The Heroic Slave

by Frederick Douglass

  1492

  Christopher Columbus reaches the Bahamas.

  1619

  Dutch traders bring African slaves to Jamestown, Virginia.

  1634

  Maryland first settled by English colonists.

  1647

  British settlement of the Bahamas begins.

  1688

  Quakers and Mennonites in Germantown, Pennsylvania, circulate first known antislavery petition, partly in response to the fear of insurrection and acknowledgment that slavery represents a state of war.

  1712

  New York City slaves revolt by setting fire to a building and attacking whites who try to put out the fire. The rebellion is crushed.

  1723

  First slave laws introduced in the Bahamas.

  1739

  Stono Rebellion near Charleston, South Carolina, in which 60–100 slaves march toward Spanish Florida, which had offered freedom to Carolinian slaves, carrying a flag and demanding liberty. The rebellion is crushed.

  1741

  New York City slaves purportedly collaborate with poor whites in a plot to burn the city. After a series of fires, a grand jury claims to have uncovered the plot. The alleged conspirators are tried and executed.

  1772

  The Lord Chief Justice Mansfield in the Somerset case rules that slaves are free as soon as they arrive in England.

  1773

  Massachusetts blacks petition the legislature for relief against their oppression.

  1774

  Philadelphia meeting of the Society of Friends adopts rules prohibiting Quakers from buying or selling slaves.

  First Continental Congress convenes in Philadelphia.

  1775

  Battles of Lexington and Concord, Massachusetts, in April, widely considered the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

  Lord Dunmore, royal governor of Virginia, issues proclamation of freedom to slaves who desert Patriot masters and serve in the king’s army.

  1776

  Second Continental Congress forbids the importation of slaves into the thirteen colonies.

  Congress deletes from the Declaration of Independence a clause accusing the king of bringing African slaves into the thirteen colonies.

  1777

  Vermont ratifies the first constitution in history outlawing slavery; it adopts gradual emancipation.

  1780

  Pennsylvania adopts a gradual emancipation law.

  Massachusetts Bill of Rights ratified, declaring that “all men are born free and equal,” prompting lawsuits by slaves against their masters, which led to the end of slavery in the state in 1783.

  1784

  Connecticut and Rhode Island enact gradual abolition laws.

  Pennsylvania Abolition Society founded.

  1785

  New York Manumission Society founded.

  1786

  The British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson publishes An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.

  1787

  Britain sends poor (free) blacks and emancipated slaves to Sierra Leone to establish a settlement near present-day Freetown.

  Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in Britain.

  The U.S. Constitution drafted; slavery’s legal status is left ambiguous.

  The Northwest Ordinance prohibits slavery in the territories north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi.

  1791

  Black insurgents in Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti) rebel against their French colonial overlords. Ten years later, under Toussaint L’Ouverture, they created the New World’s first black republic.

  1793

  New Jersey Abolition Society is founded.

  Congress passes a fugitive slave law to facilitate the capture of runaway slaves.

  Eli Whitney invents the cotton gin, enabling the cultivation of short-staple cotton throughout much of the South.

  1794

  Connecticut adopts immediate emancipation law.

  1799

  New York State adopts gradual emancipation law.

  1804

  New Jersey adopts gradual emancipation law.

  1806

  Virginia requires all manumitted slaves to leave the state within one year of their manumission.

  Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolishes slave trading in the British Empire.

  Royal Navy begins patrolling the African coast to suppress the slave trade.

  1808

  United States bans further importation of slaves from Africa.

  1811

  Louisiana slaves 40 miles north of New Orleans revolt, and 100–500 slave rebels march downriver toward New Orleans. Federal troops are called out and the rebellion is crushed.

  1816

  American Colonization Society founded to promote the colonization of free blacks in Africa.

  1817

  In Philadelphia, 3,000 blacks protest the American Colonization Society.

  Amasa Delano, former commander of the brig Perseverance, publishes Narrative of Voyages and Travels in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, which includes an account of the 1805 slave mutiny on the Spanish ship Tyral, under the command of Benito Cereno.

  1818

  Douglass is born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey sometime in February at Aaron Anthony’s Holme Hill Farm, Talbot County, Maryland.

  1820

  American Colonization Society sends free blacks to Africa to establish a settlement.

  1821

  Missouri enters the Union as a slave state after bitter controversy. As a compromise measure (adopted in 1820), slavery is prohibited in unorganized Louisiana Purchase territories north of 36°30' latitude.

  1822

  Denmark Vesey’s apparent plot for a slave insurrection in South Carolina is exposed and thwarted.

  1826

  Douglass sent to live with Hugh Auld’s family in Baltimore.

  David Walker founds the Massachusetts General Colored Association.

  1827

  Samuel Cornish and John Brown Russwurm publish Freedom’s Journal, the first black newspaper, which calls for immediate emancipation; the newspaper lasts two years.

  Slavery abolished in New York State.

  1829

  David Walker publishes militant abolitionist pamphlet, Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World, in Boston and surreptitiously distributes copies to southern blacks.

  1830

  First black national convention, held in Philadelphia.

  1831

  William Lloyd Garrison begins publication in Boston of the Liberator, which endorses the immediate emancipation of all American slaves.

  Nat Turner leads bloody slave uprising in Southampton County, Virginia, prompting the Virginia legislature to consider gradual emancipation in the state.

  Less than three months after Nat Turner’s rebellion, Jamaica slaves set fire to hilltops and then burn sugar estates throughout the colony in a “Baptist War,” but do not molest a single planter.

  Douglass undergoes religious conversion, purchases a copy of The Columbian Orator, and learns about the abolition movement after seeing a speech by John Quincy Adams reprinted in the Baltimore American.

  1832

  South Carolina state convention nullifies federal tariff duties, which increase the cost of cotton production. President Jackson sends reinforcements to federal forts in Charleston harbor and threatens to send federal troops and execute the state’s political leaders. The state repeals nullification, and a congressional compromise measure reduces federal tariff duties.

  1833

  American Anti-Slavery Society launched in Philadelphia.

  Douglass is sent back to Talbot County to live with his new owner, Thomas Auld, son-in-law of the deceased Aaron Anthony.

  1834

  On 1 August, the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 takes effect, freeing 800,000 slaves in the British West Indies and most slaves throughout the British Empire. African Americans begin holding an
nual First of August celebrations.

  Douglass spends the year as a field hand hired out to Talbot County “slave breaker” Edward Covey.

  1836

  After an unsuccessful escape attempt, Douglass is returned to Hugh Auld in Baltimore.

  Congress implements the “gag rule,” a procedure that tables antislavery petitions and restricts debate on slavery.

  New York Committee of Vigilance founded to help fugitive slaves.

  1837

  The Illinois abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy is murdered in Alton while defending his printing press against a mob.

  Financial panic causes a dramatic decrease in northern land values and a six-year depression.

  1838

  On 3 September, Douglass departs Baltimore and escapes to the North. He marries the free black Anna Murray in New York City on 15 September, and the couple settles in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

  1839

  African slaves on board the schooner Amistad successfully revolt; legal proceedings in New Haven, Connecticut, win freedom for the rebels the following year.

  Douglass begins speaking at black antislavery meetings in New Bedford. His first child, Rosetta, is born.

  Madison Washington escapes slavery in Virginia around this time and successfully reaches the Dawn Settlement of fugitive slaves near Amherstburg, Canada.

  Theodore Dwight Weld publishes American Slavery As It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses, a compilation of facts about American slavery drawn chiefly from southern sources.

  1840

  Political abolitionists break off from the American Anti-Slavery Society, which calls government corrupt and the Constitution proslavery, and forms the Liberty Party, the nation’s first abolitionist party.

  Frederick Douglass’s second child, Lewis, is born.

  1841

  Douglass is hired as a traveling lecturer by Garrisonian abolitionists.

  Madison Washington leaves Canada and returns to Virginia in an unsuccessful attempt to liberate his wife and children. In November, he leads the rebellion of slaves aboard the schooner Creole and reaches shelter at Nassau in the Bahamas.

  1842

  In March, British authorities in Nassau free Madison Washington and the Creole rebels. Details of Washington’s subsequent life are uncertain.

  The Webster-Ashburton Treaty is signed in August. Among its provisions are a commitment by the United States to end the slave trade on the high seas and one by Great Britain to halt its navy’s “officious interference” with American vessels.

  Frederick Douglass’s third child, Frederick, is born.

  1843

  A white mob attacks Frederick Douglass at Pendleton, Indiana, during a lecture tour, and breaks his hand; he continues the tour.

  At the black national convention in Buffalo, New York, Henry Highland Garnet calls on slaves to adopt violent resistance.

  1844

  Congressional gag rule formally repealed after sustained protests by John Quincy Adams, Joshua Giddings, and antislavery northerners.

  Frederick Douglass’ fourth child, Charles Remond, is born; he is named after a black abolitionist.

  1845

  Texas admitted to the Union as a slave state.

  Douglass publishes his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. In danger of being recaptured as a runaway slave, he departs in August to work for twenty-one months in Great Britain as an abolitionist lecturer. Soon after his arrival, he gives the first of a number of lectures celebrating Madison Washington and the Creole rebels.

  1846

  British abolitionists negotiate the purchase and manumission of Douglass from Hugh Auld.

  United States declares war against Mexico over a Texas border dispute.

  1847

  From his new home in Rochester, New York, Douglass publishes the North Star, an independent abolitionist weekly.

  He meets John Brown, whom he says “is in sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause as though his own soul had been pierced with the iron of slavery.”

  1848

  Douglass attends the Seneca Falls Women’s Rights Convention on 19–20 July and gives an eloquent speech defending a resolution for women’s suffrage. The resolution is approved.

  The Free-Soil Party is formed by a coalition of antislavery Whigs, Democrats, and some Liberty Party members.

  The Liberty Party changes its name to the National Liberty Party, though it is still commonly referred to as the Liberty Party. The name change reflects its radical platform of universal emancipation and equal rights for all men and women. Gerrit Smith is the party’s presidential candidate.

  Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo ends the Mexican War. The United States acquires the present-day states of California, New Mexico, Nevada, Utah, and most of Arizona and Colorado.

  The Wilmot Proviso prohibits slavery in newly acquired territories from Mexico, sparking explosive debates over the spread of slavery. The bill fails in the Senate.

  France abolishes slavery in its West Indian colonies.

  1849

  The British reformer Julia Griffiths joins the staff of Douglass’s newspaper as its unofficial business manager. Despite widely circulated rumors of an inappropriate personal relationship with Douglass, she assists him until returning home in 1855.

  1850

  Congress passes compromise measures in hopes of preventing civil war over slavery. The Compromise of 1850 includes the admission of California as a free state; the abolition of the slave trade (but not slavery) in Washington, D.C.; and a draconian fugitive slave law that denies suspects the right to a trial or judicial hearing and allows police to forcibly deputize citizens to hunt down alleged fugitives.

  1851

  Douglass revamps his newspaper into Frederick Douglass’ Paper, an organ of the National Liberty Party; Gerrit Smith, wealthy leader of the National Liberty Party, provides financial support to the paper.

  The captured fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins is rescued from the Boston courthouse by antislavery supporters. The rescue receives national coverage.

  The fugitive Thomas Sims is arrested in Boston and sent back to Savannah, Georgia, despite efforts to rescue him. His case is a cause célèbre for antislavery Northerners.

  1852

  Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which sells 300,000 copies in its first year.

  Douglass publishes positive reviews of Stowe’s novel and plans a trip to Nassau, possibly to interview Madison Washington.

  The black nationalist Martin R. Delany publishes Condition, Elevation, Emigration and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States.

  1853

  Douglass publishes his novella, The Heroic Slave, in Autographs for Freedom, edited by Griffiths, and in his newspaper.

  William Wells Brown publishes Clotel; or the President’s Daughter, regarded by many as the first African American novel.

  Solomon Northup, a free, middle-class New York State black man, publishes Twelve Years A Slave, his narrative of being kidnapped in 1841 and sent to Louisiana as a slave for twelve years before being rescued.

  An Anglo-American claims commission assesses the Creole case and rules that southern claimants are entitled to compensation for the loss of their property. In 1855, U.S. claimants receive $110,330 from Britain.

  1854

  President Pierce’s administration attempts to annex Cuba.

  The Kansas-Nebraska Act repeals the Missouri Compromise and opens northern territories to slavery, resulting in the dissolution of the Whig Party, the rise of the Republican Party, and immigration to Kansas Territory by proslavery and antislavery settlers.

  Attempts made in Boston to rescue the captured fugitive slave Anthony Burns, but President Pierce sends federal troops to Boston to uphold the law. Burns is sent back to slavery in Virginia, but abolitionists raise over $1,000, purchase his freedom, and send him to Oberlin College.

  1855

  Doug
lass’s publishes his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom.

  Herman Melville publishes Benito Cereno, a historical novella of the 1805 Tyral slave mutiny, drawn from Amasa Delano’s 1817 Narrative.

  Walt Whitman publishes Leaves of Grass.

  The National Liberty Party changes its name to the Radical Abolition Party. A party convention considers but rejects Douglass as candidate for secretary of state for New York.

  1856

  Guerrilla warfare erupts in the Kansas Territory as proslavery and antislavery settlers battle each other at Blackjack, Lawrence, and other locations.

  Massachusetts senator Charles Sumner delivers “Crime against Kansas” speech in Congress, calling slavery barbarous, and is brutally beaten and almost killed on the Senate floor by the South Carolina representative Preston Books.

  John C. Frémont, the first Republican Party presidential candidate, wins a majority of northern votes but is defeated by the Democratic candidate James Buchanan.

  Douglass is proposed as the vice presidential candidate on a Radical Abolition Party ticket with Gerrit Smith as president. He loses the nomination after members point out that both Smith and Douglass reside in New York State.

  1857

  In Dred Scott v. Sandford, the U.S. Supreme Court declares unconstitutional any attempt to prohibit the spread of slavery into federal territories, thus rendering unconstitutional the central platform of the Republican Party. The Dred Scott decision also denies citizenship rights to blacks and opens the way for southern masters to bring their slaves into any free state.