My Bondage and My Freedom

By a principle essential to Christianity, a PERSON is eternally differenced from a THING; so that the idea of a HUMAN BEING, necessarily excludes the idea of PROPERTY IN THAT BEING. —COLERIDGE Entered according to Act of Congress in 1855 by Frederick Douglass in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the Northern District of New York TO HONORABLE GERRIT SMITH, AS A SLIGHT TOKEN OF ESTEEM FOR HIS CHARACTER, ADMIRATION FOR HIS GENIUS AND BENEVOLENCE, AFFECTION FOR HIS PERSON, AND GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, AND AS A Small but most Sincere Acknowledgement of HIS PRE-EMINENT SERVICES IN BEHALF OF THE RIGHTS AND LIBERTIES OF AN AFFLICTED, DESPISED AND DEEPLY OUTRAGED PEOPLE, BY RANKING SLAVERY WITH PIRACY AND MURDER, AND BY DENYING IT EITHER A LEGAL OR CONSTITUTIONAL EXISTENCE, This Volume is Respectfully Dedicated, BY HIS FAITHFUL AND FIRMLY ATTACHED FRIEND, FREDERICK DOUGLAS. ROCHESTER, N.Y. CONTENTS MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM EDITOR’S PREFACE INTRODUCTION CHAPTER IV. A General Survey of the Slave Plantation CHAPTER V. Gradual Initiation to the Mysteries of Slavery CHAPTER VI. Treatment of Slaves on Lloyd’s Plantation CHAPTER XI. “A Change Came O’er the Spirit of My Dream” CHAPTER XIII. The Vicissitudes of Slave Life CHAPTER XIV. Experience in St. Michael’s CHAPTER XVI. Another Pressure of the Tyrant’s Vice LIFE as a FREEMAN CHAPTER XXIII. Introduced to the Abolitionists CHAPTER XXIV. Twenty-One Months in Great Britain RECEPTION SPEECH [10]. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, Dr. Campbell’s Reply LETTER TO HIS OLD MASTER. [11]. To My Old Master, Thomas Auld THE NATURE OF SLAVERY. Extract from a Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester, INHUMANITY OF SLAVERY. Extract from A Lecture on Slavery, at Rochester, WHAT TO THE SLAVE IS THE FOURTH OF JULY?. Extract from an Oration, at THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. Extract from an Oration, at Rochester, July THE SLAVERY PARTY. Extract from a Speech Delivered before the A. A. S. THE ANTI-SLAVERY MOVEMENT. Extracts from a Lecture before Various FOOTNOTES MY BONDAGE and MY FREEDOM EDITOR’S PREFACE If the volume now presented to the public were a mere work of ART, the history of its misfortune might be written in two very simple words—TOO LATE. The nature and character of slavery have been subjects of an almost endless variety of artistic representation; and after the brilliant achievements in that field, and while those achievements are yet fresh in the memory of the million, he…