Frederick Douglass / A Biography

of the anti-slavery workers of the time that the publication of the details of escapes or rescues from bondage seldom reached the ears of those who might have learned thereby to do li

ther celebrated escapes from slavery or imprisonment. He simply masqueraded as a sailor, borrowed a sailors "protection," or certificate that he belonged to the navy, took the train to Baltimore in the evening, and rode in the negro car until he reached New York City. There were many anxious moments during this journey. The "protection" he carried described a man som

eans a free man. He was still a piece of property, and could be reclaimed by the law's aid if his whereabouts were discovered. While local sentiment at the North afforded a measure of protection t

ve birth to a thousand delightful sensations. In his

f my slave life. I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry

in imminent danger. After this cheerful communication Douglass's informant left him, evidently fearing that Douglass himself might be a slave-hunting spy. There were negroes base enough to play this role. In a sailor whom he encountered he found a friend. This Good Samaritan took him home for the night, and accompanied him next day to a Mr. David Ruggles, a colored man, the secretary of the New York Vigilance Commit

where he might hope to find work at his trade of ship-calker. It was believed, too, that he would be safer there

, gave him shelter and sympathy, and lent him a small sum of money to redeem his meagre baggage, which had been held by the stage-driver as security for

derived the surname Bailey. His mother, with unconscious sarcasm, had called the little slave boy Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. The bearer of this imposing string of appellations had, with a finer sense of fitness, cut it down to Frederick Bailey. In New York he had called himself Frederick Johnson; but, finding when he reached New Bedford that a considerable portion of the colored population of the city already rejoiced in this familiar designation,

, even in Massachusetts, quite beyond the influence of slavery. While before the law of the State he was the equal of any other man, caste prejudice prevented him from finding work at his trade of calker; and he therefore sought employment as a laborer. This he found easily, and for thr

e a subscriber to the Liberator, each number of which he devoured with eagerness. He heard William Lloyd Garrison lecture, and became one of his most devot