FREDERICK DOUGLASS FEBRUARY 14-1818

FREDERICK DOUGLASS FEBRUARY 14

Murphy Browne © February 14-2020

Frederick Douglass claimed February 14th as his birthday because his mother called him her “little valentine.” As an enslaved African he did not have access to a record of his birth date. Douglass was also one of the few formerly enslaved Africans who wrote an autobiography. Douglass had to choose a birthday because like many enslaved Africans he had no written record of his date of birth. In his autobiography “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave,” which was published in 1845, Douglass wrote: “I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest- time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege.” With such “radical and revolutionary thoughts” even as a young child it is not surprising that Douglass as a 16 year soundly thrashed a brutal slave holder (to whom he had been sent to be “broken”) and eventually made his escape to freedom.

 

In his autobiography Douglass wrote about the horrors of slavery he had witnessed as a child as an adult. Douglass wrote about witnessing his aunt being brutalized by the White man who enslaved many of his relatives: “He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.” Douglass’ autobiography was used by abolitionists and the anti-slavery movement in which he was very actively involved. He is credited with playing a major role in the eventual abolition of slavery in the USA. 

Douglass (February 14, 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an abolitionist, human rights and women’s rights advocate. He was definitely a man before his time. When the history of the abolition movement is written the heroes are invariably White. Not surprising as Chinua Achebe, the late Igbo author is famous for this quote: “Until the lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter.” Fortunately, Douglass wrote his autobiography and much of his work is archived at the American Library of Congress. It is important for us to know our history not only during February but very day. Because our names and languages were taken away from us during the centuries of enslavement many Africans in the Diaspora are lost and disconnected. Now is a good time to start reconnecting. Attend African History events and read, read, read!!

During African Heritage Month, there are significant people and milestones we can commemorate/remember. Similar to the story of Douglass and many other enslaved Africans in the USA, in Canada there is also a history of resistance by enslaved Africans. Those enslaved Africans in Canada were also brutalized and their owners sought to get rid of them by selling them. The well-known advertisement of the sale of Peggy Pompadour and her son Jupiter is a case in point. Peggy and her children were owned by Peter Russell (he replaced John Graves Simcoe in 1796 as the top politician in Ontario) and his sister Elizabeth. Russell placed an advertisement dated February 10, 1806 in an Upper Canada (Ontario) publication offering for sale Peggy Pompadour and her son Jupiter. Elizabeth Russell wrote in her diary about her dissatisfaction with the enslaved Pompadour family. Elizabeth Russell thought that Peggy, her daughters and her son Jupiter were not subservient enough to match their role as enslaved people. This is documented in several books including “The Freedom Seekers” published 1981, “We're rooted here and they can't pull us up: essays in African Canadian Women's History,” published 1994, “The Underground Railroad: Next Stop Toronto,” published 2002 and “The Hanging of Angelique: The untold story of Canadian slavery,” published 2006. In “The Hanging of Angelique,” the author Dr Afua Cooper writes about the experience of the enslaved Pompadour family: “Peggy, the mother of three children Milly, Amy, and Jupiter, and the wife of a free black man named Pompadour, was a disobedient and recalcitrant slave who bucked the Russells’ authority by talking back to them and running away whenever she felt like it. Jupiter, her son, was also a runaway and “disobedient.” Cooper also notes that even though Peter Russell was a slave holder in Upper Canada: “He behaved like a typical American slaveholder: he separated families if he saw fit, he punished and imprisoned his slaves, and when they would not “obey” he sold them.”

Usually when slavery is mentioned in Canadian history it is about enslaved Africans fleeing slavery from the USA to freedom in Canada. Hardly a word about slavery as a Canadian institution from the 1600s until August 1, 1834 when it was abolished here. Although our history did not begin with slavery, the enslavement of our people is part of our history that cannot be ignored because the consequences are felt to this day. The fact that African Canadians are only 2.5 per cent of the Canadian population yet are approximately 20 % of the federal prison population bears testament to the legacy of slavery. Racial profiling is a legacy of slavery. According to the “Colour of Poverty” campaign http://www.colourofpoverty.ca/  their research has unearthed that: African-Canadian students in Toronto are four times more likely to be stopped and eight times more likely to be searched than white students in the same places. • In a large sample of Toronto youth who had no police records, more than 50 per cent of blacks had been searched by police in the previous two years, compared to only eight per cent of whites. • A study in Kingston showed that police were 3.7 times more likely to stop black people. • In Ontario, black suspects are 5.5 times more likely to be killed or seriously injured from police use of force than white suspects, and they are 10 times more likely to be shot by police.

The perceptions of Africans that were established during the days when our ancestors were enslaved are still in the minds of many of those who are in authority today. That is why we have seen a 52% increase in the incarceration rate of African Canadians since 2000. Many of our youth are captured and held in the prison industrial complex, with that experience beginning for some of them at the tender age of 12 years, before they even have an opportunity to live. Many of them are also failed by the education system where racial profiling is a reality. In spite of this, some manage to survive just as our ancestors found ways and means of surviving the brutality of chattel slavery. Statistics Canada under the heading “The African Community in Canada” has acknowledged: “Those in the African community in Canada are somewhat more likely than the rest of the population to be university graduates. In 2001, 19% of African people aged 15 and over were university graduates, compared with 15% of those in the overall adult population. Yet the same study also found that: Canadians of African descent are generally more likely to be unemployed than those in the overall workforce. In 2001, 13.1% of African labour force participants were unemployed, compared with 7.4% of all labour force participants.” While reading that study, I was reminded of the infamous “ghetto dude” incident of 2007 summer when Evon Reid a young African Canadian University of Toronto Honours student was cavalierly dismissed when he applied for a position with the provincial government. His qualifications were not important; his race was the deciding factor. And just imagine this was happening in the midst of what remains of the British Empire (of which Canada is a member) commemorating the 200th anniversary (1807-2007) of the abolition of its slave trade.

However, in spite of the trials and tribulations here we are still standing as the Honourable Nesta Robert “Bob” Marley (whose birthday is celebrated on February 6) sang on his song Survival released in 1979 on the album also titled Survival: We’re the survivors, yes, the Black survivors.

Murphy Browne © February 14-2020