BONDAGE AND FREEDOM: FREDERICK DOUGLASS

7 9 R B O N D A G E A N D F R E E D O M F R E D E R I C K D O U G L A S S D A V I D W . B L I G H T Late in 1854, and especially during the first half of 1855, Frederick Douglass spent many weeks at his desk writing his ultimate declaration of independence, My Bondage and My Freedom, his second, more thorough and revealing autobiography. In long form, it was the masterpiece of his writing life, a work that modern scholars have given a prominent place in the literary American renaissance. Bondage and Freedom is not a mere updating of the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass of 1845; rather, it is an extensive revision of that one great tale Douglass believed he must tell – the story of himself. A quite di√erent person – a much more mature, politicized writer – crafted Bondage and Freedom, as opposed to the twentyseven -year-old orator of 1845 who needed to establish his identity through literacy. The 1855 book of 464 pages (four times longer than the Narrative) came from, as Douglass reminded readers in the first three chapter titles, an ‘‘Author’’ already free and ready to use literacy to engage in an epic argument with his country. The British abolitionist Julia Gri≈ths still resided in Rochester, New York, and served as Douglass’s coeditor of his abolitionist newspaper Frederick Douglass’ Paper right up until her departure back 8 0 B L I G H T Y to England in midsummer 1855. Her labors in the printing o≈ce in order to free his time to write certainly testify to her support, if not also her editorial hand in helping make the book possible. Douglass published it in August with Miller, Orton and Mulligan of Auburn, New York, at the price of $1.25. The sales were spectacular – five thousand copies in the first two days and fifteen thousand within three months. Douglass helped market the book by serializing parts of it in his paper, and in the next few years he sometimes took one or more of his sons out on the road with him to sell the book for $1 apiece at his public lectures. Only two years after publication, the same printing house issued a new edition with a banner, ‘‘Eighteen Thousand,’’ inscribed on the title page, indicating the number then in print. Bondage and Freedom achieved what Douglass most wanted: readers and public impact. He could feel buttressed in his belief that words could shape and correct history. But he wrote the book for many reasons. In a prefatory letter to his editor, Douglass claimed, with awkward falseness, that he had always possessed a ‘‘repugnance’’ to writing or speaking about himself, and to the ‘‘imputation of seeking personal notoriety for its own sake.’’ This odd disclaimer was a convention of the literary apologetics of that era, although ironic in a book that ended with a brilliant argument that human dignity depended directly upon public recognition . But what is most interesting about Douglass’s preface is that he turns the disavowal of ‘‘vanity and egotism’’ into a larger purpose . He must write this book, he says, because he is ‘‘exceptional’’ in a world that denies black equality. Douglass portrays himself as the reluctant prophet who must tell his story with a principle at stake for the ‘‘whole human family.’’ Slavery was ‘‘at the bar of public opinion’’ now as never before. The ‘‘whole civilized world’’ had to render ‘‘judgment,’’ especially because of the growing power of proslavery forces. Moreover, Douglass argued, he wrote for the same reason he founded his own newspaper. The humanity of his people must be demonstrated before a racist world. Such a claim for the public duty of writing a second autobiography re- flects just how much this new literary self-creation was a political act. Douglass further felt compelled to write Bondage and Freedom because he had so much to say about the transformations, losses, B O N D A G E A N D F R E E D O M 8...