This week marks the 188th anniversary of the day Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery.
Interestingly, Douglass refused to reveal the details of his escape for 43 years—first because he didn’t want to give away any secrets, and later because he didn’t think his story involved anything “very heroic or thrilling.”
That was just a bit humble.
“My means of escape were provided for me by the very men who were making laws to hold and bind me more securely in slavery,” Douglass later wrote.
Explanation: Maryland required free Black people to carry “free papers” documenting their status. Obviously, this was before photo ID, and so the papers simply carried a description of the bearer.
As Douglass put it, “since more than one man could be found to answer the same general description,” an enslaved person could sometimes borrow or rent another man’s papers, use them to escape and then mail them back after reaching the North.
This was extremely risky. But on September 3, 1838, when he was 20 years old, Douglass borrowed a seaman’s protection from a free Black sailor, dressed himself in a sailor’s uniform and headed for the train station.
His problem: the description on the protection papers didn’t match what Douglass looked like.
“Indeed, it called for a man much darker than myself, and close examination of it would have caused my arrest at the start,” he wrote. “Had I gone into the station and offered to purchase a ticket, I should have been instantly and carefully examined, and undoubtedly arrested.”
Instead, he boarded the train at the last possible moment, hoping that the crowd and the conductor’s haste would prevent a close examination.
“I was well on the way to Havre de Grace before the conductor came into the negro car to collect tickets and examine the papers of his black passengers,” Douglass wrote. “This was a critical moment in the drama. My whole future depended upon the decision of this conductor.”
Douglass handed over his protection:
“The merest glance at the paper satisfied him. This moment of time was one of the most anxious I ever experienced.
Had the conductor looked closely at the paper, he could not have failed to discover that it called for a very different-looking person from myself, and in that case it would have been his duty to arrest me on the instant and send me back to Baltimore from the first station.”
Douglass still had to travel by train, ferry and steamboat through Maryland and then Delaware, both slave states.
As he later told the story in his autobiography, it’s almost comical how many fellow travelers Douglass encountered whom he had known from working on the docks in Baltimore, only to have them either fail to recognize him or keep quiet.
Decades after the escape, he still remembered the name of a Black “hand” on the ferry traveling across the Susquehanna River—Nichols—who was friendly and talkative, and who asked so many questions that Douglass feared he might reveal himself by answering incorrectly.
Of course, Douglass made it to Philadelphia, and freedom, and continued directly on to New York City.
“I have often been asked how I felt when first I found myself on free soil,” he wrote. “A new world had opened upon me. … I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe.”
He went on to become one of the most influential abolitionists in American history—a celebrated orator, writer, newspaper publisher and statesman.
He helped to shape public opinion against slavery, recruited Black soldiers for the Union Army and pressed Abraham Lincoln to make emancipation a central purpose of the Civil War.
American history would look a lot different today, if not for a borrowed protection document—and a conductor who barely looked at it.
7 other moments from history this week
Sunday, August 30: “All safe, all well!” — Frank Wild, Ernest Shackleton’s second-in-command, shouting back when Shackleton called out “Are you all well?” as the rescue ship Yelcho reached Elephant Island on this day in 1916. Shackleton had failed three previous attempts to reach the 22 men he’d left behind, who’d survived more than four months on seal meat and penguin under two overturned lifeboats.
Monday, August 31: “All we can say is that the paintings are in the possession of the police.” — Jørn Jørgensen, Oslo police spokesman, confirming on this day in 2006 that Edvard Munch’s The Scream and Madonna had been recovered, two years after they were stolen at gunpoint from the Munch Museum in broad daylight. The paintings, damaged by moisture and light, were restored and returned to public display.
Tuesday, September 1: “We are obviously very pleased and excited to have found the Titanic. But we are also very aware of the significance of the Titanic as a maritime disaster.” — Robert Ballard, radioing from the research vessel Knorr after his team located the wreck on this day in 1985, 73 years after it sank and more than two miles down in the North Atlantic. Ballard’s public mission was finding the Titanic; the trip’s classified purpose, kept secret for decades, was a Navy survey of two lost nuclear submarines.
Wednesday, September 2: “You had the honor of being the first Eagle Scout of the Boy Scouts of America.” — James E. West, the Boy Scouts’ first Chief Scout Executive, notifying 17-year-old Arthur Eldred of Oceanside, New York, who received his badge on Labor Day, this day in 1912. No local review board for the rank existed yet, so Eldred had to travel to Manhattan and defend his qualifications in person before a skeptical national committee.
Thursday, September 3 : "All acts of hostility against the Anglo-American force by Italian forces must cease everywhere." — Marshal Pietro Badoglio, announcing on Italian radio the armistice Italy had secretly signed with the Allies on this day in 1943. British and Canadian troops landed on the Italian mainland the same day; the announcement was held for five days until Allied forces were in position.
Friday, September 4: “A glass globe about four inches long, and the shape of a dropping tear . . . in which is inclosed the carbon horseshoe that gives the light.” — The New York Times, describing Thomas Edison’s new incandescent lamps as his Pearl Street Station began supplying electricity on this day in 1882. The plant lit just 400 lamps for 85 customers on its first day; within a year it was powering 10,000 lamps for more than 500.
Saturday, September 5: “This is no time for maneuvers and worn-out ideas. It is a time for magnanimity and reason.” — Anwar Sadat, arriving at Camp David on this day in 1978 to begin 13 days of negotiations with Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, hosted by President Jimmy Carter. The talks produced the Camp David Accords, the framework for the first peace treaty ever signed between Israel and an Arab nation.
Like others, I was unaware of the specific details of Mr. Douglass’s escape. I was either distracted in class or they were not covered. Hmm…perhaps both???
It is interesting how so many people trash Jimmy Carter yet he was one of our most intelligent presidents.
As president, Carter pardoned all Vietnam draft evaders and negotiated major foreign policy agreements, including the Camp David Accords, the Panama Canal Treaties, and the second round of Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, and he established diplomatic relations with China. He created a national energy policy that included conservation, price control, and new technology. He signed bills that created the Departments of Energy and Education.
That is an impressive list of accomplishments in just four years, washed away in part by “trickle down economics,” the beginning of where we are today.
Thanks for another informative newsletter!
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