Douglass in Britain

Frederick Douglass, the American runaway slave turned Abolitionist, spent some of his happiest days in Britain.

1845-1847

King George III 1760-1820 to Queen Victoria 1837-1901

Introduction

Frederick Douglass escaped slavery in Maryland, and became one of America’s leading Abolitionists. Gently forgiving but firm of purpose, Douglass was a champion not only of Abolition but of freedom everywhere, suspicious of communism, committed to national sovereignty and free markets. And in 1845, he instantly fell in love with the British.

by Clay Lane

THE publication of his memoirs caused a storm that in 1845 led Frederick Douglass (as he put it) ‘to seek a refuge in monarchical England, from the dangers of Republican slavery’.* The chief concern was that his old master, Captain Auld, might reclaim his ‘property’, for Frederick was technically a runaway slave still.

Douglass landed in Liverpool on August 16th, and was shown as a tourist round Eaton Hall, the Cheshire residence of the Marquess of Westminster. He recalled with amusement the sour faces of his fellow Americans when he entered the same grand doors as they did, and was politely waited on by the same white servants.

He paid a visit to foggy Ireland, where in a dreamlike state he experienced sharing a cab, a hotel, a dinner-table or a church pew with smiling, courteous locals. Returning to England, he was immediately again struck by ‘the entire absence of everything that looks like prejudice against me, on account of the colour of my skin’.

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That is, ‘republican’ in the sense of anti-monarchist. Politically, Douglass was a lifelong member of the Republican Party in the USA, which historically has been at the forefront of racial equality campaigning from the days of Douglass to Martin Luther King and beyond.

Précis

After making the US a little to warm for his own comfort, anti-slavery campaigner Frederick Douglass took a two-year trip to the British Isles. He was quite taken aback by the novel sensation of being treated as what he was, an equal, by everyone from Irish labourers to the servants in an English nobleman’s home.

Sevens

Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.

Why did Douglass leave America in 1845?

Suggestion

His legal position was under increasingly uncertain.

Jigsaws

Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.

Douglass visited Ireland. He met nationalist Daniel O’Connell. Douglass was impressed.

Clay Lane The Copybook