Frederick Douglass Pens Letter to Harriet Beecher Stowe

"The most killing refutation of slavery is the presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty and intelligent free black population." (Frederick Douglass)

In March of 1853, escaped slave Frederick Douglass penned a letter to fellow escaped slave Harriet Beecher Stowe regarding the plight of blacks in the United States.  Mrs. Stowe had just written and published a little book called Uncle Tom's Cabin which would lay the groundwork for the Civil War less than a decade later.  (For more information about Uncle Tom's Cabin, visit http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2012/03/uncle-toms-cabin.html.

Mr. Douglass opened his letter with:  "You kindly informed me...that you designed to do something which should permanently contribute to the improvement and elevation of the free colored peopled in the United States."  He went on to describe the social disease that blacks of his era suffered from:  "poverty, ignorance and degradation". (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-harriet-beecher-stowe/)

Mr. Douglass explained that the only way that blacks could conquer the disease was to be put on an equal footing with whites, "in the sacred right to the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit happiness." He challenged Mrs. Stowe by saying;  "You dear madam can help the masses...by lifting these from the depths of poverty and ignorance...prejudice is a bar to the educated black among the whites; and ignorance is a bar to him among blacks." 

Frederick Douglass pointed out that America had three black lawyers at the time, but it was not near enough.  Furthermore, whites refused to employ them and blacks followed the lead of the whites.  Mr. Douglass announced that his master plan to improve the lot of the blacks was to open an industrial college.  As he concluded:  "...the most killing refutation of slavery is the presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty and intelligent free black population."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

*This post was first published in 2015.

The Underground Railroad

"I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't; I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger." (Harriet Tubman)

cdnhistory.com

It had conductors, passengers, stations and stockholders.  It had departures and arrivals.  During its 20 year peak, it carried 30,000 people to freedom.  By 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped on its routes.  It was the Underground Railroad.

In 1804, black and white abolitionists in the United States joined together to form a series of meeting points, transportation, safe houses and personal assistance for escaped black slaves.  Religious groups who supported the abolitionist movement included the Quakers, Congregationalists, Wesleyans, Reformed Presbyterians, Methodists and Baptists.

Harriet Tubman courtesy www.biography.com.

Conductors, who led groups of escapees to freedom, consisted of free blacks, white abolitionists, former slaves and Native Americans.  Famous conductors included Harriet Tubman, who made 18 trips and saved 1000 people, and William Still, who harboured as many as 60 slaves a month in his Philadelphia home and Frederick Douglass, the finest abolitionist orator of his time.  

Escaped slaves would travel by night between stations, which were located 10 to 20 miles apart.  Stations could be barns, caves, hollowed out riverbanks, houses or hide outs under church floors.  They usually travelled on foot or by wagon, but also travelled by boat or train.  The routes they followed were indirect in order to confuse their pursuers.  Wanted ads were often placed in local newspapers advertising the escape of slaves and a reward for their return.  Federal marshalls and bounty hunters or slave catchers sometimes pursued escaped slaves as far as the Canadian border.  

Wanted ad courtesy wordpress.com.

For the Underground Railroad to have been so successful, it had to be an organized operation.  Accounts exist stating that escaped slaves would look for quilts hung on fences of safe houses.  These quilts would have 10 patterns, each indicating a particular action for the slaves to take.  A children's book called The Patchwork Quilt describes this practice.  Others say that slaves were taught spiritual hymns with coded messages telling them how to find their way along the Underground Railroad.  One song, "Follow the Drinking Gourd" describes how they followed a constellation shaped like a drinking gourd.  

For some slaves, their destination was the Ohio River, code name River Jordan, since it marked the border between the slave states and free states.  However, for others, their destination was Detroit, code name Midnight, and the Canadian border.  Once in Canada, the majority of the escaped slaves settled in a triangular area bordered by Windsor, Toronto and Niagara Falls.  Lieutenant General Simcoe had started the process of outlawing slavery in Upper Canada in 1793 by prohibiting the transportation of slaves into the province. However, smaller groups settled in Africville, Nova Scotia, Quebec and Vancouver Island.   The law officially banned any form of slavery in Canada in 1833, thirty years before the Emancipation Proclamation in the United States.

Map courtesy indianapublicmedia.org.

Note:  For more information, read The Underground Railway Records (William Still); The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (Frederick Douglass); Harriet Tubman:  The Road to Freedom (Harriet Tubman).

*I first posted this in 2014.

Frederick Douglass Pens Letter to Harriet Beecher Stowe

"The most killing refutation of slavery is the presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty and intelligent free black population." (Frederick Douglass)

In March of 1853, escaped slave Frederick Douglass penned a letter to fellow escaped slave Harriet Beecher Stowe regarding the plight of blacks in the United States.  Mrs. Stowe had just written and published a little book called Uncle Tom's Cabin which would lay the groundwork for the Civil War less than a decade later.  (For more information about Uncle Tom's Cabin, visit http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2012/03/uncle-toms-cabin.html.

Mr. Douglass opened his letter with:  "You kindly informed me...that you designed to do something which should permanently contribute to the improvement and elevation of the free colored peopled in the United States."  He went on to describe the social disease that blacks of his era suffered from:  "poverty, ignorance and degradation". (http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/letter-to-harriet-beecher-stowe/)

Mr. Douglass explained that the only way that blacks could conquer the disease was to be put on an equal footing with whites, "in the sacred right to the pursuit of life, liberty and the pursuit happiness." He challenged Mrs. Stowe by saying;  "You dear madam can help the masses...by lifting these from the depths of poverty and ignorance...prejudice is a bar to the educated black among the whites; and ignorance is a bar to him among blacks." 

Frederick Douglass pointed out that America had three black lawyers at the time, but it was not near enough.  Furthermore, whites refused to employ them and blacks followed the lead of the whites.  Mr. Douglass announced that his master plan to improve the lot of the blacks was to open an industrial college.  As he concluded:  "...the most killing refutation of slavery is the presentation of an industrious, enterprising, thrifty and intelligent free black population."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Douglass

Sacrifice: Part of Success

"To forfeit something for something else considered to have greater value." 

(American Heritage Dictionary)

Society preaches that we can have our cake and eat it too.  We see headlines like "Get ripped without long workouts!" and "Get rich without having to work hard!" and "Loose 20 pounds and eat what you want!" and "Buy a house and pay nothing down!"  The message is that we can reach our goals without giving up anything else.  It comes as no surprise, then, that the United States has a credit card debt of $886 billion!

As Frederick Douglass once said:  "A man,at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing."  If you don't work to earn your fortune, you don't appreciate it nearly as much.  With every goal comes sacrifice.  If you want to become a doctor, you must give up time with your family and friends to put in the necessary hours at medical school.  If you want to become a blockbuster actor, you must give up your anonymity for fame.  If you want to become a proficient writer, you must knuckle down and write daily, rather than watching television or shopping at the mall.

Take the story of Le Van Vu.  He belonged to a successful family in North Vietnam who, in the early 1960's, owned one third of the real estate.  His father was killed by the Communists, forcing he and his mother to flee to South Vietnam.  Le worked hard in school and became a lawyer.  Capitalizing on the increasing American presence in the South by the mid-1960's, Le became a successful builder. However, on a trip to the North, Le was captured and imprisoned.

After three years, Le made a daring escape and returned to the South and his family.  He started a fishing company, soon becoming the largest canner in South Vietnam.  However, with the Communists threatening to invade, Le made a decision:  he and his wife decided to leave Vietnam. 

In exchange for all of the gold he owned, Le sought passage to the Phillipines.  In only two years, he developped the fishing industry in his new country.  

However, the Van Vu's ultimate goal was to go to America.  On the trip across the Atlantic, Le became demoralized at the thought of starting over yet again.  He was about to jump overboard when his wife stopped him, promising to help him along the journey.  His wife's encouragement was all that he needed.  

They arrived in Houston, Texas with no money and no knowledge of English.  Le's cousin invited them to work at his bakery during the day and they took English courses at night.  The cousin offered to sell him the bakery once he came up with the $30,000 down payment.  Le knew that if he rented an apartment, it would take him forever to come up with the money.  So he and his wife lived in the back of the bakery for two years, surviving on a diet of baked goods and taking sponge baths in the mall's washroom.  

After two years, Le presented his cousin with a cheque for $30,000.  Now he owned the bakery.  But he wasn't ready to move into an apartment just yet.  He and his wife continued to live in the back of the bakery until they could come up with the $90,000 balance they owed Le's cousin.  Finally, after another year of sponge baths and baked goods, Le made good on his promise, presenting his cousin with a cheque for the remainder of the loan; he owned the bakery free and clear.

Twenty years later, at the publishing of his story in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Le Van Vu was a millionaire many times over.  For the entire story, read 2.  "Willing to Pay the Price", Chicken Soup for the Soul (1993) at http://www.chickensoup.com/book-story/36237/willing-to-pay-the-price. 

Source:  www.theartofmanliness.com

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