Frederick Douglass life and legacy

Shoemaker & Douglass Expansion

More Representative Era: Frederick Douglass's in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass or George R.T. Hewes's in the Shoemaker and the Tea Party?

In general, eras are defined by historians based on movements, accomplishments or changes that occurred within them. Most heroes of eras are men (or at least those remembered by history tend to be men). An American historical figure like Thomas Paine or Patrick Henry who is called by historians "a man [it was usually a man] of his time," when or historians conclude, similarly, that a hero's time "suited him," usually this person affected, through actions, words, writings, or all of these, outcomes of matters unique to his time. He also typified others of his time, even if he was in fact bolder, braver, or more heroic than they. Such a man, and his time, fit well together. The pamphleteering skills of Thomas Paine, for instance, would have gone unnoticed in an era of weekly magazines, radio, television, or the internet. The respective eras of George Robert Twelve Hewes and Frederick Douglass were representative of each of those men, although Douglas's era was more representative of Douglass than Hewes's was of Hewes. I will explore the "representative-ness" of both men of their respective eras, in terms of ways each typifies (or not) his period, in terms of (1) social station; (2) peer relationships; and (3) ability to articulate, act upon, and lead others to support his vision.

Clearly, Frederick Douglass did not single-handedly either create or determine the outcome of the Abolitionist movement, but in a way unique to Douglass and his time, he captured the spirit of this era and helped to move it forward. Therefore, it may be said not only that Douglass was a man of his time, but that the time itself suited him. Certainly there were myriad slave rebellions, in the American South and elsewhere, before Douglass's time. But Douglass came along when the time was right for social change, when the South had been recently defeated and American slavery was in its most precarious state ever. Therefore, Douglass and Abolitionists like him: black and white; male and female, seized the moment, and in 1865 slavery was outlawed.

The name Frederick Douglass is a household word in most American households. However, it was not until publication, in 1999, of Alfred F. Young's historical biography of the Shoemaker and the Tea Party (Boston: Beacon Press) that a brave shoemaker who risked his life in the Boston Massacre and the Boston Tea Party, George Robert Twelve Hewes was known to history at all. Though he, too, was a man of his era, Hewes was not nearly as representative as Douglass. Nor was Hewes's era representative of Hewes: poor and shoemaker, who came to John Hancock's attention by freakish accident. As Young notes of Hewes, for example: