Fredrick Douglas Institution of Slavery and Abolition Movement

Religion and Slavery

Sometime around the year 1818, in Talbot county, Maryland, a child was born to a slave woman named Harriet Bailey. This child, named Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was a slave the moment he was born, but through sheer determination, would die a free man. In between his birth and death, Frederick, who later changed his name to Frederick Douglass, suffered under the yoke of slavery, escaped to freedom, and became a great writer, orator, and leader of the abolitionist movement. During his life he wrote three autobiographies, the first, entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, is a graphic description of his early life as a slave, and his struggle to be free. (Douglass) While Frederick Douglass was not an overly religious man, religion played an important part in his story. Religion brought him comfort and kindness, it helped him to read, but it also was twisted to justify the most heinous acts of cruelty and murder.

Frederick Bailey, prior to his becoming Douglass, lived the first part of his life as a slave in the South during the early part of the 19th century. He did not even know the exact date of his birth as his mother had been separated from him as an infant. She was sold to another plantation and he never actually met her, and as he had also never met his father, he also had no idea as to his identity. Instead he was raised by his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey, until he was seven, when he was sent to Baltimore. He remained there, under the ownership of several masters, until 1833 when he was sent to work for a notorious "slave-breaker," During his time in Baltimore, he had, under the tutelage of a caring white woman, learned to read, which became both the source of his current sufferings and the means of his later escape. After several failed attempts, Frederick Bailey finally succeeded in 1838 to make his way to New York and an abolitionist safe house.

Frederick Bailey labored for many years both to support himself, and help support the abolitionist movement. He became an eloquent orator and writer, as well as statesman and spokesman for the abolitionist cause. His first autobiography, called "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave," was first published in 1845, was an immediate bestseller, and with in three years more than 11,000 copies had been printed. While skeptics promoted the idea that a former slave could not have written such an eloquent piece of work, his subsequent works proved beyond a doubt that this former slave was indeed a literary and intellectual genius.

After changing his name to Frederick Douglass, and becoming famous as an orator, writer, statesman, and spokesman, continuing his work in the abolitionist movement. During this time Douglass was not an irreligious man, but he was not an overly religious man either. He attended churches, mingled with pastors, reverends, and other religious individuals, but unlike Martin Luther King Jr. A hundred years later, Douglass was not a minister or a church leader of any kind. However, while he may not have been a religious man, religion has played an important part in Douglass' story.

During his life as a slave, Douglass experienced cruelty and violence much earlier than he experienced kindness usually associated with religion. His first master, whom he referred to as "Captain Anthony" was "a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster." (Douglass, Chapter 1) Douglass recounted how his aunt would be whipped for this white man's pleasure. He then described many other instances of cruelty towards slaves including the killing of a slave named Demby," who was shot in cold blood by a ruthless and cruel slave master. (Douglass, Chapter 4)

It was not until Douglass was moved to Baltimore that he first mentions the Good Lord. He had been transferred to family named the Aulds, relatives of his former master, and when he saw the pleasant conditions he would be experiencing, he was overjoyed. Douglass interpreted this new life "as a special interposition of divine Providence in my favor." And "This good spirit was from God, and to him I offer thanksgiving and praise." (Douglass, Chapter 5)

But Douglass would learn that even the kindest and more religious people can turn bad when exposed to slavery. His new mistress, Mrs. Auld, was at first a kind and decent woman who had taught him to read, always had "bread for the hungry, clothes for the naked, and comfort for every mourner that came within her reach." (Douglass, Chapter 7) But as Douglass then went on to lament, "Slavery soon proved its ability to divest her of these heavenly qualities. Under its influence, the tender heart became a stone, and the lamblike disposition gave way to one of tiger-like fierceness." (Douglass, Chapter 7) Mrs. Auld was a kind hearted, god-fearing woman who, when exposed to the evils of slavery, changed into an evil, contemptible, woman with a heart of stone.

Religion is one of the only hopes a slave has, they must have faith that the misery and suffering of their everyday lives will be alleviated by God. One particular slave poem, which describes the misery of slave children being separated from their families, ends with the line "Will not a righteous God visit for these things?" And yet religion is often used to justify the cruelty inflicted upon the black slaves by their white masters. When Douglass told one of his masters about the cruelty of one of his former masters, the new master simply replied with by quoting a line from scripture, "He that knoweth his master's will, and doeth not, shall be beaten with many stripes." (Douglass, Chapter 9)