Two Slave Rebellions at Sea

by Frederick Douglass

  “You don’t suit my pile,”4 was the reply, as his eyes followed the retreating form of the handsome octoroon. “Give her a cabin to herself; she ought not to herd with the rest,” he continued, turning to the mate.

  He turned with a meaning laugh to execute the order.

  The “Creole” proceeded slowly on her way towards New Orleans. In the men’s cabin, Madison Monroe5 lay chained to the floor and heavily ironed. But from the first moment on board ship he had been busily engaged in selecting men who could be trusted in the dash for liberty that he was determined to make. The miniature files and saws which he still wore concealed in his clothing were faithfully used in the darkness of night. The man was at peace, although he had caught no glimpse of the dearly loved Susan. When the body suffers greatly, the strain upon the heart becomes less tense, and a welcome calmness had stolen over the prisoner’s soul.

  On the ninth day out the brig encountered a rough sea, and most of the slaves were sick, and therefore not watched with very great vigilance. This was the time for action, and it was planned that they should rise that night. Night came on; the first watch was summoned; the wind was blowing high. Along the narrow passageway that separated the men’s quarters from the women’s, a man was creeping.

  The octoroon lay upon the floor of her cabin, apparently sleeping, when a shadow darkened the door, and the captain stepped into the room, casting bold glances at the reclining figure. Profound silence reigned. One might have fancied one’s self on a deserted vessel, but for the sound of an occasional footstep on the deck above, and the murmur of voices in the opposite hold.

  She lay stretched at full length with her head resting upon her arm, a position that displayed to the best advantage the perfect symmetry of her superb figure; the dim light of a lantern played upon the long black ringlets, finely-chiselled mouth and well-rounded chin, upon the marbled skin veined by her master’s blood,—representative of two races, to which did she belong?

  For a moment the man gazed at her in silence; then casting a glance around him, he dropped upon one knee and kissed the sleeping woman full upon the mouth.

  With a shriek the startled sleeper sprang to her feet. The woman’s heart stood still with horror; she recognized the intruder as she dashed his face aside with both hands.

  “None of that, my beauty,” growled the man, as he reeled back with an oath, and then flung himself forward and threw his arm about her slender waist. “Why did you think you had a private cabin, and all the delicacies of the season? Not to behave like a young catamount,6 I warrant you.”

  The passion of terror and desperation lent the girl such strength that the man was forced to relax his hold slightly. Quick as a flash, she struck him a stinging blow across the eyes, and as he staggered back, she sprang out of the doorway, making for the deck with the evident intention of going overboard.

  “God have mercy!” broke from her lips as she passed the men’s cabin, closely followed by the captain.

  “Hold on, girl; we’ll protect you!” shouted Madison, and he stooped, seized the heavy padlock which fastened the iron ring that encircled his ankle to the iron bar, and stiffening the muscles, wrenched the fastening apart, and hurled it with all his force straight at the captain’s head.

  His aim was correct. The padlock hit the captain not far from the left temple. The blow stunned him. In a moment Madison was upon him and had seized his weapons, another moment served to handcuff the unconscious man.

  “If the fire of Heaven were in my hands, I would throw it at these cowardly whites. Follow me: it is liberty or death!”7 he shouted as he rushed for the quarter-deck. Eighteen others followed him, all of whom seized whatever they could wield as weapons.

  The crew were all on deck; the three passengers were seated on the companion smoking. The appearance of the slaves all at once completely surprised the whites.

  So swift were Madison’s movements that at first the officers made no attempt to use their weapons; but this was only for an instant. One of the passengers drew his pistol, fired, and killed one of the blacks. The next moment he lay dead upon the deck from a blow with a piece of a capstan bar in Madison’s hand. The fight then became general, passengers and crew taking part.

  The first and second mates were stretched out upon the deck with a single blow each. The sailors ran up the rigging for safety, and in short time Madison was master of the “Creole.”

  After his accomplices had covered the slaver’s deck, the intrepid leader forbade the shedding of more blood. The sailors came down to the deck, and their wounds were dressed. All the prisoners were heavily ironed and well guarded except the mate, who was to navigate the vessel; with a musket doubly charged pointed at his breast, he was made to swear to take the brig into a British port.

  By one splendid and heroic stroke, the daring Madison had not only gained his own liberty, but that of one hundred and thirty-four others.

  The next morning all the slaves who were still fettered, were released, and the cook was ordered to prepare the best breakfast that the stores would permit; this was to be a fête in honor of the success of the revolt and as a surprise to the females, whom the men had not yet seen.

  As the women filed into the captain’s cabin, where the meal was served, weeping, singing and shouting over their deliverance, the beautiful octoroon with one wild, half-frantic cry of joy sprang towards the gallant leader.

  “Madison!”

  “My God! Susan! My wife!”

  She was locked to his breast; she clung to him convulsively. Unnerved at last by the revulsion to more than relief and ecstacy, she broke into wild sobs, while the astonished company closed around them with loud hurrahs.

  Madison’s cup of joy was filled to the brim. He clasped her to him in silence, and humbly thanked Heaven for its blessing and mercy.

  The next morning the “Creole” landed at Nassau, New Providence, where the slaves were offered protection and hospitality.

  Every act of oppression is a weapon for the oppressed. Right is a dangerous instrument; woe to us if our enemy wields it.

  1. Lyrics to the call-and-response slave work song “Shuck That Corn Before You Eat.”

  2. One-eighth black; a term used at the time to describe a light-complexioned black.

  3. First Families of Virginia.

  4. Fortune; funds.

  5. During the time that Hopkins was writing the story, she was in fierce disagreement with the black leader Booker T. Washington, whom she distrusted for his conciliatory relations with whites. She may have changed the name of the historical Madison Washington to Madison Monroe in order to excise the name of Washington, though ultimately her reason for making the name change is unclear.

  6. Short-tailed wildcat, such as a lynx.

  7. An echo of the 1775 revolutionary declaration attributed to the Virginia patriot Patrick Henry (1736–1799).

  PART 5

  Criticism

  IN 1982, ROBERT B. STEPTO PUBLISHED the first critical study of The Heroic Slave. Since then, Douglass’s novella has received considerable critical attention. Critics have deepened our appreciation of the novella’s aesthetics and explored its racial politics (Douglass’s views on black resistance and nationalism in particular). There has also been work on Douglass’s use of historical sources, his awareness of the larger diplomatic context surrounding the Creole revolt, his interest in interracial friendship, and his interactions with other writers of the time, such as Harriet Beecher Stowe. Critics have debated key aspects of The Heroic Slave. Though an admirer of the novella, Richard Yarborough took Douglass to task for his emphasis on black male leadership, while Maggie Montesinos Sale, Celeste-Marie Bernier, and others developed alternative perspectives on gender in the novella. The seven selections in this section, running from Stepto’s pioneering essay on Douglass’s artful storytelling to Carrie Hyde’s consideration of meteorological motifs, provide a sampling of the major work on The Heroic Slave published over the last three decades. The selections are excer
pted from essays and chapters; by excerpting, we could present the greatest number of critical voices. Bibliographical information is provided for those who would like to read the essays or chapters in their entirety. At the end of the volume, we also provide a selected bibliography of work on The Heroic Slave and the Creole rebellion.

  ROBERT B. STEPTO

  from “Storytelling in Early Afro-American Fiction”1

  The novella is full of craft, especially of the sort which combines artfulness with a certain fabulistic usefulness. Appropriately enough, evidence of Douglass’ craft is available in the novella’s attention to both theme and character. In Part 1 of “The Heroic Slave,” we are told of the “double state” of Virginia and introduced not only to Madison Washington but also to Mr. Listwell, who figures as the model abolitionist in the story. The meticulous development of the Virginia theme and of the portrait of Mr. Listwell, much more than the portrayal of Washington as a hero, is the stuff of useful art-making in Douglass’ novella.

  The theme of the duality or “doubleness” of Virginia begins in the novella’s very first sentence: “The State of Virginia is famous in American annals for the multitudinous array of her statesmen and heroes.” The rest of the paragraph continues as follows:

  She has been dignified by some the mother of statesmen. History has not been sparing in recording their names, or in blazoning their deeds. Her high position in this respect, has given her an enviable distinction among her sister States. With Virginia for his birth-place, even a man of ordinary parts, on account of the general partiality for her sons, easily rises to eminent stations. Men, not great enough to attract special attention in their native States, have, like a certain distinguished citizen in the State of New York, sighed and repined that they were not born in Virginia. Yet not all the great ones of the Old Dominion have, by the fact of their birthplace, escaped undeserved obscurity. By some strange neglect, one of the truest, manliest, and bravest of her children,—one who, in after years, will, I think, command the pen of genius to set his merits forth—holds now no higher place in the records of that grand old Commonwealth than is held by a horse or an ox. Let those account for it who can, but there stands the fact, that a man who loved liberty as well as did Patrick Henry—who deserved it as much as Thomas Jefferson—and who fought for it with a valor as high, an arm as strong, and against odds as great as he who led all the armies of the American colonies through the great war for freedom and independence, lives now only in the chattel records of his native state.2

  At least two features here are worthy of note. The paragraph as a whole, but especially its initial sentences, can be seen as significant revoicing of the conventional opening of a slave narrative. Slave narratives usually begin with the phrase “I was born”; this is true of Douglass’ 1845 Narrative and true also, as James Olney reminds us, of the narratives of Henry Bibb, Henry “Box” Brown, William Wells Brown, John Thompson, Samuel Ringgold Ward, James W. C. Pennington, Austin Steward, James Roberts, and many, many other former slaves.3 In “The Heroic Slave,” however, Douglass transforms “I was born” into the broader assertion that in Virginia many heroes have been born. After that, he then works his way to the central point that a certain one—an unknown hero who lives now only in the chattel records and not the history books—has been born. Douglass knows the slave narrative convention, partly because he has used it himself; but more to the point, he seems to have an understanding of how to exploit its rhetorical usefulness in terms of proclaiming the existence and identity of an individual without merely employing it verbatim. This is clear evidence, I think, of a first step, albeit a small one, toward the creation of an Afro-American fiction based upon the conventions of the slave narratives. That Douglass himself was quite possibly thinking in these terms while writing is suggested by his persistent reference to the “chattel records” which must, in effect, be transformed by “the pen of genius” so that his hero’s merits may be set forth—indeed, set free. If by this Douglass means that his hero’s story must be liberated from the realm—the text—of brutal fact, and more, that texts must be created to compete with other texts, then it’s safe to say that he brought to the creation of “The Heroic Slave” all the intentions, if not all the skills, of the self-conscious writer.

  The other key feature of the paragraph pertains more directly to the novella’s Virginia theme. I refer here to the small yet delightfully artful riddle which permits a certain ingenious closure of the paragraph. After declaring that his hero loved liberty as much as did Patrick Henry, and deserved it as much as Thomas Jefferson, Douglass refuses to name the third famous son of Virginia with whom his hero is to be compared. He speaks only of “he who led all the armies of the American colonies through the great war for freedom and independence.” Of course, as any school boy or girl knows, the mystery man is Washington. And that is the answer—and point—to Douglass’ funny-sad joke about the “double state” of Virginia as well: his mystery man is also a hero named Washington. Thus, Douglass advances his comparison of heroic statesmen and heroic chattel, and does so quite ingenuously by both naming and not naming them in such a way that we are led to discover that statesmen and slaves may share the same name and be heroes and Virginians alike. Rhetoric and meaning conjoin in a very sophisticated way in this passage, thus providing us with an indication of how seriously and ambitiously Douglass will take the task of composing the rest of the novella.

  “The Heroic Slave” is divided into four parts, and in each Virginia becomes less and less of a setting (especially of a demographic or even historical sort) and more of a ritual ground—a “charged field” as Victor Turner would say—for symbolic encounters between slaves and abolitionists or Virginians and Virginians. For example, in Part I, the encounter between Mr. Listwell, our soon-to-be abolitionist, and Madison Washington, our soon-to-be fugitive slave, takes place in a magnificent Virginia forest. In accord with many familiar notions regarding the transformational powers of nature in its purest state, both men leave the sylvan glen determined and resolved to become an abolitionist and a free man respectively. Thus, the Virginia forest is established as a very particular space within the figurative geography of the novella, one which will receive further definition as we encounter other spaces which necessarily involve very different rituals for slave and abolitionist alike and one to which we’ll return precisely because, as the point of departure, it is the only known point of return.

  Part II of “The Heroic Slave” takes place in Ohio. Listwell lives there and has the opportunity to aid an escaping slave who turns out to be none other than Madison Washington. This change in setting from Virginia to Ohio assists in the development of the Virginia theme chiefly because it gives Douglass the opportunity to stress the point that something truly happened to each man in that “sacred” forest, one happy result being that their paths did cross once again in the cause of freedom. As Listwell and Washington converse with each other before Listwell’s hearth, and each man tells his story of self-transformation in the forest and what happened thereafter, we are transported back to the forest, however briefly and indirectly. By the end of Part II, it becomes clear in the context of the emerging novella that Ohio, as a free state, is an increasingly symbolic state to be achieved through acts of fellowship initiated however indirectly before. Ohio and that part of Virginia which we know only as “the forest” become separate but one, much as our heroic slave and model abolitionist become separate but one as they talk and truly hear each other.4

  In Part III, the return to Virginia and the forest is far more direct and in keeping with the brutal realities of life in the antebellum South. Listwell is back in Virginia on business, and so is Washington, who has come surreptitiously in quest of his wife still in slavery. Having portrayed Virginia’s heaven—the forest replete with pathways to freedom—Douglass now offers Virginia’s hell. As one might imagine, given Douglass’ zeal for temperance and the abolition of slavery, hell is a tavern full of drunkards, knaves, and traders of
human flesh. Hell’s first circle is the yard adjacent to the tavern where slaves on their way to market are “stabled” while the soul-driver drinks a dram. Its second circle is the remaining fifteen miles to Richmond where a slave auction awaits. The third circle may be sale to a new Virginia master and a long walk to a new plantation, or it may be a horrific re-encounter with middle passage, in the form of a “cruise” aboard a Baltimore-built slaver bound for New Orleans. If the latter, many other circles of Hell await, for there will be another auction, another sale, another master, another long walk, and perhaps yet another auction.

  The point to Part III is that while Washington has returned to Virginia, lost his wife in their escape attempt, and been re-enslaved, Listwell is also there and able to provide the means by which Washington may free himself—and others. The suggestion is that it is quite one thing to aid an escaping slave in Ohio and quite another to assist one in deepest, darkest Virginia. Listwell rises to the occasion and, immediately after the slave auction in Richmond, slips Washington several files for the chains binding him. What Washington and the rest do once on board the Creole is, of course, a matter of historical record.

  One might think that the fourth and last part of “The Heroic Slave” would be totally devoted to a vivid narration of swashbuckling valor aboard the high seas. This is not the case. The scene is once again Virginia; the time is set some time after the revolt on the Creole; the place is a “Marine Coffee-house” in Richmond; and the conversation is quite provocatively between two white Virginia sailors, obviously neither statesmen nor slaves.5 One of the sailors had shipped on the Creole, the other had not. The conversation takes a sharp turn when the latter sailor, Jack Williams, makes it clear that, “For my part I feel ashamed to have the idea go abroad, that a ship load of slaves can’t be safely taken from Richmond to New Orleans. I should like, merely to redeem the character of Virginia sailors, to take charge of a ship load of ’em to-morrow” (p. 186). Tom Grant, who had been on the Creole, soon replies, “I dare say here what many men feel, but dare not speak, that this whole slave-trading business is a disgrace and scandal to Old Virginia” (pp. 186–87). The conversation goes on, and before it’s done, Tom Grant has indeed told the story of the revolt led by Madison Washington.6 The point is, however, that Tom Grant, not the narrator, tells this story, and he does so in such a way that it is clear that he has become a transformed man as a result of living through the episode.