III.

Abolitionist Orator

Douglass began to read the antislavery weekly The Liberator, published by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and soon joined Garrison’s followers in New Bedford. In 1841 he attended the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society convention in Nantucket, where he was asked to speak. Douglass related his experiences as a slave, and his passionate address made such a profound impression that the society hired him as a full-time agent. In this position, and later as an agent for the larger American Anti-Slavery Society, he traveled throughout much of the North, speaking at antislavery meetings, giving public lectures, and helping to recruit members for the societies. He campaigned against slavery, but also for the civil rights of free blacks. He spoke at several meetings that were broken up by white mobs, but he continued to lecture as a strong antislavery advocate.

Douglass soon became the leading black abolitionist and one of the most famous orators of the time. His eloquent words about his treatment as a slave were a powerful weapon against slavery. But as his oratory grew more polished, audiences began to question whether he had ever been a slave. To dispel these doubts, he published his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845). In this work he named his former owners and described every aspect of his life under slavery. Douglass, however, omitted details about his method of escape so as not to jeopardize similar attempts by other slaves. His Narrative was one of the most effective accounts written by a fugitive slave, and it became a major source of information about slavery and a classic of American literature. Douglass later wrote two more autobiographies: My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, revised 1892).

When Douglass published the details of his life as a slave, he was in danger of recapture under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Laws, which allowed masters to seize runaway slaves and return them to bondage. Because of his growing prominence, Douglass feared the Aulds would send agents to capture him and return him to Maryland. Thus, in 1845 Douglass went abroad, and for two years he toured England and Ireland, speaking against slavery. His oratory made as great an impression in Great Britain as it had at home. In 1847, after British friends purchased his freedom, Douglass returned to the United States.