Frederick Douglass · Public domain edition · 139 cards · 39 chapters
Frederick Douglass's My Bondage and My Freedom recounts his life from enslaved childhood through escape, arguing that slavery corrupts both the enslaved and the enslaver. This deck covers his early years, the brutality under Covey, and his resolve to resist and escape.
1 / 139
Chapter 1 · Question
How did Douglass's grandmother earn her reputation for "good luck"?
WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.
Chapter 1 · Answer
The author explains that Grandmother Betty's "good luck" came from care, not fortune: she prevented sweet potatoes from being bruised in digging and buried them under her cabin hearth to protect them from frost. Because she was sent for to plant seedling potatoes, superstition held that whatever she touched would flourish. Her reputation brought presents, which she shared with the hungry children around her.
WakeCards · wakecards.com · Big ideas. Quick review.
Arrow keys move between cards. Space or Enter flips.
All questions and answers
Every card in the deck, in reading order. Click a chapter to expand. The reviewer above uses the same content.
CHAPTER I. _Childhood_3 cards
How did Douglass's grandmother earn her reputation for "good luck"?
The author explains that Grandmother Betty's "good luck" came from care, not fortune: she prevented sweet potatoes from being bruised in digging and buried them under her cabin hearth to protect them from frost. Because she was sent for to plant seedling potatoes, superstition held that whatever she touched would flourish. Her reputation brought presents, which she shared with the hungry children around her.
Chapter 1
What did Douglass believe about his grandparents' cabin before learning the truth?
Douglass long supposed the little log cabin and its lot belonged to his grandparents, knowing no higher authority than grandmamma. He later learned the hut and lot belonged to a distant person called "Old Master," and that grandmother herself, though grandfather was free, and all the children around her belonged to him too. He also learned the children would be taken to live with Old Master once big enough.
Chapter 1
According to Douglass, how did the slave-boy's early childhood compare with the slaveholder's child?
The author argues that in the first seven or eight years, if cold and hunger do not pierce the child, the slave-boy's life is about as full of sweet content as the petted white child's. The slave-boy escapes lectures on behavior, chiding over forks and tablecloths, and worry about soiling clothes, since he has almost none. He runs wild, though occasionally reminded he eats "white bread" and will "see sights."
Chapter 1
I.4 cards
How did Covey respond when Douglass explained the broken gate and delayed oxen?
Covey showed rigid displeasure and a ferocious, wolfish face, muttering about wasted time. He ordered Douglass back to the woods, then followed, cut three gum-tree goads, and demanded Douglass strip. Douglass refused to remove his clothes, so Covey tore them off and flogged him—the first of a series of floggings, some for lighter offenses than the gate.
Chapter 2
What methods did Covey use to keep enslaved workers laboring without direct supervision?
Covey relied on fear of punishment as the sole motive for industry. He crept through ditches, hid behind stumps and bushes, faked departures on horseback, and gave advance orders before doubling back to watch. Douglass and Bill Smith called him "the snake." The author argues such petty deception follows from slaveholders judging slaves by themselves.
Chapter 2
What did Douglass say the first six months with Covey did to him?
He said Covey succeeded in breaking him—body, soul, and spirit. His natural elasticity was crushed, his intellect languished, his desire to read departed, and the cheerful spark in his eye died. He described himself as a man transformed into a brute, spending his only leisure, Sunday, in a beast-like stupor under a tree.
Chapter 2
What did Douglass resolve while addressing the ships on the Chesapeake?
Seeing free ships tormented him with thoughts of his condition. He poured out his complaint alone to the Almighty, contrasting the free vessels with his chains. He resolved that one hundred miles straight north meant freedom, and declared he would rather be killed running than die standing, saying he would try to escape, God helping him.
Chapter 2
CHAPTER II. _Removed from My First Home_4 cards
Why did young Douglass dread going to Colonel Lloyd's plantation?
He feared being carried there and separated from his grandmother and grandfather, whose cabin was the only home he had ever known. Though curious to see the place, he was so attached to the cabin, well, and mill that he wished to remain little forever, knowing the taller he grew the shorter his stay.
Chapter 3
How did Douglass learn of his departure from Tuckahoe?
His grandmother, knowing his fears, kept the departure hidden until the morning they left and throughout the twelve-mile journey to Wye river, leading him by the hand. The reserve was necessary, Douglass says, because had he known, he would have given her trouble in getting him started.
Chapter 3
What happened when Douglass met his siblings at Lloyd's?
He met brother Perry and sisters Sarah and Eliza for the first time, along with cousins. They were strangers: slavery had made them so, since they had never nestled and played together. He wanted to play but stayed fearful, and when told grandmammy had gone, he wept and refused their peaches and pears.
Chapter 3
What does Douglass call his first night at old master's domicile?
He says he sobbed himself to sleep, finding healing in the angel wing of sleep, welcome balm to a wounded soul. He explains he narrates so trivial-seeming an incident, from when he was not more than seven, because he wishes to give a faithful history and this was his first introduction to the realities of slavery.
Chapter 3
CHAPTER III. _Parentage_4 cards
According to Douglass, how does slavery affect fathers and families?
The author argues slavery does away with fathers as it does away with families, since its laws do not recognize their existence in plantation arrangements. A child's name is not expected to be the father's, and the father's condition does not affect the child's: he may be a freeman or white while his child is a chattel or slave. Douglass notes his own father was a white man, or nearly white, shrouded in mystery.
Chapter 4
Why were the mother's visits to Douglass at Col. Lloyd's plantation so few and brief?
His mother was hired out to a Mr. Stewart about twelve miles from old master's, and as a field hand she seldom had daytime leisure for the journey. She had to walk one way or the other, since a horse or mule was deemed a luxury slavery could not afford her. The iron rule of the plantation made flogging the penalty for being absent from the field before sunrise unless specially permitted.
Chapter 4
What happened during the night visit Douglass recalls so vividly?
Having offended Aunt Katy, the cook, Douglass was denied food all day and threatened that she meant to starve the life out of him. He was roasting stolen corn when his mother arrived, took the corn, gave him a large ginger cake shaped like a heart, and lectured Aunt Katy, threatening to complain to old master. That night he learned he was not only a child but somebody's child.
Chapter 4
What does Douglass say about his mother's literacy and his own love of letters?
He learned after her death that she could read and was the only slave or colored person in Tuckahoe who enjoyed that advantage; how she acquired it he does not know. He calls a field hand learning to read remarkable, and her achievement extraordinary given the place. He happily attributes any love of letters he possesses not to his Anglo-Saxon paternity but to his mother's native genius.
Chapter 4
CHAPTER IV. _A General Survey of the Slave Plantation_4 cards
Why does Douglass say public opinion could not restrain cruelty on Lloyd's plantation?
Douglass argues the plantation was secluded, far from thoroughfares, towns, and schools, with no white mechanics or outside commerce. Its whole public consisted of slaveholders, slaves, and overseers, and neighboring farms belonged to Lloyd or like-minded friends. Public opinion, he argues, restrains cruelty only when it comes from a humane community; here it could not reach the slaves at all.
Chapter 5
How was justice handled on Lloyd's plantation, according to Douglass?
Douglass states the plantation was like a little nation with its own language, rules, and customs, apparently untouched by state law. Troubles were not settled by civil power. The overseer was generally accuser, judge, jury, advocate, and executioner, while the accused was always silent. The overseer handled all sides of the case himself.
Chapter 5
What did Douglass find appealing about Lloyd's plantation despite its harshness?
Douglass admits the place looked strikingly interesting, full of life and activity, unlike the indolent monotony of Tuckahoe. He enjoyed the windmill, the creek, the Long Green, the sloop Sally Lloyd, and the Great House with its lawn, gardens, and parks. He says these all belonged to him as well as to Col. Lloyd, and for a time he greatly enjoyed them.
Chapter 5
What superstitions did slaves hold about the Lloyd family burial ground?
Douglass reports superstition was rife: older slaves claimed to see shrouded ghosts on black horses entering the tombs, balls of fire flying there at midnight, and horrid sounds. Slaves believed slaveholders who died went to hell and might wish themselves back to wield the lash. These tales kept most slaves from approaching the gloomy grounds even in daytime.
Chapter 5
CHAPTER V. _Gradual Initiation to the Mysteries of Slavery_4 cards
Why did Captain Anthony refuse to protect his beaten slave from the overseer?
The author argues the refusal was policy, not innate brutality: if masters heard complaints against overseers, owning many slaves would be impossible, since it would erase the overseer's office or turn the master into one. So appeal is strictly prohibited, though a bold complaint sometimes later softens the overseer's rigor.
Chapter 6
How does the author describe the slaveholder's character under the slave system?
The author argues the slaveholder, like the slave, is a victim of the system: character takes shape from surroundings, and no relation is more unfavorable to honorable character than master to slave. Reason is imprisoned and passions run wild. Captain Anthony might have been humane under free-state restraints; his kind moods were brittle and brief.
Chapter 6
What happened to Esther, and why did Captain Anthony punish her?
Esther, a beautiful young slave, was courted by Edward Roberts. Captain Anthony ordered her to quit his company and, when she disobeyed, had her wrists tied to a joist and whipped her with a cowskin before dawn. The author argues his motives were brutal and selfish, not concern for her welfare.
Chapter 6
What did the young woman from Tuckahoe report, and how did old master respond?
The overseer Mr. Plummer, a drunkard, beat Milly's daughter, scarring her neck and shoulders and gashing her head with a hickory club. She walked twelve miles barefoot to beg protection. Captain Anthony told her angrily he believed she deserved it and threatened to flog her himself if she did not return home at once.
Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI. _Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd’s Plantation_3 cards
What explanation of slavery did young Douglass finally reach, and what did it imply?
The author recounts that he was first told God made white people masters and black people slaves, but found this unsatisfying and contradicted by puzzling exceptions: free blacks, whites who held no slaves, and near-white slaves. He concluded that it was not color but crime, not God but man, that explained slavery, and that what man can make, man can unmake.
Chapter 7
According to the chapter, what does the doctrine of submission produce on a slave plantation?
The author argues that the old doctrine that submission is the best cure for outrage and wrong does not hold on the slave plantation. He is whipped oftenest who is whipped easiest, and overseers prefer to whip those most easily whipped. A slave who stands up for himself may get hard stripes at first but becomes, in the end, a freeman even while formally a slave.
Chapter 7
What were allowance days on Lloyd's plantation, and why did slaves compete for the errand?
At the end of each month, slaves from the different farms came to the great house farm for their monthly allowance of meal and meat. Being selected to go was considered a high honor and proof of confidence, but the author suggests the chief motive was escaping the dull field and the overseer's eye and lash, since on the road with an ox team the slave was comparatively free.
Chapter 7
CHAPTER VII. _Life in the Great House_4 cards
How did the enslaved servants of the great house differ from field hands?
The chapter describes the great-house servants as a kind of black aristocracy on Col. Lloyd's plantation: fifteen men and maidens chosen for industry, faithfulness, and personal appearance, dressed in their young masters' and mistresses' cast-off silks and clothing. They resembled field hands only in color, and the distance between these favored few and the hungry multitudes of the quarter and field was immense—a distinction, the author notes, seldom passed over.
Chapter 8
What did Douglass conclude about the happiness of masters and slaves in the great house?
The author argues the splendor was deceptive: master and slave seemed alike in glory, but it may all be seeming. He contends the poor slave on his pine plank sleeps more soundly than the feverish voluptuary on his feather bed, and that lurking beneath the rich dishes were aches, dyspepsia, rheumatism, lumbago and gout—of which the Lloyds got their full share. Neither to the wicked nor the idler is there solid peace.
Chapter 8
Why was Old Barney punished, and what made his whipping notable?
Old Barney was a skilled farrier and ostler, but Col. Lloyd was unreasonable and exacting about his pleasure horses. Any suspected inattention brought degrading punishment, and Barney was often punished when faultless, forced to stand hat in hand and never reply. Douglass says the whipping he witnessed—the aged Barney kneeling bare-shouldered for thirty lashes—was the first and last time he saw a slave compelled to kneel for a whipping.
Chapter 8
What did the case of William Wilks reveal about slavery?
William Wilks, a coachman, was about as white as anyone on the plantation and closely resembled Murray Lloyd. It was whispered and generally admitted that he was Col. Lloyd's son by a favored slave-woman. His appearance, his unusual freedom, and his awareness of being more than a slave supported the belief. Murray Lloyd, whom he resembled, hounded his father until William was sold to slave-trader Austin Woldfolk.
Chapter 8
CHAPTER VIII. _A Chapter of Horrors_4 cards
Who was Austin Gore, and how did Douglass characterize him compared to other overseers?
Gore was the overseer who succeeded Mr. Hopkins on Col. Lloyd's plantation. Douglass describes him as possessing the general brutality of overseers but with marked individuality: reserved, grave, cold, and unapproachable before slaves, never joking. He whipped from a sense of duty and feared no consequences. Douglass says Gore had the coolness and freedom from moral restraint of a pirate-chief.
Chapter 9
How did Austin Gore kill Denby, and what was the outcome for Gore?
Gore tried to flog Denby, who broke away and stood neck-deep in the creek, refusing to come out. Gore gave three calls, warning he would shoot, then shot Denby dead. Col. Lloyd and Douglass's old master reproved Gore, but he explained the killing was necessary to prevent slaves from 'taking the place.' He kept his office, faced no judicial investigation, and the murder went unpunished.
Chapter 9
Why could no one be prosecuted for killing a slave in Talbot County, according to Douglass?
Douglass argues that killing a slave or any colored person in Talbot County was not treated as a crime by courts or community. Slaves could not testify against whites, so a murderer's bare word outweighed ten thousand black witnesses. He cites Thomas Lanman, who boasted of killing two slaves, and Mrs. Giles Hicks, whose warrant for murdering a girl was never served.
Chapter 9
What proverb does Douglass cite about the value of a slave's life, and what does it illustrate?
Douglass cites the common saying that it was 'worth but half a cent to kill a nigger, and a half a cent to bury him.' He says his experience justifies this proverb's practical truth. He uses it to show the reckless disregard for slave life, illustrating with Mr. Bondley, who shot an old man over oysters and was never publicly punished.
Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX. _Personal Treatment_4 cards
How did Miss Lucretia respond when Douglass was injured fighting Ike?
After Ike struck Douglass's forehead with a sharp piece of cinder fused with iron, Aunt Katy ignored his wound and said it served him right. Miss Lucretia instead called him into the parlor, washed the blood from his head and face, fetched her balsam bottle, wetted a piece of white linen with balsam, and bound up his head. Douglass says her kindness healed the wounds in his spirit made by Aunt Katy's words.
Chapter 10
How did the enslaved children at old master's take their meals?
Corn-meal mush, once cooled, was placed in a large wooden tray or trough like those used for maple sugar. It was set on the kitchen floor or on the ground outdoors, and the children were called like pigs and devoured the mush, some using oyster shells, some pieces of shingles, none using spoons. The fastest eater got most and the strongest got the best place; few left satisfied.
Chapter 10
What physical hardships did Douglass say troubled him most on the plantation?
Douglass states he suffered little from whipping, but hunger and cold were his two great physical troubles, and he suffered less from hunger than from cold. He was kept almost in a state of nudity in all seasons, wearing only a coarse sackcloth or tow-linen shirt night and day, changed once a week. He had no bed, slept in a little closet, and sometimes crawled into the corn-meal bag for warmth.
Chapter 10
Why did Douglass leave the Lloyd plantation with joy?
Douglass was not ten when Miss Lucretia told him he would go to Baltimore to live with Mr. Hugh Auld. He spent three happy days washing off the plantation scurf in the creek, urged by her warning that Baltimore people were cleanly and that he would get a pair of trousers only if he scrubbed off the dirt. He says his home there was a prison, not a home, and he was eager to see Baltimore.
Chapter 10
CHAPTER X. _Life in Baltimore_4 cards
Why did Mrs. Auld stop teaching Douglass to read?
Her husband, Master Hugh, forbade it, saying it was unlawful and unsafe. He argued that literacy would unfit a slave for slavery, make him discontented, and lead him to want to write and then run away. Mrs. Auld, as an obedient wife, then shaped her course to follow his direction.
Chapter 11
How did Master Auld's lecture affect Douglass?
Douglass says the words sank deep and stirred rebellion and thought in him. He took from them the revelation that knowledge unfits a child for slavery, and from that moment understood the pathway from slavery to freedom. He credits his master's opposition, as much as his mistress's help, for his learning to read.
Chapter 11
How does Douglass contrast city slaves with plantation slaves?
He says a Baltimore city slave is almost a free citizen compared to a plantation slave: better fed and clothed, less dejected, with unknown privileges. He attributes this partly to dense population and non-slaveholder decency checking cruelty. But he notes painful exceptions, like the Hamilton household, where country cruelties continued in the city.
Chapter 11
What did Douglass witness in the Hamilton household?
Mrs. Hamilton owned Henrietta, about twenty-two, and Mary, about fourteen, both fragile house slaves. Douglass describes them as emaciated and mangled, with Mary's head and shoulders cut and covered in festering sores from the lash. He saw Mrs. Hamilton strike them with a cowskin as they passed her chair, even while seeming pious.
Chapter 11
CHAPTER XI. _“A Change Came O’er the Spirit of My Dream”_4 cards
How did Douglass pay his young white playmates for reading lessons?
Douglass carried Webster's spelling book and took lessons from white boys in the streets, generally paying his tuition fee with bread carried in his pocket. For a single biscuit, he says, any hungry little comrade would give him a lesson more valuable to him than bread. Some boys taught him for pleasure rather than payment. He notes he would name two or three of them but prudence forbids, since promoting a slave's freedom was nearly unpardonable in a slave state.
Chapter 12
What happened to Mrs. Auld after she stopped teaching Douglass?
After her husband's advice checked her, Mrs. Auld ceased instructing Douglass and set herself against his learning. The author argues she had to justify herself to herself, and once she took sides in that debate she was riveted to her position. She became even more violent in opposing his reading than her husband, rushing at Douglass in fury to snatch books or newspapers from him. The author says slavery divested her of her earlier kindness and piety.
Chapter 12
What was the Columbian Orator and what did it contain?
Douglass bought the Columbian Orator for fifty cents from Mr. Knight on Thames Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, after hearing boys say they would learn pieces from it for an Exhibition. It contained a dialogue between a master and a recaptured slave in which the slave defends himself, the master is vanquished at every turn, and emancipates him. It also held Sheridan's speech on Catholic Emancipation, Chatham's speech on the American war, and speeches by Pitt and Fox.
Chapter 12
What did Douglass conclude about the foundation of slavery?
Reading the Columbian Orator, Douglass says he penetrated the secret of all slavery and oppression and ascertained their true foundation to be in the pride, the power and the avarice of man. He says the dialogue and speeches poured floods of light on slavery's nature, and that with such a book, his own human nature and experience, he was equal to a contest with religious advocates of slavery, white or colored. He notes some religious colored people at the south believed God required them to submit to slavery.
Chapter 12
CHAPTER XII. _Religious Nature Awakened_4 cards
How did Douglass first learn what abolitionists were, and why did the word give him hope?
The dictionary only defined abolition as "act of abolishing," leaving unclear what was to be abolished. A Baltimore American newspaper supplied the answer: petitions to Congress for abolishing slavery in the District of Columbia and the interstate slave trade. Douglass felt the matter was personal, saw fear as well as rage in slaveholders' talk, and believed abolitionists might succeed.
Chapter 13
Who awakened Douglass's religious nature, and what did he experience afterward?
A white Methodist minister named Hanson awakened his religious nature around age thirteen, preaching that all men, bond and free, are sinners who must repent and be reconciled to God through Christ. After weeks of doubt and fear, Douglass found a change of heart through faith in Jesus Christ. He then saw the world anew, loved all mankind including slaveholders, and abhorred slavery more than ever.
Chapter 13
Who was Uncle Lawson, and how did he influence Douglass?
Lawson was a devout old colored man who drove a dray for James Ramsey in Baltimore, prayed three times daily and everywhere he worked, and became Douglass's spiritual father. Douglass read hard words for him while Lawson taught "the spirit." Lawson told Douglass the Lord had a great work for him, that he must preach the gospel, and that if he asked for liberty in faith, God would give it.
Chapter 13
How did Douglass learn to write, and why did he want to before escaping?
In the shipyards he noticed carpenters marked timbers with letters for ship parts (S, L, L.F., L.A., S.A., S.F.). While keeping fire under the steam box and watching the yard at dinner, he copied them, reasoning that if he could make four letters he could make more. He practiced with boys, chalk, fences, and pavements. He wanted writing skill to write his own pass before escaping north.
Chapter 13
CHAPTER XIII. _The Vicissitudes of Slave Life_4 cards
Why was Douglass sent to Hillsborough after old master Anthony died?
Captain Anthony died intestate, so his property had to be equally divided between his two children, Andrew and Lucretia. Douglass, legally Anthony's slave despite living with Master Hugh, was sent for to be valued and divided along with the other property. The valuation and division of slaves among contending heirs is described as an important incident of slave life.
Chapter 14
How did the division of property affect the slaves' control over their fate?
Douglass states the slaves had no more voice in the decision than the oxen chewing at the haymow. A single word from the appraisers could sunder friendships and even separate husbands from wives and parents from children, regardless of their preferences or prayers. Most also dreaded falling into the hands of Master Andrew, known for cruelty and intemperance.
Chapter 14
What happened to Douglass's grandmother after old master's estate was settled?
Douglass writes that she had served old master faithfully from youth to old age, rocked him in infancy, and closed his eyes at death, yet remained a slave for life in the hands of strangers. Her owners, finding her of little value and racked by old age, took her to the woods, built her a hut with a mud chimney, and left her to support herself in perfect loneliness, virtually turned out to die.
Chapter 14
Why did Douglass dread being owned by Master Andrew?
Master Andrew was almost a confirmed sot, known for cruelty and intemperance, and had already wasted much of old master's property through reckless mismanagement. Slaves feared falling into his hands as the first step toward being sold south to the cotton fields and rice swamps. Douglass had also witnessed Andrew seize his brother Perry by the throat, dash him to the ground, and stamp on his head until blood gushed.
Chapter 14
CHAPTER XIV. _Experience in St. Michael’s_2 cards
What was the weekly food allowance in Thomas Auld's house, and how did it compare to Lloyd's plantation?
Eight people shared one half bushel of corn-meal weekly: four whites in the great house got a small loaf each morning, leaving the four kitchen slaves not quite half a peck apiece per week. This was less than half the allowance on Lloyd's plantation. Douglass says the Maryland rule was coarse food but enough of it; Lloyd's plantation and Master Thomas's house were exceptions.
Chapter 15
What happened at the August 1833 camp-meeting regarding Master Thomas, and what did Douglass hope?
At a Methodist camp-meeting in the Bay Side about eight miles from St. Michael's, Thomas Auld professed religion after long courting by ministers—Douglass notes he was a fish worth catching for his money and standing. Douglass, then nearly desperate and resolved to run away, hoped this conversion promised brighter days for all. The chapter title promises the result: faith and works at variance.
Chapter 15
CHAPTER XV. _Covey, the Negro Breaker_4 cards
Why did Covey beat Douglass three days after his arrival?
Douglass reports that Covey, his brother in the Methodist church, gave him a brutal chastisement after only three days, leaving blood flowing freely and welts as large as his little finger. Douglass suggests Covey may have thought that with only a single year to complete his work, the sooner he began the better, or that blows at once would clarify their relations. Douglass calls the treatment characteristic of the man.
Chapter 16
What task did Covey assign Douglass with the unbroken oxen?
On one of the coldest January days of 1834, Covey ordered Douglass to fetch a load of wood from a forest about two miles away, giving him a pair of unbroken oxen. Covey named them Buck and Darby, explained in-hand and off-hand, taught the commands woa, back, gee, and hither, then tied a ten-foot rope to the in-hand ox's horns and told Douglass to hold on and stop them if they ran.
Chapter 16
How does Douglass describe Covey's physical appearance and manner?
Douglass describes Covey as not large, about five feet ten inches, short-necked, round-shouldered, with quick wiry motion, a thin wolfish visage, and small greenish-gray eyes set well back under a forehead without dignity, constantly in motion. He calls Covey's appearance ferocious, sinister, and forbidding, and says he spoke from the corner of his mouth in a light growl like a dog guarding a bone.
Chapter 16
What does Douglass conclude by comparing himself to the oxen?
After the oxen wreck the cart and he repairs it, Douglass sees points of similarity: the oxen were property and were to be broken, and so was he. He notes that an ox is tame and docile when well trained but the most sullen and intractable when only half broken to the yoke, and he applies this to his own condition under Covey.
Chapter 16
CHAPTER XVI. _Another Pressure of the Tyrant’s Vice_2 cards
Why did Douglass resolve to walk to St. Michael's after Covey struck him?
Douglass hoped Captain Thomas Auld would protect him, reasoning that Auld would not let his property be 'bruised and battered, marred and defaced.' He also remembered Auld's cruelty to his crippled cousin Henny and his meanness in feeding and clothing slaves, so he had little ground for hope, but resolved to go anyway.
Chapter 17
What does Douglass say about how a slave's guilt and a slaveholder's innocence are treated?
Douglass states that the guilt of a slave is always and everywhere presumed, while the innocence of the slaveholder or slave employer is always asserted. The slave's word against this presumption is generally treated as impudence worthy of punishment, and 'Do you contradict me, you rascal?' is a final silencer of counter statements from a slave.
Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII. _The Last Flogging_4 cards
Why did Covey's Sunday kindness vanish on Monday, according to Douglass?
Douglass notes Covey's benign Sunday manner disappeared by Monday, when he called Douglass before daylight to feed and curry the horses. Douglass suspects the Sabbath, not Sandy's root, explained the change: Covey's religion restrained him from breaking the Sabbath but not from breaking Douglass's skin, showing more respect for the day than for the man.
Chapter 18
What did Sandy advise Douglass to do with the herb root, and why did Douglass accept it?
Sandy, a religious man who also professed African magical powers, told Douglass an herb in the woods, worn on his right side, would prevent any white man, including Covey, from whipping him. Douglass found it absurd and sinful but accepted the roots partly to please Sandy, who had sheltered and fed him, and partly because Sandy argued his book learning had not kept Covey off him.
Chapter 18
Why did Douglass conclude running away was impossible when he consulted Sandy?
Douglass and Sandy carefully surveyed his situation and found escape impossible: Douglass was on a narrow neck of land where every avenue would bring him in sight of pursuers. The Chesapeake Bay lay to the right, Pot-pie river to the left, and St. Michael's and its neighborhood occupied the only space through which any retreat existed.
Chapter 18
What resolve did Douglass make during Sunday's reflection before the Monday confrontation?
Douglass resolved to obey every order, however unreasonable, if possible, and if Covey should then attempt to beat him, to defend and protect himself to the best of his ability. His religious views on resisting his master had been shaken by savage persecution, and Master Thomas's indifference had severed the last link, so he had to that extent backslidden from the slave's religious creed.
Chapter 18
CHAPTER XVIII. _New Relations and Duties_4 cards
Why does Douglass call slave holidays a fraud rather than a kindness?
The author argues holidays were a device of slavery, not benevolence: they kept slaves' minds occupied with attainable pleasures short of liberty, acting as safety valves against insurrection. Masters encouraged drunkenness and low sports so slaves would be disgusted with temporary freedom and glad to return to work. Douglass says the slave's happiness was not the end sought, but the master's safety.
Chapter 19
Why did Douglass prefer the irreligious Freeland to a religious slaveholder?
The author argues the religion of the south was a covering for crimes and a sanctifier of frauds. He states that, next to slavery itself, being the slave of a religious slaveholder would be the greatest calamity, and that religious slaveholders were, as a class, the worst. He cites Rev. Daniel Weeden, whose slave Ceal's back was kept raw by the lash.
Chapter 19
How did Douglass's reputation change after fighting Covey?
The report spread in Talbot county that Douglass was hard to whip and sometimes 'got the devil in me.' He says he had freed himself from the awe of white men that slavery trained into slaves from the cradle, and was known as a 'bad sheep' among slaves. His ability to read and write also spread, which he says was very much against him.
Chapter 19
What offenses could get a slave flogged under Covey, and how did Freeland differ?
Douglass calls Covey's hard life useful, but lists a catalogue of floggable offenses there. Freeland, though a slaveholder sharing many vices of his class, was a well-bred southern gentleman: open, frank, imperative, with some sense of justice and honor, and no concealments. He disdained playing the spy, unlike the crafty Covey, and made no profession of religion.
Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX. _The Run-Away Plot_ (part 1)4 cards
Why did Douglass vow at the start of 1836 to attempt escape that year?
Douglass writes that at the beginning of 1836 he took a solemn vow that the year would not close without an earnest attempt to gain his liberty. Though kindly treated by Mr. Freeland, he argues that a master's kindness only gilds the chain of slavery without lessening its weight. He was ashamed to seem contented in slavery and longed for a future with hope in it.
Chapter 20
How did slaveholders' close study of slaves create danger for Douglass's plot?
Douglass argues slaveholders study human nature for practical results, watching for signs of the retribution they fear, and many read slaves' faces with great accuracy. Any unusual mood—sobriety, abstraction, sullenness—raised suspicion, and slaves were hectored or tortured into confessions on bare suspicion. Douglass therefore had to guard his deportment, though he suspected Freeland still noticed something.
Chapter 20
What double meaning did the slaves' hymns carry, and who joined Douglass's party?
Songs like 'O Canaan, sweet Canaan' and 'Run to Jesus' had double meaning: some meant a speedy summons to the spirit world, but Douglass's company meant a pilgrimage to a free state—the North was their Canaan. Douglass won five young men: Henry and John Harris, Sandy Jenkins, Charles Roberts, and Henry Bailey. He was the youngest but one, yet had experience and literacy, giving him influence.
Chapter 20
How did the slaves receive the proslavery preaching at St. Michael's?
Douglass says the pulpit at St. Michael's taught obedience to masters, that God authored enslavement, that running away offended God and man, and that slavery was a merciful arrangement. He states it was in vain: nature laughed these doctrines to scorn. All the party except Sandy were free from slaveholding priestcraft, and Father Lawson's words still lived in Douglass's soul.
Chapter 20
CHAPTER XIX. _The Run-Away Plot_ (part 2)4 cards
What escape plan did Douglass propose to his comrades?
Douglass proposed taking a large canoe owned by Mr. Hamilton on the Saturday night before the Easter holidays, launching into the Chesapeake Bay, and paddling seventy miles to its head. There they would turn the canoe adrift and travel toward the north star until reaching a free state. Objections included bay gales swamping the canoe, the boat being missed and pursuit by fast sailing craft from St. Michael's, and the adrift canoe guiding land hunters.
Chapter 21
Why did the party prefer the water route over the land route?
On the water they had a chance of being taken for fishermen in a master's service. By land, through counties adjoining Delaware, they would face interruptions and disagreeable questions, since any white man is authorized to stop a man of color on any road, examine and arrest him. The chapter notes abuses even slaveholders considered such, including freemen whose free papers were torn up by ruffians and who were then seized and sold into bondage.
Chapter 21
What did Sandy's Friday night dream foretell, and how did it affect the group?
Sandy dreamed he was roused by noises like angry birds; he saw Frederick in the claws of a huge bird, surrounded by birds of all colors and sizes pecking at him while Frederick tried to protect his eyes. The birds flew south-westerly until out of sight. Sandy called it significant because it fell on a Friday night. Douglass admits he did not like the dream and felt damped by it, though he attributed it to excitement over the escape plan.
Chapter 21
How was the escape plot discovered, and what happened at the capture?
Douglass had a sudden presentiment that they were betrayed, and Sandy felt the same. At breakfast, four white men on horseback and two tied colored men approached. Mr. Hamilton rode rapidly to fetch Mr. Freeland, and three constables arrived. The constables seized and tied Douglass, then John Harris. When told to cross his hands, Henry Harris refused, saying 'I won't' so firmly that it momentarily arrested them.
Chapter 21
CHAPTER XIX. _The Run-Away Plot_ (part 3)4 cards
What instructions did Douglass give his companions about their passes and their defense?
Douglass told Henry to eat his pass with his biscuit rather than tear it up, and he passed the word among the group to "Own nothing!" They agreed to deny any intention of flight and to keep confidence in one another, resolving to succeed or fail together.
Chapter 22
Who did the group suspect of betraying them, and why did they reject that suspicion?
Circumstances pointed to Sandy: he knew and shared their plans, withdrew from them, dreamed and sensed they were betrayed, and was taken while they were left. Yet they could not suspect him because they loved him too well, so they cast guilt on others.
Chapter 22
How did the slave traders who visited the jail treat the prisoners?
The traders and their agents flocked into the jail, laughed and leered at the prisoners, taunted them about their escape, and examined them like livestock—feeling their arms and legs and shaking their shoulders to judge soundness—asking how they would like such masters. Douglass and his companions refused to answer.
Chapter 22
Why did Master Thomas's plan to send Douglass to Alabama seem suspicious to him?
Auld said a friend in Alabama would emancipate Douglass after eight years. Douglass doubted it: he had never heard of such a friend, saw it as an easy way to ship him south, and thought it invented to avoid scandal, since selling to Georgia traders looked bad for Auld's Christian reputation.
Chapter 22
CHAPTER XX. _Apprenticeship Life_4 cards
Why did Master Thomas remove Douglass from the Eastern Shore?
Master Thomas told Douglass he consented to send him away only because of strong neighborhood prejudice against him and fear for his safety if he stayed. William Hamilton, regarding Douglass as an instigator, had threatened to shoot him unless he was removed. Douglass notes Thomas rejected Negro-traders' offers, saying money could not tempt him to sell Douglass to the far south.
Chapter 23
What did Douglass's ship-yard orders from Mr. Gardiner require?
Gardiner ordered Douglass to do whatever the carpenters commanded, placing him at the beck and call of about seventy-five men, all to be regarded as masters whose word was law. Douglass describes being called a dozen ways in a single minute, with three or four voices striking his ear at once, and no time to learn anything.
Chapter 23
What conflict did Douglass say the ship-yard outrage illustrated?
Douglass argues the fight illustrated the conflict of slavery with the interests of white mechanics and laborers of the south. Slaveholders encouraged poor whites' enmity against blacks as men, not as slaves, blinding them to the real fact that competition with unpaid labor robbed them too. He predicts this competition will one day array non-slaveholding whites against slavery.
Chapter 23
How did white carpenters in Gardiner's yard act against colored workers?
White carpenters knocked off and swore they would no longer work on the same stage with free Negroes, demanding Gardiner discharge his free colored workmen. Taking advantage of his heavy Mexico contract and the difficulty of getting other hands that season, they threatened to strike no more blows unless he complied. Douglass calls this cowardly, since they struck colored freemen instead of the slaveholders.
Chapter 23
CHAPTER XXI. _My Escape from Slavery_4 cards
Why does Douglass withhold the full details of his escape?
Douglass argues that publishing full particulars could implicate those who helped him and could reveal methods that slaveholders would then close off for others still in bondage. He notes that suspicion of aiding an escape is about as dangerous as positive evidence in a slave state, and that slaveholders are crafty and malicious enough to piece together a method from even a shadowy outline.
Chapter 24
What examples does Douglass give of publicity ruining escape methods?
Douglass cites Henry Box Brown, whose friends attracted slaveholding attention to the box method, arguing there might otherwise have been a thousand Box Browns a year. He also cites William and Ellen Crafts, whose original plan perished after one use because every slaveholder learned of it, and the salt water slave hidden in a steamer's guards, which set a spy on every southern steamer.
Chapter 24
Why does Douglass criticize the public 'Under-ground Railroad'?
The author argues that openly avowing participation in escapes makes it an 'Upper-ground Railroad,' with stations better known to slaveholders than to slaves. He honors the courage of those who subject themselves to persecution, but says such disclosures address the slaveholder rather than the slave, stimulating greater watchfulness and adding to his facilities for capturing fugitives.
Chapter 24
What terms did Master Hugh set for Douglass to hire his time?
Douglass was to have all his time, make his own bargains, find his own employment, and collect his own wages, but had to pay Hugh three dollars each week, board and clothe himself, and buy his own calking tools; failure in any particular ended the privilege. Douglass notes he needed at least six dollars weekly to break even, and that calking is uncertain and only works in dry weather.
Chapter 24
CHAPTER XXII. _Liberty Attained_1 cards
How did Douglass describe his feelings upon first reaching New York?
Douglass says his joy defied description, comparing it to escaping a den of hungry lions; a whole year seemed pressed into a single day. But the joy was brief—like a quick blaze that leaves a building charred—and he soon felt lonely and insecure, learning he was still in an enemy's land.
Chapter 25
CHAPTER XXIII. _Introduced to the Abolitionists_4 cards
How did Douglass first come to speak at the 1841 Nantucket convention?
Douglass attended the 1841 Nantucket anti-slavery convention, held under Mr. Garrison and his friends, merely to rest from hard work at Richmond's brass foundery. He did not expect to participate and believed no one there knew his name. But William C. Coffin, who had heard him speak to colored friends in a New Bedford school house, sought him out and invited him to address the convention.
Chapter 26
How did Douglass describe his first Nantucket speech and Garrison's response?
Douglass says his first speech is about the only one where he cannot recall a single connected sentence; he trembled and stammered, and suspects his embarrassment was its most effective part. The audience grew as excited as he was. Garrison then followed, taking Douglass as his text, delivering an effort of unequaled power that Douglass compares to a tornado sweeping away every barrier.
Chapter 26
Why did abolitionists urge Douglass to stick to narrating facts?
During his first months as an agent, Douglass's speeches were almost entirely narrations of his personal experience as a slave. Foster and Collins urged him to give the facts and let them handle the philosophy, and Garrison whispered to tell his story. Douglass found repeating the same account mechanical, and he was reading and thinking, feeling like denouncing wrongs rather than merely narrating them.
Chapter 26
Why did Douglass write out his experience, and what danger did it create?
People doubted Douglass had ever been a slave, saying he did not talk, look, or act like one and was too educated. Hearing Yankees say he had never been a slave, he resolved to dispel doubt by publishing facts with names, places, and dates. In under four years of lecturing he did so, but the statement became known in Maryland, increasing danger of recapture, and Wendell Phillips said he would burn the manuscript.
Chapter 26
CHAPTER XXIV. _Twenty-One Months in Great Britain_ (part 1)4 cards
Why did Douglass say his pamphlet endangered his liberty and led him to England?
Douglass writes that writing his pamphlet in spring 1845 endangered his liberty and led him to seek refuge from republican slavery in monarchical England. He frames this as Providence converting a harsh dispensation into benefit: the fear of being returned to slavery proved a necessary step in knowledge and usefulness.
Chapter 27
How was Douglass treated on the Cambria after being denied cabin passage?
Buffum was told Douglass could not be received as a cabin passenger because American color prejudice triumphed on a British vessel. Douglass expected this and was not greatly troubled. The Hutchinson Family sang on his deck, passengers visited and invited him, and color distinctions largely vanished, though he seldom visited the saloon deck, preferring to keep his own premises.
Chapter 27
What happened when Douglass lectured on slavery aboard the Cambria?
Passengers and the captain invited him to lecture on slavery. New Orleans and Georgia passengers took it as an insult, swore he should not speak, and threatened to throw him overboard. Captain Judkins ordered the ship's company to put the mobocrats in irons, ending the melee. The incident brought Douglass before the British public within two days of landing.
Chapter 27
How did Douglass describe his changed treatment in Britain compared with America?
In his January 1846 letter to Garrison, Douglass says he has undergone a transformation and lives a new life. In America he was a chattel in the South and a hunted fugitive in the North, refused cabins, hotels, churches, and lyceums with 'we don't allow niggers in here.' In Britain he rode beside white people, dined with Dublin's lord mayor, and met no color prejudice.
Chapter 27
CHAPTER XXIV. _Twenty-One Months in Great Britain_ (part 2)3 cards
How did Douglass justify appealing to the whole world about slavery?
In a letter to Mr. Greeley of the New York Tribune, Douglass acknowledged that exposing one nation's sins in another's ear has been questioned, and that many evils are best removed locally. But slavery, he argued, is such a giant sin and monstrous aggregation of iniquity, so hardening to the heart and destructive to the moral sense, that he felt not only at liberty but abundantly justified in appealing to the whole world.
Chapter 28
What was the 'Send Back the Money' controversy about?
The Free Church of Scotland had taken into its sustentation fund money that was evidently the ill-gotten gain of slaveholders and slave-traders, using it to build free churches and pay ministers. When Glasgow anti-slavery men denounced the transaction, the church's leading divines defended both taking the money and holding fellowship with slaveholders, which opened the whole slavery question across Scotland.
Chapter 28
What happened when George Thompson shouted 'Hear! Hear! Hear!' at Dr. Cunningham?
At the Free Church assembly in Cannon Mills, Edinburgh, Cunningham was arguing that neither Jesus Christ nor the holy apostles regarded slaveholding as a sin. At that moment Thompson broke the silence with 'Hear! Hear! Hear!' Douglass describes the effect as a granite wall flung against a mighty river: speaker and audience fell dead silent, someone cried 'Put him out!' but no one did, and Cunningham never recovered from the blow.
Chapter 28
CHAPTER XXIV. _Twenty-One Months in Great Britain_ (part 3)2 cards
How did the British press and Mr. Cunard respond to the Cambria incident?
The London Times and other leading journals across the United Kingdom condemned the outrage. Douglass says no such opportunity to express British sentiment had arisen before. Mr. Cunard then wrote to the public journals expressing regret and promising the like would never occur again on his steamers—which Douglass says it never has.
Chapter 29
How does Douglass compare the sting of proscription to the lash of slavery?
Douglass says the lash of proscription has a sting for the soul hardly less severe than the lash that bites the flesh and draws blood from a plantation slave's back—especially for a man accustomed to equal social position. He had enjoyed nearly two years of equal social privileges in England, dining with eminent gentlemen without any word, look, or gesture suggesting his color was an offense.
Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_4 cards
Why did Douglass hesitate to write his own autobiography?
Douglass says he had a positive repugnance to writing or speaking for the public in a way that could make him seem to seek personal notoriety. He also felt those with histories worth writing should leave the work to other hands, since writing of oneself without seeming vain or egotistical is within the ability of but few.
Chapter 30
What two reasons does Douglass give for finally writing his own biography?
Douglass says slavery is on trial before public opinion, so facts revealing its true nature should not be withheld. He also notes the enslaved are on trial, alleged to be naturally inferior and unconscious of their wrongs; writing his own life lets everything of which he is capable benefit his afflicted people.
Chapter 30
How does the Editor's Preface characterize the truth of the volume?
The Editor assures readers the work is not a work of art but a work of facts, terrible and almost incredible yet facts nonetheless. He states there is not a fictitious name or place in the whole volume: names and places are literally given, and every transaction described actually transpired.
Chapter 30
What does the Introduction say Douglass's life vindicates?
The Introduction calls his life not merely an example of self-elevation under adverse circumstances but a noble vindication of the highest aims of the American anti-slavery movement. It argues the movement's real object is not only to disenthrall but to bestow on the Negro the full exercise of rights, political, religious and social, long denied.
Chapter 30
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 1)3 cards
What change of opinion did Douglass adopt about the Constitution and voting?
After about four years in western New York, Douglass became convinced there was no need to dissolve the Union, that abstaining from voting refused a legitimate means of abolishing slavery, and that the Constitution was in letter and spirit an anti-slavery instrument. This reversed his earlier Garrisonian views and brought him opposition as an apostate.
Chapter 31
How did Douglass resist the 'Jim Crow car' custom, and what resulted?
Regarding separate cars as fostering caste, Douglass made it a rule to seat himself in general passenger cars. He was often dragged out, beaten, and bruised by conductors and brakemen. After many battles, proscription was abandoned; the Jim Crow car is nowhere found in New England, aided by Charles Francis Adams and the threatened enactment of a law.
Chapter 31
What did the Lynn railroad company do while Douglass remained in town?
So great was the excitement in Lynn that superintendent Stephen A. Chase ordered trains to run through Lynn without stopping while Douglass remained there. Douglass notes the same company allowed slaves traveling with masters and mistresses to ride unmolested, while excluding a free colored man from its cars.
Chapter 31
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 2)3 cards
According to Douglass, what does he identify as the true definition of American slavery?
Douglass argues that slavery in the United States is the granting of power by which one man exercises and enforces a right of property in the body and soul of another. The slave is a marketable commodity, bought and sold at the master's will, treated as property like a horse, deprived of education, conscience, and marriage rights.
Chapter 32
What does Douglass claim about the relationship between kind treatment and a slave's value?
Douglass argues, from his own experience, that the better a slave is treated, the more his value as a slave is destroyed and the more likely he is to escape. When he was scourged daily, he only prayed for life; once the blow was no longer feared, the longing for liberty came.
Chapter 32
What cruelties and practices does Douglass cite as evidence of American slavery's barbarity?
Douglass lists starvation, the bloody whip, the chain, the gag, the thumb-screw, cat-hauling, the cat-o'-nine-tails, the dungeon, and the blood-hound. He notes advertisements for blood-hound trainers offering to hunt slaves for fifteen dollars a piece, and ads describing escaped slaves branded with their masters' initials.
Chapter 32
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 3)4 cards
According to Douglass, how many crimes are capital for a black man versus a white man in Virginia?
Douglass states that in the single state of Virginia there are seventy-one crimes for which a colored man may be executed, while only three of these crimes subject a white man to that punishment. He notes many of these crimes would be regarded as scoundrel-like or cowardly if a white man failed to commit them.
Chapter 33
What does Douglass call the darkest feature of slavery?
Douglass argues the darkest feature is that the religion of the southern states is the great supporter and sanctioner of slavery's atrocities. Ministers defended the institution and tortured scripture to support it, and no war existed between southern religion and slavery. He says this is hardest to attack because it exposes critics to charges of infidelity.
Chapter 33
Why does Douglass say he brings his anti-slavery message to Britain rather than confining it to the US?
Douglass gives several reasons: slavery is the common enemy of mankind and all should know it; the slave is a man entitled to sympathy as a brother; slavery blinds and corrupts surrounding communities so they lack moral stamina to remove it; and Britain has influence on America no other nation can have, with steam reducing London-Boston distance to twelve or fourteen days.
Chapter 33
How does Douglass distinguish true religion from slaveholding religion?
Douglass says he loves the religion of Christ that is pure, peaceable, gentle, full of mercy and good fruits, which binds up the wounded and commands love to God and man. Because he loves that religion, he hates the slaveholding, woman-whipping, mind-darkening religion of the southern states, and rejects it.
Chapter 33
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 4)4 cards
Why does Douglass choose this particular day to write to his former master?
Douglass addresses his former master on the anniversary of his emancipation, calling it the best mode he knows to celebrate that important event. He notes it was exactly ten years earlier, on a beautiful September morning, that he escaped, and he frames the letter as a way of marking that day.
Chapter 34
According to Douglass, what solved his childhood mystery of why he was a slave?
As a child he was troubled by why he was a slave and could not accept a theory making God responsible for slavery. One night he overheard old slaves say their parents had been stolen from Africa by white men and sold as slaves, and the whole mystery was solved at once.
Chapter 34
How does Douglass justify running away from his master?
He argues they are two distinct, equal persons: what the master is, he is; God created both as separate beings, and neither's existence depends on the other. He took nothing but what belonged to him and did not lessen the master's means of honest living. He went secretly because telling the master would have defeated the escape.
Chapter 34
What does Douglass say about where freed slaves would go after emancipation?
He tells his master that northerners wrongly believe emancipated slaves would flock north. He says the opposite is true: few in the north would not return south if emancipation came, because they want to live in their birthland and be buried beside their fathers. Only love of personal freedom keeps them away.
Chapter 34
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 5)1 cards
What does Douglass claim is slavery's first work against its victims?
The author argues slavery's first work is to mar and deface the characteristics distinguishing men from things and persons from property. Its first aim is destroying all sense of high moral and religious responsibility, reducing man to a mere machine, cutting him off from his Maker, and hiding God's laws from him. He compares this to a serpent-charmer extracting deadly teeth before handling his prey: the slaveholder must strike down the slave's conscience to gain mastery.
Chapter 35
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 6)4 cards
What does Douglass call slavery in relation to the American people?
Douglass declares that slavery is "alike the sin and the shame of the American people"—a blot on the American name and the only national reproach that should make an American hang his head before monarchical governments. He argues it blunts the edge of all American rebukes of tyranny abroad, so that criticisms of other nations only draw ridicule and scorn.
Chapter 36
How does Douglass use the Fourth of July in his 1852 Rochester oration?
Douglass says the Fourth of July is the white citizens' holiday, not his: its sunlight brought him "stripes and death." He refuses to join the jubilee, calling it mockery to drag a man in fetters into the temple of liberty and demand joyous anthems. He states his subject is American slavery, seen from the slave's point of view.
Chapter 36
What evidence does Douglass give that the slave's manhood is already conceded?
Douglass argues no one doubts the slave is a man: slaveholders concede it by enacting laws to govern slaves and punishing disobedience. He cites Virginia's seventy-two capital crimes for black people versus two for white people, and laws forbidding teaching slaves to read or write—laws never made for beasts.
Chapter 36
Why does Douglass refuse to argue that slavery is wrong?
Douglass says where all is plain there is nothing to be argued. He asks whether he must prove the slave is a man or that man is entitled to liberty—points already conceded and declared. He insists the wrongfulness of slavery is not a matter of doubtful logic requiring elaborate demonstration.
Chapter 36
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 7)4 cards
What five objects did Douglass say the slavery party's policy comprised?
Douglass lists five: complete suppression of anti-slavery discussion; expatriation of all free people of color; unending perpetuation of slavery; nationalization of slavery so it is respected in every state; and extension of slavery over Mexico and the entire South American states. He calls this his version of the policy, not original with him but held because he believes it true.
Chapter 37
How does Douglass describe the fugitive slave law's treatment of accused Black people?
Douglass argues the law makes mercy a crime and bribes judges: ten dollars for each victim consigned to slavery, five when the judge fails. The oath of two villains suffices to send even a pious Black man into slavery; his own testimony counts for nothing and he can bring no witnesses. The judge hears only the accuser's side.
Chapter 37
What did Douglass witness as a child in Baltimore regarding the slave trade?
Douglass lived on Philpot Street, Fell's Point, Baltimore, and watched slave ships in the basin with cargoes of human flesh awaiting favorable winds. Austin Woldfolk kept a slave mart at the head of Pratt Street, with agents advertising 'cash for negroes' in papers and handbills. He was often awakened at midnight by chained gangs passing his door.
Chapter 37
What does Douglass claim about the Fugitive Slave Act's effect on free Black Americans?
The author argues the act nationalized slavery, obliterated Mason and Dixon's line, and made New York like Virginia, so slave-hunters could operate wherever the flag and American Christianity went. He claims at least forty Americans were hunted down in two years and consigned to slavery, and that for Black men there is neither law, justice, humanity, nor religion.
Chapter 37
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 8)4 cards
How does Douglass characterize the anti-slavery movement's standing among Americans in 1855?
The author argues it is the subject engrossing more minds in the country than any other before the American people. He notes even its enemies treat it as grave and important: Calhoun studied it deeply though not honestly, and Webster, before supporting the fugitive slave bill, warned against trying to put it down.
Chapter 38
According to Douglass, where does the real difference between abolitionists and their opponents lie?
The author argues the difference is not in principles but in their application. All agree on justice, liberty, and human brotherhood; the slaveholder and anti-abolitionist endorse these when applied to themselves. They only balk when asked to extend the same rights to others, which is where the conflict arises.
Chapter 38
What does Douglass say about the future of anti-slavery organizations versus the cause itself?
The author argues present organizations may perish, but the cause has a life distinct from them and is immortal—the essence of justice, liberty, and love. It cannot die while conscience, honor, and humanity remain; if even one person embodies it, the cause lives, and such a person may judge the age but is chiefly called to exemplify and ingraft those principles.
Chapter 38
How does Douglass describe the role of poets and songs in the anti-slavery movement?
The author argues scholars, authors, orators, poets, and statesmen aid the cause, naming Whittier, Longfellow, Lowell, Pierpont, and Bryant as poets with the movement. He also claims allies in the Ethiopian songs, calling them heart songs and our national music, which awaken sympathy for the slave where anti-slavery principles take root and flourish.
Chapter 38
CHAPTER XXV. _Various Incidents_ (part 9)4 cards
What two documents does the chapter reproduce concerning Douglass's legal status?
The chapter reproduces two bills: Thomas Auld's November 13, 1846 sale of "Frederick Baily, or Douglass" to Hugh Auld for one hundred dollars, and Hugh Auld's December 5, 1846 manumission declaring Douglass free and discharged from all servitude forever. Both were witnessed and the sale attested by a Talbot County justice of the peace.
Chapter 39
What does the chapter say about the man who gave Douglass roots against Covey?
The chapter identifies him as the same man who gave Douglass roots to prevent a whipping by Mr. Covey, calling him "a clever soul." Douglass says they often discussed the fight with Covey, and the man claimed Douglass's success came from the roots. Douglass notes this superstition was common among the more ignorant slaves, who attributed deaths to trickery.
Chapter 39
How does the chapter describe the benefactor who became blind and then a physician?
The chapter calls him a whole-souled man devoted to his hunted people, who was to Douglass "eyes to the blind, and legs to the lame." He suffered persecutions common to prominent benefactors, became blind and needed a guide, then became a physician. Believing in hydropathy, he established a large "Water Cure" at Northampton, Massachusetts, and was among its most successful practitioners.
Chapter 39
What does the chapter say about the lady who supported Douglass's paper?
The chapter says one lady, impelled by the same noble spirit that carried Miss Nightingale to Scutari, devoted her time, untiring energies, to a great extent her means, and her high literary abilities to advancing and supporting Frederick Douglass' Paper. The chapter calls it the only organ of the downtrodden edited and published by one of themselves in the United States.
Chapter 39
Source and licence
Text used: Project Gutenberg eBook #202 (Public domain in the United States). Generated from the full text; cards paraphrase the source.
Version: Public domain edition. Retrieved 2026-10-26. Cards reviewed 2026-10-26.
These cards paraphrase the text for study. They are not a substitute for reading the book, and they do not reproduce long passages.
Turn your own notes into cards
Upload a PDF, Word, or text file and get question-and-answer cards for closed-notes practice. Five cards are free, no signup.