain Anthony died, as did his adult children, including Mrs. Lucretia. The property and the ownership of the slaves fell into the hands of Thomas Auld, Mrs. Lucretia’s husband. Thomas Auld remarried and moved to St. Michaels, a town near Colonel Lloyd’s plantation on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

  Frederick Douglass’s life became very unstable during these years. He was, after all, counted as property. He was sent for in Baltimore and brought back to the plantation for settling the will and testament of the dead. Frederick remembered, “We were all ranked together at the valuation. Men and women, old and young, married and single, were ranked with horses, sheep, and swine.” It was a time of great fear and distress. Not knowing who his next master would be, and knowing he did not have a voice in the decision, weighed heavily upon him.

  He was sent back to live in Baltimore but then brought back after a time to live with Thomas Auld and his new wife in St. Michaels. He was now about 16 years old.

  Slave-Breaker

  What he had feared as a young child had finally come to pass. Frederick Douglass had grown up. He was now old enough and big enough to be the target of the brutalities, whippings, and cruelties he had witnessed as a young boy.

  His new master and mistress claimed that city life in Baltimore had spoiled Frederick and made him unfit to be a slave. Therefore, they decided that Frederick be sent to a man in the region known as a slave-breaker.

  For the first time in his life, Frederick was now a field hand. The harsh work, the gnawing hunger, and the exposure to extreme weather conditions were nothing, however, compared to the inhumane and violent treatment he received at the hands of the slave-breaker. Filled with despair, Frederick admitted, “Mr. Covey succeeded in breaking me. I was broken in body, soul, and spirit.”

  The Columbian Orator

  When Frederick Douglass was about 12 years old he was able to save 50 cents from small coins given to him as gifts or as his own spending money. He purchased a popular schoolbook of the day, the Columbian Orator. Eagerly, he devoured this treasury of famous speeches and powerful documents that supported liberty and civil rights. There was even one passage where a fictional slave, after escaping three times only to be captured each time, finally convinced his master so thoroughly of the evils of slavery that the slave was set free. This book influenced Douglass deeply. It caused the passionate desire for freedom to torment him daily.

  Photo by author, courtesy of Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park

  At times Frederick was able to sneak away and stand on the nearby shore of the Chesapeake Bay. Looking out over the waters, he watched the beautiful ships sail to every corner of the globe. “I have often, in the deep stillness of a summer’s Sabbath,” Frederick remembered, “stood all alone upon the lofty banks of that noble bay, and traced, with saddened heart and tearful eye, the countless number of sails moving off to the mighty ocean. The sight of these always affected me powerfully. My thoughts would compel utterance; and there, with no audience but the Almighty, I would pour out my soul’s complaint.”

  Sabbath School

  In the summer of 1835 Frederick Douglass started a secret school to teach fellow slaves to read. Meeting first behind the barn or in the woods, he eventually asked a free African American to meet in his home. In spite of great danger and peril of discovery, over 40 students from local plantations snuck away on Sundays to gather in the small cabin. Each brought a copy of Webster’s Spelling-Book, forgotten by their masters who had outgrown that common textbook but now cherished by the slaves as a pathway to knowledge and freedom. Frederick Douglass taught them to read the Bible. Feeling a deep sense of satisfaction from helping his fellow sufferers, years later he learned that several of his pupils cast off the chains of slavery and escaped to freedom.

  Thoughts of freedom and plans for escape flooded his mind. Standing alone on the shore, buf
feted by the wind filling the white sails to speed the ships on their way, he cried out, “O God, save me! God, deliver me! Let me be free!”

  Years afterward, he remembered these heartfelt prayers in the hour of his greatest despair and acknowledged that a kind Providence had heard his voice and reached down to answer his pleas. Frederick Douglass soon would experience deliverance and taste the sweet joy of freedom.

  But not yet.

  The Turning Point

  For six months, Frederick Douglass felt overwhelmed with despair. One day, however, something snapped inside him. At the end of his strength, without hope, and the victim of repeated physical abuse, he fought back. To his surprise, he was stronger than the slave-breaker —and he won the fight. After that, Mr. Covey was afraid to fight Frederick again. That battle was the turning point for him as a slave. Not only did he become known and feared by the slaveholders in the area, but he determined to flee to freedom no matter what the cost.

  He was sent to live with and work for a different master. In his new home he met new friends, and with them he planned his escape.