It is not difficult to imagine the energy that united the twenty-seven-year-old former slave and the seventy-year-old lawyer and political agitator. Both sought liberation by peaceful means.
In the spring of 1847, Douglass left Britain and returned to the United States. British abolitionists collected funds to purchase his freedom from Thomas Auld, and so the risk of attempts by slave catchers to return him to bondage was eliminated. Douglass settled in Rochester, New York—hundreds of miles from Garrison in Boston, where he published an abolitionist newspaper, the North Star; in 1851, he changed the name of the paper to the Frederick Douglass Paper.
The United States had changed significantly in the decade since the Creole affair began. Texas had been admitted as a state, and vast lands were acquired as a result of the war with Mexico—and so, the size of the United States increased by one-third. The California “gold rush” of 1849, and the question of the admission of California as a state, resulted in the “Compromise of 1850,” fathered by Henry Clay and shepherded by Daniel Webster and Stephen Douglas.[3] It was designed to achieve a political settlement by ensuring that the free state-slave state balance of interests was maintained. The compromise entailed a series of five laws that included the admission of California as a free state, the abolition of the slave trade in the District of Columbia, and a very strict Fugitive Slave law.[4]
One effect of the adoption of the new Fugitive Slave law was the conversion of “thousands of previously conservative and law-abiding northerners to the cause of abolition.”[5] This conversion was motivated by the public’s increasing awareness of a series of violent captures and rescues of fugitive slaves.[6] Even greater passion for abolition was created by the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin. It first appeared serially in an antislavery weekly beginning in June 1851, and then was quickly published as a book in March 1852, even before serialization was complete. The book went on to become the highest-selling book first in the United States and then throughout the English-speaking world.[7] Mrs. Stowe did not attack the South, or most slave owners; the most vicious person in the book, Simon Legree, is a transplanted Northerner. But her book attacked slavery and the impact of laws, such as the new Fugitive Slave Act. The idea of slaves running away to freedom, and then being caught and returned, was saluted and condemned, respectively.
Seven months before the Creole left Richmond bound for New Orleans, a free black man from New York was captured and sold into slavery. He too sailed on a brig from Richmond, but unfortunately for Solomon Northup, the ship deposited him in New Orleans into brutal slavery. In January 1853, Solomon Northup was brought home to New York to rejoin his wife and children—once again a free man. A white man who brought him to freedom was from New York: Henry B. Northup, whose relatives held Solomon’s forefathers as slaves. Henry B. Northup was a lawyer who was formally authorized by the governor of New York to prove that Solomon had been captured and wrongfully sold into slavery. In 1853, Solomon wrote an autobiography detailing his brutal capture, his horrible life on Louisiana plantations, and then his release and return to freedom. Solomon’s book was titled Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841, and Rescued in 1853, From a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana.
This was the context in which Frederick Douglass wrote his only work of fiction, a novella titled The Heroic Slave, a Thrilling Narrative of the Adventures of Madison Washington, in Pursuit of Liberty. In late 1852, Julia Griffiths, a founder of the Rochester Ladies’ Anti-Slavery Society, an organization that raised funds to support antislavery actions (including Douglass’s newspaper), asked Douglass to submit an essay to be included in the Society’s compilation of antislavery essays, Autographs for Freedom.[8] During the second half of the 1840s, Douglass had mentioned Madison Washington in at least six speeches, but this essay/novella was his first and only portrayal of the “heroic” Madison Washington as the leader of the revolt on the Creole.[9]
The Heroic Slave, published in 1853, is very loosely patterned on the actual events of the Creole affair, though with a vastly greater backstory.[10] While it is a story of black heroism in resistance to slavery, it ironically minimizes the role of blacks in the United States and in the Bahamas in securing their own freedom.[11] The story of Madison Washington is presented by Douglass in four parts.[12]
In the introduction, the author explains what a great state Virginia was, as the birthplace of heroes such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry, but, for some reason (“strange neglect”) the story of the one of the “truest, manliest and bravest” of Virginia’s children has been reflected “only in the chattel records of his native State.” This, then, is his story.
In part I, the narrator is a man from Ohio (a white man, presumably, but unstated), named Listwell—aptly named, because his role in this part is simply to listen to Madison Washington, a slave who has come to the edge of a pine forest in Virginia on a Sunday morning in 1835 and engages in a soliloquy. Living as a slave—“under the constant dread and apprehension of being sold”—is too much for him, and so he decides to free himself. But he is tormented by the fact that he would be abandoning his wife, Susan; he quickly resolves the dilemma by explaining to himself that, when he gets free, he then will be able to figure out how to rescue her. Madison is described as “black, but comely” having “arms like polished iron” with “Herculean strength; yet nothing savage or forbidding in his aspect.” Thus, Madison seems to have stepped out of the Bible or from Greek mythology.
The impact on Mr. Listwell is immediate. Madison’s soliloquy “rung through the chambers of his soul, and vibrated through his entire frame.” It was as if he were Paul of Tarsus having a vision on the road to Damascus. And from that moment, the Ohioan becomes an abolitionist, resolved to atone for his past indifference to this “ill-starred race” to achieve the “speedy emancipation of every slave in the land.”
Part II is the longest section. It is set in the winter of 1840, in the Ohio home of the Listwells, a “happy pair.” The Virginia slave shows up at their door, and Mr. Listwell has a flash of recognition: here is the man he had observed at the edge of the Virginia forest five years earlier. The visitor introduces himself: “My name is Madison, Madison Washington, my mother used to call me.” The two Listwells and Madison talk around the fire, after a fine meal, and Madison is offered the best bed for the night. Before retiring, Madison reveals that he had tried to escape five years ago but decided to simply to hide in the nearby woods and meet his wife in secret once a week. But a fire of apocalyptic proportions forced him on the run again, guided by his “beloved” North Star—which was the first name of Frederick Douglass’s newspaper and the stellar compass for slaves fleeing north to freedom. En route, Madison observed the horrible beating of a deeply religious old slave whose crime was that he might have assisted a fugitive slave.
Madison plans to proceed from the Listwells’ to Canada. After fully considering that aiding a fugitive slave is a serious offense in Ohio, the Listwells decide to help Madison. They provide him with clothes and money, and bring him to Cleveland, where they make arrangements with a steamer’s captain to deliver Madison to Canada safely and at no charge. Madison feels himself, finally, as a passenger, not a piece of merchandise. In less than a week, the Listwells receive a letter, dated Windsor, Canada, December 16, 1840, from their grateful friend. It reported: “I nestle in the mane of the British lion, protected by his mighty paw from the talons and the beak of the American eagle.”
Part III begins in 1841, about fifteen miles south of Richmond. Mr. Listwell, paying his second visit to Virginia, plans to spend the night at a tavern—a metaphor for Virginia—that has seen better days. Virginia too has “lost much of its ancient consequence and splendor; yet it keeps up some appearance.” The wooden pillars “are all rotten.” The deadbeats who loaf around the tavern rattle off stories like “the guides at Dryburgh Abbey.”[13] Listwell learns from one of the
loafers in the tavern that there will be a large slave auction the next day in Richmond and is told that the slave trade is “a money making business.” On cue, that night, hundreds of persons arrive at the tavern, amid the “cracking of whips, and the noise of chains,” along with weeping and mourning. Listwell’s conscience demands that he cry out against this slavery, but he thinks it wiser to hold his tongue: “Bodily fear, not conscientious scruples, prevailed.”
Finally, Listwell encounters Madison, “the noble fugitive.” He has become the leader of the slaves “by that mesmeric power, which is the invariable accompaniment of genius.” Madison explains his terribly sad story. Hoping to rescue his wife, he returned from Canada to his old master’s house and climbed a ladder to reach his wife’s room. But she became frightened, screamed, and fainted; Madison carried her down the ladder and into the woods, but the master and his sons shot her and captured him. He was then sold to a slaver and put with the others headed for New Orleans. After an unsuccessful attempt to buy Madison, Listwell follows the slave coffle to the wharf in Richmond and manages to slip three strong files into Madison’s pocket just moments before the slaves are loaded on the vessel. Listwell watches the ship sail down the river, wishing farewell to the “brave and true man.”
Part IV is set in a Richmond coffeehouse two months after the Creole sailed from Richmond. The chief narrator is named Grant—the fictional version of the first mate, Gifford. One of the local salts chides Grant for having allowed the slaves to get away with the insurrection on the vessel, especially since Negroes are inherently cowards who would withdraw in the presence of a whip. Grant quickly denies the cowardice charge, noting that it is wise of a slave to pretend cowardice on a plantation, but on the high seas, he’s no coward. Grant explains that he is resolved never to serve again on a slave ship; his conscience simply does not approve: “this whole slave-trading business is a disgrace and scandal to Old Virginia.” Douglass changes some of the facts: the slaves are in chains, Madison Washington cuts nineteen of them free, and they kill the captain and the master of the slaves; their bodies are washed overboard in a storm.
Not surprisingly, Madison Washington is portrayed as a classic hero-leader: the shrewdest man Grant had ever met, his manner was dignified and his speech eloquent, all the officers had confidence in him, and the other slaves “fairly worshipped” him. Grant felt himself “in the presence of a superior man.” The hero claims that, as “God is my witness . . . LIBERTY, not malice, is the motive for this night’s work.” It is Madison who takes the helm and sails to Nassau, while the terrorized sailors were clinging in the rigging like “frightened monkeys.” In a key sentence, Douglass has Grant point out that Madison’s principles “are the principles of 1776.” Thus, Frederick Douglass wraps Madison Washington’s efforts toward freedom for the enslaved in the same cloth as those who revolted sixty-five years earlier against British oppression.
Madison sails the Creole right up to the wharf in Nassau, and Grant sends two men to see the US consul, after which a company of black soldiers comes on board to protect the ship’s property; Grant asserts that the slaves are as much property as the barrels of flour (not tobacco) on board. The soldiers roll their eyes at the absurd idea that slaves are the same as flour and stand aside while the slaves pour through the gangway into the streets of Nassau “under the triumphant leadership of their heroic chief and deliverer, MADISION WASHINGTON.” Thus, with the words of the first mate describing the deliverance, the novella ends.
The Heroic Slave is well written, at times poetic. It presents a story that in some respects draws upon Douglass’s own personal story of enslavement and freedom. It is a heart-wrenching narrative. If it were to be set to music, it would be an opera by Puccini, perhaps analogous to La Boheme or Madame Butterfly, at least the story of Susan’s death. The story is powerful but not subtle. Douglass’s message is clear:
The slave’s struggle for freedom is exactly the same as the Founders’ struggle for independence from Great Britain in 1776. In this context, the slave freed by his own effort stands in the shoes of Jefferson and Patrick Henry.
A black man can be comely, powerful but not savage, brave not cowardly, a genius, a superior man.
By permitting slavery and the slave trade, Virginia today (a symbol for the South) is a scandal to the Old Virginia, which respected human dignity and the struggle for freedom. While the people controlling today’s Virginia seem to be culturally alive, they are in fact decaying.
In contrast to the Virginia of the South, the Ohio of the North sets the right example. Note that Harriet Beecher Stowe was from Ohio—dear Eliza crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky—as were Joshua Giddings and Salmon Chase, among other leading abolitionists.
Once a white man genuinely encounters the savagery of slavery, conversion to abolition comes with some ease and power, despite the risks (Listwell violates the law by aiding Madison’s escape, and Grant abandons his slave ship position).
Finally, and ironically, it is the British Lion—whether in the Bahamas, or in Windsor, Canada—that offers safety, unlike the situation in 1776.
Ultimately, the message to slaves was: right is on your side, your own leaders are worthy, and you will succeed. And the message to whites was: have the courage to follow the nation’s basic principles, and you will gain the rewarding experience of helping the slaves lead themselves to freedom.
1. For an interesting review of Douglass’s visit, see Tom Chaffin, “Frederick Douglass’s Irish Liberty,” Opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/25. Chaffin is Research Professor of History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.
2. Colum McCann, Trans-Atlantic (New York: Random House, 2013), 62–63. The National Book Award author carefully noted: “Scholars of Douglass should know that I have sometimes combined, conflated, and on occasion fictionalized quotes in order to create the texture of truth.”
3. One eminent historian prefers to use the term “Armistice” rather than “Compromise.” See William W. Freehling, The Road to Disunion: Secessionists at Bay: 1776–1854 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990), 511.
4. See Arthur T. Downey, Civil War Lawyers: Constitutional Questions, Courtroom Dramas and the Men Behind Them (Chicago: ABA Books, 2010), 11.
5. Forrest McDonald, States’ Rights and the Union: Imperium in Imperio (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2000), 161.
6. For a brilliant review, see Steven Lubet, Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial (Cambridge: Belknap, 2010).
7. See George Bornstein, “Best Bad Book: Black Notes and White Notes to the Tale of Uncle Tom,” Times Literary Supplement, March 30, 2007, 3–4. Interestingly, just as Frederick Douglass toured Britain shortly after publishing his autobiography a decade earlier, so also did Mrs. Stowe tour Europe shortly after the publication of her book. That tour produced her book Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands, which was sort of a guide of travel etiquette for Americans visiting Europe.
8. Julia Griffiths, ed., Autographs for Freedom (Cleveland: John P. Jewett & Co., 1853).
9. Maggie Montesinos Sale, The Slumbering Volcano: American Slave Ship Revolts and the Production of Rebellious Masculinity (Durham: Duke University Press: 1997), 241n9.
10. The most complete analysis of the themes in The Heroic Slave is found in Sale, The Slumbering Volcano.
11. This point is well made by Edward Eden, “The Revolt on the Slave Ship Creole: Popular Resistance to Slavery in Post-Emancipation Nassau,” Journal of the Bahamas Historical Society 22 (October 2000): 18.
12. In 1865, the abolitionist and feminist activist Lydia Maria Child published The Freedmen’ Book (Cambridge: University Press: Welsh, Bigelow & Co.) She devotes one seven-page chapter to Madison Washington. In it, his wife, Susan, is an octoroon, the daughter of the master. She finds herself on the Creole with Madison. He leads the revolt but insists on minimal bloodshed. The story ends upon the arrival in Nassau where the slaves walk off without any involvement of the crew or local British or America
n authorities.
13. The Abbey was located on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders and existed from about 1150 to near 1600. Douglass had lived in the United Kingdom in 1845–1846 and perhaps visited the site of the Abbey.
Epilogue
The Creole affair is important because, from the slaves’ standpoint, the Creole affair was the most successful slave revolt in American history. In contrast, the most unsuccessful slave revolt was the 1811 German Coast uprising near New Orleans, where almost one hundred slaves were killed by militia. From a diplomatic standpoint, the successful Webster-Ashburton diplomacy that resolved the affair eliminated the threat of war with Great Britain, at least until near the end of the first year of the Civil War.
However, the tensions and issues that were exposed during that period grew in the years ahead and led to the Civil War. The slavery issue began to dominate public discourse. Northern abolitionists became more aggressive and insistent. Southerners feared not only more slave rebellions closer to home, but also that their ebbing political strength in Washington would lead to restrictions on their coastal slave trade (sought by Giddings) and then to even banning their slave trade in interstate commerce on land. Such restrictions on their “legitimate” activity would lead to the suffocation of slavery, exactly at a time when an expansion of slavery to the west and south was required. More compromises were fashioned to avoid fracture: the Compromise of 1850 and the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, but by 1859, the raid by John Brown designed to arm and free Virginia’s slaves cast the die.
The Creole Affair Page 23