Two Slave Rebellions at Sea

by Frederick Douglass

  Thus, Douglass ends his novella by creating the dialogue between Virginians about the “state” of Virginia which was effectively prefigured in the novella’s first paragraph. The duality or doubleness of Virginia (and indeed of America) first offered as an assertion and then in the form of a riddle now assumes a full-blown literary form. More to the point, perhaps, is the fact that Tom Grant—the sailor who was forced to listen, if you will, to both the speech and action of Madison Washington—has become something of an abolitionist (though he bristles at the suggestion) and, most certainly, something of a white Southern storyteller of a tale of black freedom. This particular aspect of Grant’s transformation is keeping with what happens to our white Northerner, Mr. Listwell. What we see here, then, is an expression within Douglass’ narrative design of the signal idea that freedom for slaves can transform the South and the North and hence the nation.

  This brings us to Mr. Listwell, whose creation is possibly the polemical and literary achievement of the novella. In many ways, his name is his story and his story his name. He is indeed a “Listwell” in that he enlists as an abolitionist and does well by the cause—in fact, he does magnificently. He is also a “Listwell” in that he listens well; he is, in the context of his relations with Madison Washington and in accord with the aesthetics of storytelling, a model storylistener and hence an agent, in many senses of the term, for the continuing performance of the story he and Washington increasingly share and “tell” together. Of course, Douglass’ point is that both features of Listwell’s “listing” are connected and, ideally, inextricably bound: one cannot be a good abolitionist without being a good listener, with the reverse often being true as well.

  Douglass’ elaborate presentation of these ideas begins in Part I of “The Heroic Slave” when Washington apostrophizes in the Virginia forest on his plight as an abject slave and unknowingly is overheard by Listwell. At the end of his speech, the storyteller slave vows to gain freedom and the storylistener white Northerner vows to become an abolitionist so that he might aid slaves such as the one he has just overheard. This is storytelling of a sort conducted at a distance. Both storyteller and storylistener are present, and closure of a kind occurs in that both performers resolve to embark on new journeys or careers. But, of course, the teller (slave) doesn’t know yet that he has a listener (abolitionist, brother in the cause), and the listener doesn’t know yet what role he will play in telling the story that has just begun. In this way, Douglass spins three primary narrative threads: one is the storyteller/slave’s journey to freedom; another is the storylistener/abolitionist’s journey to service; the third is the resolution or consummation of purposeful human brotherhood between slave and abolitionist, as it may be most particularly achieved through the communal aesthetic of storytelling.

  In Part II, the three primary threads reappear in an advanced state. Washington has escaped and is indeed journeying to freedom; Listwell is now a confirmed abolitionist whose references to conversations with other abolitionists suggest that he is actively involved; and Washington and Listwell are indeed in the process of becoming brothers in the struggle, both because they befriend each other on a cold night and because, once settled before Listwell’s fire, they engage for long hours in storytelling. Several features of their storytelling are worth remarking upon. One is that Washington, as the storyteller, actually tells two stories about his adventures in the Virginia forest, one about a thwarted escape attempt and the resulting limbo he enters while neither slave nor free, and the other about how he finally breaks out of limbo, reasserting his desire for freedom.7 The importance of this feature is that it occasions a repetition of the novella’s “primary” forest episode which creates in turn a narrative rhythm which we commonly associate with oral storytelling. While it would be stretching things to say that this is an African residual in the novella, we are on safe ground, however, in suggesting that in creating this particular episode Douglass is drawing deeply on his knowledge of storytelling amongst slaves.

  Another pertinent feature is that Listwell, as the storylistener, is both a good listener and, increasingly, a good prompter of Washington’s stories. Early on, Listwell says, “But this was five years ago; where have you been since?” Washington replies, “I will try to tell you,” and to be sure storytelling ensues. Other examples of this abound. In one notable instance, in response to Washington’s explanation as to why he stole food while in flight, Listwell asserts, “And just there you were right…. I once had doubts on this point myself, but a conversation with Gerrit Smith, (a man, by the way, that I wish you could see, for he is a devoted friend of your race, and I know he would receive you gladly,) put an end to all my doubts on this point. But do not let me interrupt you” (p. 160). Listwell interrupts, but his is what we might call a good interruption, for he authenticates the slave’s rationale for stealing instead of questioning it. In this way, Listwell’s remarks advance both story and cause, which is exactly what he’s supposed to do now that he’s an abolitionist.8

  Resolution of this episode takes the form of a letter from Washington to Listwell, written in Canada a few short days after both men have told stories into the night. It begins, “My dear Friend,—for such you truly are:— … Madison is out of the woods at last….” The language here takes us back to the initial encounter in the Virginia forest between Washington and Listwell,—back to a time when they weren’t acquaintances, let alone friends—nor on their respective journeys to freedom and service. In examining the essential differences between Washington’s apostrophe to no apparent listener and his warm letter to a dear friend, we are drawn to the fact that in each case, a simple voice cries out, but in the second instance a listener is not only addressed but remembered and hence recreated. The great effect is that a former slave’s conventional token of freedom and literacy bound and found in Canada takes on certain indelible storytelling properties.

  From this point on in “The Heroic Slave” little more needs to be established between Washington and Listwell, either as fugitive slave and abolitionist or as storyteller and listener, except the all important point that their bond is true and that Listwell will indeed come to Washington’s aid in Virginia just as promptly as he did before in the North. In a sense their story is over, but in another respect it isn’t: there remains the issue, endemic to both oral and written art, of how their story will live on with full flavor and purpose. On one hand, the story told by Washington and Listwell lives on in a direct, apparent way in the rebellion aboard the Creole, the resulting dialogue between the two Virginia sailors who debate the state of their State, and the transformation of one of the sailors, Tom Grant, into a teller of the story. On the other, the story lives on in another way which draws the seemingly distant narrator into the communal bonds of storytelling and the cause.

  Late in the novella, in Part III, the narrator employs the phrase “Mr. Listwell says” and soon thereafter refers to Listwell as “our informant.” These phrases suggest rather clearly that Listwell has told his shared tale to the narrator and that he has thus been a storyteller as well as a storylistener all along. The other point to be made is, of course, that the narrator has been at some earlier point a good storylistener, meaning in part that he can now tell a slave’s tale well because he was willing to hear it before making it his own tale to tell. What’s remarkable about this narrative strategy is how it serves Douglass’ needs both as a novelist and as a black public figure under pressure. Here was a theory of narrative distilled from the relations between tellers and listeners in the black and white worlds Douglass knew best; here was an answer to all who cried, “Frederick, tell your story”—and then couldn’t or wouldn’t hear him.

  1. From Robert B. Stepto, “Storytelling in Early Afro-American Fiction: Frederick Douglass’ ‘The Heroic Slave,’” originally appeared in Georgia Review 36, No. 2/ (Summer 1982): 355–68; the excerpt is from 360–68. Copyright © 1982 by The University of Georgia/ © 1982 by Robert B. Stepto. Reprinted by permission of Rober
t B. Stepto and The Georgia Review. The footnotes have been renumbered and, unless otherwise indicated, are the author’s.

  2. Douglass, “The Heroic Slave,” in Abraham Chapman, ed., Steal Away: Stories of the Runaway Slaves (New York: Praeger, 1971), p. 146. All future page references are to this republication of the novella.

  3. James Olney, “‘I Was Born’: Slave Narratives, Their Status as Autobiography and Literature.” An unpublished manuscript. [The essay appears in Callaloo, no. 20 (1984): 46–73. Eds.]

  4. Listwell’s role as host and storylistener in Part II suggests that he may be, at least in this section of the novella, a fictive portrait of abolitionist Joseph Gurney. Douglass himself plants this idea when he remarks in “Slavery, the Slumbering Volcano” that Washington debated with Gurney how advisable it would be to attempt to rescue his wife from slavery. [A selection from that speech, also called “Address at the Great Anti-Colonization Meeting,” is included in this volume. Eds.]

  5. Placing the sailors in a “Marine Coffee-house” is possibly both an awkward and a revealing touch. To be sure, such establishments existed, but one cannot help but feel that a tavern would be a more “natural” setting. The braggadocio and general belligerence of Jack Williams, for example, suggest the behavior of a man whose cup contains a headier brew than coffee or tea. Of course, the problem for Douglass was that, given his advocacy of temperance, he could not easily situate Tom Grant, the reformed sailor and a voice of reason, in one of the Devil’s haunts. This is quite likely an instance where Douglass’ politics and penchant for realism conflicted in a way he had not encountered before he attempted prose fiction.

  6. Early in Part IV, Tom Grant is referred to as “our first mate” (p. 185). This suggests that Grant is loosely modeled upon Zephaniah Gifford, the actual first mate of the Creole. Gifford gave many depositions on the revolt and hence told Washington’s story many times. See Howard Jones, “The Peculiar Institution and National Honor: The Case of the Creole Slave Revolt,” Civil War History, 21 (March 1975), pp. 34 ff.

  7. These two stories of immersion in and ascent from a kind of limbo are central to the history of Afro-American letters, chiefly because they so conspicuously prefigure the trope of hibernation most accessible to the modern reader in Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man, published almost exactly one hundred years later. Madison Washington’s cave in the realm between the plantation and the world beyond—”In the dismal swamps I lived, sir, five long years,—a cave for my home during day. I wandered at night with the wolf and the bear,—sustained by the promise that my good Susan would meet me in the pine woods, at least once a week”—anticipates the Invisible Man’s hole in the region between black and white Manhattan. Once Washington’s wolf and bear become in the mind’s eye, brer wolf and brer bear, this particular contour in Afro-American literary history is visible and complete.

  8. This brief and seemingly utilitarian passage in the novella becomes remarkable when one realizes that Douglass is also about the task of composing a salute or “praise song” for a new friend in the cause, Gerrit Smith. “The Heroic Slave,” we must recall, was Douglass’ contribution to an anthology collected for the purposes of raising funds for the newly established Frederick Douglass’ Paper. The Paper was created when Douglass’ North Star merged with Gerrit Smith’s Liberty Party Paper and Smith committed himself to subsidizing the new publication. Listwell’s praise of Smith in the novella is, in effect, both a tribute and a “thank you note” from Douglass to his new business partner. And it is something else as well: praise for Smith and not, say, Garrison is a clear signal from Douglass that he has broken with the Garrisonian abolitionists and aligned himself with new friends. His praise for Smith took an even grander form when Douglass dedicated My Bondage and My Freedom: “To Honorable Gerrit Smith, as a slight token of esteem for his character, admiration for his genius and benevolence, affection for his person, and gratitude for his friendship, and as a small but most sincere acknowledgment of his pre-eminent services in behalf of the rights and liberties of an afflicted, despised and deeply outraged people, by ranking slavery with piracy and murder, and by denying it either a legal or constitutional existence, this volume is respectfully dedicated, by his faithful and firmly attached friend, Frederick Douglass.” The doffing of the cap in “The Heroic Slave” became, within two years, a full and reverent bow.

  WILLIAM L. ANDREWS

  from “The Novelization of Voice in Early African American Narrative”1

  In June 1842 the Liberator published what it called “Madison Washington: Another Chapter in His History,” in which it brought a few new facts to light about Washington’s activities before the Creole affair. The Liberator cited a message from a Canadian abolitionist, Hiram Wilson, who said Washington had been living in Canada for “some time” while planning a trip to Virginia to rescue his enslaved wife. There was evidence from abolitionists in New York who had given Washington money to defray his expenses on his journey south. But as to what had happened when the black man arrived in Virginia, the Liberator could only speculate. It inferred that in the process of trying to free his wife, Washington had been apprehended and “sold for New-Orleans,” an explanation that would account for why he was part of the human cargo of the New Orleans–bound Creole. But what about the fate of his wife? The Liberator remembered from the depositions of a year earlier that the discovery of Washington in the slave women’s cabin had led to the first violent acts of the slave revolt. “Might not his wife have been there among the women?” And if so, might not the entire insurrection “prove to have been but part of that great game, in which the highest stake was the liberty of [Washington’s] dear wife?” Clearly, a romantic dimension to Washington’s story was something the Liberator wanted to read into the scanty facts it had amassed about his pre-Creole past. This effort by the Liberator to infer a romantic plot underlying the Creole incidents testifies to the strong desire of American abolitionism for a story, if not the story, about Washington that would realize him as a powerful symbol of black antislavery heroism.

  In speeches during the late 1840s Douglass did his part to keep the memory of Madison Washington alive. But it was not until passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850 that Douglass became sufficiently militant on the justifiability of violence against slaveholders to treat Washington as the epitome of the “heroic slave.” Still, Douglass could not write a narrative tribute to Washington without facing the problem that the Liberator had posed a decade before: how to make a “history” of the fragmentary information available on Washington. Ten fruitless years had passed since the Liberator asked that someone get the facts about Washington in the conventional way, in a narrative “from his own lips.” It must have become plain to Douglass that for the example of Washington ever to be exploited in antislavery discourse, someone else would have to do Washington’s narrating for him. But in order for there to be any narrating, there would have to be a story of Washington to tell. Without a story that explained and justified the climactic action on the Creole, that action would lose much of its power to dictate the terms of its own interpretation. Thus the task of the narrator of The Heroic Slave became primarily to make Washington narratable, to empower in and through an authenticating story, in a history, that which Washington truly represented—the revolutionary, not the blindly rampaging, slave.

  Douglass’s approach to the problem of how to make Washington a part of history was novel. He made the lack of knowledge about Washington, as opposed to the wealth of historical information about other champions of liberty from Virginia, the gambit of his text. Unlike typical slave narrators, who promised the reader facts based on the most intimate knowledge of their subjects, the narrator of The Heroic Slave promises his reader only “marks, traces, possibles, and probabilities” relating to a subject that “is still enveloped in darkness” (474). The identity of the subject of The Heroic Slave is not specified in the opening paragraphs of the text. The only biographical fact brought out about the unnamed slave in
question is that he is Virginia-born. Like the illustrious Patrick Henry, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington, all the “great ones of the Old Dominion” whose names and deeds have been emblazoned in “American annals,” this unnamed slave was “a man who loved liberty.” And yet while “history has not been sparing in recording their names,” the slave’s name “lives now only in the chattel records of his native State.”

  There could be no more apt way for the first fictive narrator in African American literature to establish intercourse with his white reading audience. What sort of authority should be granted to your “history,” he asks, if it celebrates as heroes of liberty slave owners like Henry and Washington while ignoring a slave who “deserved” and “fought for” his liberty every bit as heroically as these men did? To what sources must we go to find the real “history” of the struggle for freedom in Virginia? As long as freedom-loving slaves exist only in records of chattel, they will be disqualified from their rightful place in “history,” the authoritative record of people of consequence. Obviously then, the aim of the narrator of The Heroic Slave is first to liberate his slave hero from all the records that chattelize him and then to make him a part of history so that his real significance as a son of Virginia can be recognized.