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White to move and mate in two #528 -- Narrative of the Life of [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2024-06-27  

Fredrick Douglass,

an

American Slave.

Written by Himself.

150th Anniversary Edition

With a New Introduction by

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

… Most remarkable of all, Deidrich writes, “they openly moved as lovers in an elaborate social circle, entertaining friends in her home, visiting with them, attending dances, lectures, and theatre productions together. For their acquaintances, their relationship was no secret.”

I wonder if Douglass could possibly have imagined that he, even if only through his relationship with Assing, was the object of scrutiny not by Southern racists, but by the Prussian secret service! Somehow, I doubt it. (Would that they had kept tabs on Thomas Jefferson in Paris.) But Maria Diedrich’s research, once published, will unveil the private life of an African American in far more detail than we are accustomed to: Douglass’s private life is about to beome public in a way rarely encountered in black culture. As a result, Douglass’s “protean character” emerges as far more complex and multidimensional than the standard cardboard heroes that far too many biographies of black figures have sought to draw. …



--Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

...

My mistress was, as I have said, a kind and tender-hearted woman; and in the simplicity of her soul she commenced, when I first went to live with her, to treat me as she supposed one human being ought to treat another. In entering upon the duties of a slaveholder, she did not seem to perceive that I sustained to her the relation of a mere chattel, and that for her to treat me as a human being was not only wrong, but dangerously so. Slavery proved as injurious to her as it did to me. When I went there, she was a pious, warm, and tender-hearted woman. There was no sorrow or suffering for which she had not a tear. She had bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach. Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness. The first step in her downward course was in her ceasing to instruct me. She now commenced to practise her husband’s precepts. She finally became even more violent in her opposition than her husband himself. She was not satisfied with simply doing as well as he had commanded; she seemed anxious to do better. Nothing seemed to make her more angry than to see me with a newspaper. She seemed to think that here lay the danger. I have had her rush at me with a face made all up of fury, and snatch from me a newspaper, in a manner that fully revealed her apprehension. She was an apt woman; and a little experience soon demonstrated, to her satisfaction, that education and slavery were incompatible with each other.

From this time I was most narrowly watched. If I was in a separate room any considerable length of time, I was sure to be suspected of having a book, and was at once called to give an account of myself. All this, however, was too late. The first step had been taken. Mistress, in teaching me the alphabet, had given me the inch, and no precaution could prevent me from taking the ell. …



--Fredrick Douglass

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