Though Frederick Douglass has been extensively chronicled — by himself and by modern-day historians such as David W. Blight — his Rhode Island oratory during the second half of the 19th century deserves renewed attention.
Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot County, Maryland in 1818, Douglass as a young boy endured family separation, brutal labor, and the denial of education that defined slavery. A brief period of reading instruction from his master’s wife, Sophia Auld, ignited his lifelong devotion to reading. As a teenager, he purchased The Columbian Orator, memorizing its speeches and unknowingly preparing for the platform that would define his life.
A ship-caulking project, tasked by his master, on the Baltimore docks led young Frederick to befriend several free Black maritime workers who later proved to be his gateway toward eventual freedom following several unsuccessful attempts to escape slavery.
In September 1838, with the help of these friends and his future wife Anna Murray, a free Black woman, he escaped Baltimore on a train, dressed and documented as a free black sailor, to New York City. Still in hiding, he married Anna in New York. Fearful of who they could trust, the newlyweds quickly traveled by boat and arrived in Newport Harbor on September 17th. Advised by many Newport Black residents not to stay due to spies and slavecatchers, within a few days the couple boarded a stagecoach to New Bedford. This thriving port city had become an important abolitionist stronghold due to its non-reliance on southern slave labor, and its strong Quaker influence; it was a major destination on the Underground Railroad. There he changed his surname from Bailey to Douglass, and he and Anna began attending abolitionist meetings.
Source: The African American Registry
“I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong.”
In 1841 he gave his first anti-slavery speech and launched his reputation as a powerful and intelligent orator. In the fall of 1841, following his famous Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society speech in Nantucket, Douglass was hired as a permanent lecturer for the Society. This meant he no longer needed to be a wage-earner on the wharves and could move his family closer to Boston, the hub of the abolitionist network, and devote his efforts wholly to the movement. He bought a house and moved his family to Lynn, MA.
Between 1841 and 1844, Douglass traveled extensively throughout Rhode Island — speaking in Woonsocket, Providence (almost every Sunday in early 1844), Little Compton, Pawtucket, East Greenwich, Kingston and Newport. He encountered jeering mobs and physical danger, particularly during the tense Dorr Rebellion era, yet he later credited these early efforts with helping “abolitionize” the state. [Source: The Valley Breeze, 2021]
Later that year, Douglass began working on his first of three autobiographies, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, which was published in 1845. With William Lloyd Garrison, he then embarked upon a 21-month tour of England, Ireland and Scotland where he lectured to enthusiastic supporters.
His next chapter would be Rochester, New York – another strong abolitionist hub – where he launched a newspaper, the North Star. For the next 13 years he would publish the paper from Rochester under various masthead names, due to new partners and mergers.
Douglass was back in Newport, around 1860, very likely staying at the home of Isaac Rice at 23 Thomas Street (a stop on the Underground Railroad which is still standing today), and speaking at the Union Congregational Church, 49 Division Street. Exact dates were not documented but a descendant of Isaac and Sarah Ann Rice, Dr. John Rice, their great-great grandson, has uncovered in his family memoirs a thank you letter, written by “Fred. Douglass” to Mrs. Rice, dated December 22, 1860. To learn more about this fascinating find, you can watch a free virtual lecture, “Frederick Douglass in Newport” from November 2020, hosted by the Redwood Library & Athenaeum, presented by Stages of Freedom, and funded by the Rhode Island Council for the Humanities, here.
Illustration Source: Stages of Freedom website. Researched and Compiled by Robb Dimmick
Legacy After Emancipation
Following the Emancipation Proclamation, the Civil War, and the Reconstruction period, Douglass lectured on civil and voting rights for Black Americans, the obligations of the North after emancipation, and the moral and political meaning of the Civil War. He also started working with leaders of the women’s suffrage movement. In 1868 in Providence, he gave a speech entitled “Women and Negroes Must Work Together.” That same year he addressed a standing-room-only, respectable, well-heeled audience at the Armory Hall in Westerly, while being forced to travel there in the “Jim Crow” rail car.
During the Gilded Age in Newport, the Newport Opera House on Touro Street was the principal public stage where notable speakers would lecture. It is recorded that Douglass spoke there, along with other reformist speakers, such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Henry Ward Beecher, on December 19, 1873.
“The Greatest Revolution the World Has Yet Seen”
The annual convention of the Rhode Island Woman Suffrage Association met in the chambers of the General Assembly at the Old State House on December 3, 1884. Douglass had been invited by Elizabeth Buffum Chace (1806-1899) and her daughter. Elizabeth had been Douglass’ friend since the early days of the abolition movement.
Douglass told the packed assembly of suffragists that he was in full sympathy with the cause and did all he could to promote it. He stated that no man could speak for woman as woman could speak for herself:
“I am here from a sense of gratitude as well as sympathy. When I remember, what woman has done to break the fetters of the enslaved, I should be ashamed of myself to fail to speak in her cause. Nothing new can be expected from my lips this evening. When such women as Julia Ward Howe, Susan B. Anthony, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Elizabeth B. Chace, and others have dealt with this subject, it must readily be admitted that the field has not only been reaped but gleaned [sic]. The loftiest utterance of to-day on the question of morals cannot transcend the Golden Rule. There is no such thing as new truth or old truth. Error may be new or it may be old, but truth is eternal and indestructible.” Source: The Frederick Douglass Papers Project
Sources include The Frederick Douglass Papers, Stages of Freedom, and the Redwood Library & Athenaeum lecture by Dr. John Rice, along with Douglass’ autobiographies and major biographies.
Michele Gallagher is a dedicated advocate for local businesses, community leaders, and nonprofits and is the founder of City-by-the-Sea Communications.