Frederick Douglass: An Exceptional Escape from Slavery, an Exceptional Author, Citizen and Man

How did Frederick Douglass' personal experiences illustrate 19th century American race relations? Was Douglass' life typical or exceptional? What was his legacy for future generations of Americans?

Frederick Douglass often presented his life as typical. The narrative structure he applied to his own literary efforts as well as his efforts as a speaker and as a lecturer suggested that his life was normative and comparable to many an American slave's life. Its horrors were used as proof of the evils of slavery and Douglass' lust for freedom was seen as proof of the typical desire to be free that existed in the heart of every man, including every enslaved Black man's. Other slavery narratives of Douglass' day were popular in the literary consumption of much of the North and Douglass' own autobiography made use of many similar narrative and metaphorical resonance present in these narratives.

Nathan Irvin Huggins' biography of Frederick Douglas, entitled Slave and Citizen: The Life of Frederick Douglass, notes that Douglass was well received on the lecture circuit, as well as a beloved author of his day. However, Douglass' attempts to make his experiences seem typical, in an effort to justify slavery's abolition to the Northern listeners and readers he encountered, belied his uniqueness...

Douglass was not the only American ex-slave to author such an autobiographical work. The title of his work is similar to the many published narratives of enslaved individuals because it refers directly to the author's experience of slavery and to the fact it comes from his own hand, not the fictional pen of another or a white ghostwriter who might twist the words of the narrator for political purposes. However, Douglass was not merely born a slave. He was the son of a slave and his white master, thus embodying even in his genealogy the sexual contradictions of the enslaved condition. Despite his master's sexual relations with his mother, he did not know the date of his own birthday, and seldom saw his mother because she was working so hard, so far away.
Early on in the story of his life, Douglass notes how chance, what he was later to term providence and the will of God, gave him many opportunities lacking to other slaves. For instance, when he was sent to Fells Point in Baltimore to be a slave to the brother of his first master's son-in-law, he discovered that slaves were generally better treated in the city. He attributed this phenomenon to the fact that there were many people around to observe how slaves were managed. In the first chapter of his autobiography Douglass later wrote going to Baltimore laid the foundation for his subsequent prosperity. Later on as well, Douglass would travel as a freed man. Travel, for Douglass, and motion became synonymous with freedom, because of these early experiences.

Douglass' first mistress was relatively kind compared to his previous, first owner and father and to her husband. Later, in his speeches and writings, Douglass used her as an…