The Heroic Slave
By Frederick Douglass and Mint Editions
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About this ebook
The Heroic Slave (1852) is a novella by Frederick Douglass. Although he is more frequently recognized as prominent orator and autobiographer who spearheaded the American abolitionist movement, Douglass published one work of fiction in his lifetime. Inspired by the 1841 Creole case, in which an enslaved cook and a crew of nineteen fellow-slaves led a rebellion onboard a ship bound from Virginia to New Orleans, The Heroic Slave seeks to highlight the bravery and autonomy of fugitives and revolutionaries who did what they could to help themselves in the absence of help from their country. Sitting down for dinner, Mr. Listwell, a white southerner, is interrupted by a knock at the door. He opens it to find Madison Washington, a fugitive slave who disappeared without a trace five years prior. Hesitant at first, Listwell agrees to hear the man out, and learns that rather than escape to the north, Washington remained behind to be near his wife and children, hiding in the wilderness the whole time. Moved by his tragic story, Listwell provides him clothes and supplies, and encourages him to head for Canada. Sometime later, he sees a slave gang headed for market, and identifies Washington in chains. Before they part ways once more, perhaps forever, Listwell purchases a set of files and manages to get them to Washington, who remains determined to fight for his freedom until the bitter end. This edition of Frederick Douglass’ The Heroic Slave is a classic of African American literature reimagined for modern readers.
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Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) was an American social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery, he became a leader of the abolitionist movement and was known for his dazzling oratory and incisive writing. He wrote several autobiographies that eloquently described his life as a slave and his struggles to be free, including his first and best-known work, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, which was influential in gaining support for abolition.
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The Heroic Slave - Frederick Douglass
Part I
Oh! child of grief, why weepest thou?
Why droops thy sad and mournful brow?
Why is thy look so like despair?
What deep, sad sorrow lingers there?
The State of Virginia is famous in American annals for the multitudinous array of her statesmen and heroes. She has been dignified by some the mother of statesmen. History has not been sparing in recording their names, or in blazoning their deeds. Her high position in this respect, has given her an enviable distinction among her sister States. With Virginia for his birth-place, even a man of ordinary parts, on account of the general partiality for her sons, easily rises to eminent stations. Men, not great enough to attract special attention in their native States, have, like a certain distinguished citizen in the State of New York, sighed and repined that they were not born in Virginia. Yet not all the great ones of the Old Dominion have, by the fact of their birth-place, escaped undeserved obscurity. By some strange neglect, one of the truest, manliest, and bravest of her children,—one who, in after years, will, I think, command the pen of genius to set his merits forth, holds now no higher place in the records of that grand old Commonwealth than is held by a horse or an ox. Let those account for it who can, but there stands the fact, that a man who loved liberty as well as did Patrick Henry,—who deserved it as much as Thomas Jefferson,—and who fought for it with a valor as high, an arm as strong, and against odds as great, as he who led all the armies of the American colonies through the great war for freedom and independence, lives now only in the chattel records of his native State.
Glimpses of this great character are all that can now be presented. He is brought to view only by a few transient incidents, and these afford but partial satisfaction. Like a guiding star on a stormy night, he is seen through the parted clouds and the howling tempests; or, like the gray peak of a menacing rock on a perilous coast, he is seen by the quivering flash of angry lightning, and he again disappears covered with mystery.
Curiously, earnestly, anxiously we peer into the dark, and wish even for the blinding flash, or the light of northern skies to reveal him. But alas! he is still enveloped in darkness, and we return from the pursuit like a wearied and disheartened mother, (after a tedious and unsuccessful search for a lost child,) who returns weighed down with disappointment and sorrow. Speaking of marks, traces, possibles, and probabilities, we come before our readers.
In the spring of 1835, on a Sabbath morning, within hearing of the solemn peals of the church bells at a distant village, a Northern traveller through the State of Virginia drew up his horse to drink at a sparkling brook, near the edge of a dark pine forest. While his weary and thirsty steed drew in the grateful water, the rider caught the sound of a human voice, apparently engaged in earnest conversation.
Following the direction of the sound, he descried, among the tall pines, the man whose voice had arrested his attention. To whom can he be speaking?
thought the traveller. He seems to be alone.
The circumstance interested him much, and he became intensely curious to know what thoughts and feelings, or, it might be, high aspirations, guided those rich and mellow accents. Tieing his horse at a short distance from the brook, he stealthily drew near the solitary speaker; and, concealing himself by the side of a huge fallen tree, he distinctly heard the following soliloquy:—
"What, then, is life to me? it is aimless and worthless, and worse than worthless. Those birds, perched on yon swinging boughs, in friendly conclave, sounding forth their merry notes in seeming worship of the rising sun, though liable to the sportsman’s fowling-piece, are still my superiors. They live free, though they may die slaves. They fly where they list by day, and retire in freedom at night. But what is freedom to me, or I to it? I am a slave,—born a slave, an abject slave,—even before I made part of this breathing world, the scourge was platted for my back; the fetters were forged for my limbs. How mean a thing am I. That accursed and crawling snake, that miserable reptile, that has just glided into its slimy home, is freer and better off than I. He escaped my blow, and is safe. But here am I, a man,—yes, a man!—with thoughts and wishes, with powers and faculties as far as angel’s flight above that hated reptile,—yet he is my superior, and scorns to own me as his master, or to stop to take my blows. When he saw my uplifted arm, he darted beyond my reach, and turned to give me battle. I dare not do as much as that. I neither run nor fight, but do meanly stand, answering each heavy blow of a cruel master with doleful wails and piteous cries. I am