Reading Frederick Douglass's narrative was one of those things I've been putting off for years. But I did it, I finally did it. And boy was it worth it. I had an inkling it would be, though, because what made me want to read it in the first place was a lecture I heard on Douglass's very brief story -- so, keep in mind, some of what I'm going to write today I've heard somewhere else, from my friend Rob, to be precise.
I visited Dutch L'Abri a couple of summers ago, and it was there that I heard Rob give his impressions of Douglass's very moving story. In case you haven't heard of it, it's the story of an escaped slave, published before the Civil War in the year 1845. But for a couple of reasons (and probably more than these, but this is just off the top of my head and having just finished the book), the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is no ordinary escaped-slave-tale.
For starters, it's a first-hand account. While I wept the whole way through 12 Years a Slave, there's just something haunting about first-hand accounts. Having grown up in the South, I've had Civil War history jammed into my brains since as long as I can remember; sometimes I wonder how being so accustomed to the stories of slavery has lessened the impact of the travesty, has numbed me to the very real human suffering that took place on our land.
But when you read Douglass's words, it's nigh impossible to ignore his reality, his tangible humanity. There's nothing particularly notable about his style, about his voice as a writer. His language, although now an artifact of the past, is nothing out of the ordinary. The remarkable aspect of it all is simply his voice per se: its eerie existence, reaching out so palpably across the centuries.
The second remarkable feature of his narrative is its focus. As a child, I loved stories of adventure, and stories of the Underground Railroad thrilled me as much as the next child. Further, as an adult, I suspect the wider population of being obsessed with certain stories full of abomination and evil for all the wrong reasons. There's a certain nasty voyeuristic tendency in people -- people who delighted in gladiatorial battle, for example, or who now delight in NASCAR crashes. Not a pretty side of us.
Now, don't get me wrong: there's a place for atrocity in Douglass's narrative, and it wouldn't be complete without it. It happened, and it clearly demands to be narrated. But Douglass's primary focus is the meaning of slavery. He devotes page after page to the crushing methods and effects of slavery on his person, on his humanity -- and that of the perpetrators. His priorities are, as they say, in order. Just to illustrate this purpose, when it comes time to narrate his escape, Douglass writes,
I now come to that part of my life during which I planned, and finally succeeded in making, my escape from slavery. But before narrating any of the peculiar circumstances, I deem it proper to make known my intention not to state all the facts connected with the transaction. My reasons for pursuing this course may be understood from the following...
One, he writes, he doesn't want to implicate others. Two, he doesn't want to alert slaveholders to a potential route for future escapees. Besides his concern, his humble honesty very much impressed me: he admits that it would be terribly gratifying for him to tell of his escape. But that is not the point.
The point is that slavery is a controlling and deceptive system that denigrates our humanity, affecting every aspect of us: our minds, bodies, spirits. Douglass narrates his time in ignorance -- when he didn't know the meaning of the word 'abolition,' and when he was kept from learning to read; he attaches great importance to having learned to read and write, as if these in and of themselves granted him freedom. He writes, of course, about the control of his body. He writes about the conniving aspect of slavery, the lies and hoaxes of it all; Christmas, he says, was a time for masters to fool their slaves by presenting them with a false taste of freedom.
Their object seems to be, to disgust their slaves with freedom, by plunging them into the lowest depths of dissipation. For instance, the slaveholders not only like to see the slave drink of his own accord, but will adopt various plans to make him drunk.... So, when the holidays ended, we staggered up from the filth of our wallowing... feeling, upon the whole, rather glad to go, from what our master had deceived us into a belief was freedom, back to the arms of slavery.
And he has some fascinating things to say about Southern religion, or 'the slaveholding religion' (ital orig). 'The slave auctioneer's bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heartbroken slave are drowned in the religious shouts of his pious master.' He quotes, 'Shall I not visit for these things? saith the Lord. Shall not my soul be avenged on such a nation as this?'
One last comment, I promise. (It's hard to stop.) When he finally escapes to the North -- and all his troubles are not solved by this; to the contrary, he finds himself homeless and alone with his freedom, because escape from abuse is harder than, say, remaining in Egypt in Pharaoh's care -- he notes the prosperity of its inhabitants. All his life, he says, he had imagined Northerners to be poor, because who was there, without slaves, to keep business afloat?
And, having spent some time lately reading Wendell Berry and thinking about alternative methods of living, more charitable methods scorned as 'impractical' because they wouldn't keep business booming, this last point really struck me. Too often in this world, the nobler way, the loving way is acknowledged and tossed aside because of its impracticality, because it is 'idealistic.' I'm not saying that I'm an idealist. Far from it. But I can't recount how many times I've been told by fellow Southerners that the South didn't want to do away with slavery because, while the North had industry, the South's economy would have fallen apart. Well, the South did fall apart (which is not to say that industry has proven itself our friend -- quite the opposite). But I don't think, as do many Southerners, that abolition necessitated the fall of the South.
Voluntary abolition, practically speaking, would have been hard, don't get me wrong. One man's escape from slavery and resettlement in a new land was hard enough. It's easier, much easier, to remain in bondage, to oppressors, to abusers of humans and of Earth. But it is worth it. It is worth the risk, and it is work the extra labour. There are no analogies in history, by history's very definition: history is a series of unrepeatable and dissimilar events. Nevertheless, there are lessons to be learned.
I won't end this post with any revolutionary statements about our dehumanising economy, or about the corporations scourging our Earth and our farmers. I won't try to give lessons about the psychology of human abuse, towards other humans or towards the Earth. But shall the Lord not visit for these things?
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