Monthly Archives: September 2024

Excerpted from the forthcoming book, THE DEMOCRATIC ART: The Role of Journalism in American Culture.
By Christopher B. Daly


In 1838, as Frederick turned twenty living in Baltimore, he struck a deal with Hugh Auld. While remaining enslaved, he would live elsewhere, on his own, and be responsible for the cost of all his rent, food, clothing, and tools. He would owe Auld three dollars at the end of every week. That way, if he could find enough work and live frugally enough, he might clear a little money week by week. Living on his own also meant that Frederick could read freely whenever time allowed, and he found a way to begin learning to play the violin. He also made time to join two institutions sustained by the free Blacks of Baltimore. He took part in a debating group called the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, which helped him build on his public-speaking skills, and he joined the local AME church.
Somewhere, he met a dark-skinned, free-Black woman a little older than he was. Her name was Anna Murray, and she came from the Eastern Shore. Her mother had been manumitted, so Anna was free from birth, and she was now working for pay as a maid. Frederick and Anna were quickly involved in each other’s lives. Soon, they were engaged.
Still, he had his mind set on freedom. But still the old question: How?

All through the first half of 1838, Frederick, now with the help of his confidant, Anna, thought it over. Although he knew something about the abolition movement, he did not see that as the answer. The whites who funded and ran the prominent abolitionist societies, the whites who funded and ran the fabled “Underground Railroad,” the whites who resisted the enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law – all these were valuable allies to enslaved people, even if they could not always learn much about the abolitionists’ activities. But most enslaved people, like Frederick, were on their own. Self-liberation took careful planning, enormous bravery, tremendous physical exertion, and a generous amount of good luck. Most fled alone.
For Frederick and Anna, there were no white benefactors or groups to shepherd them. Like most runaways, they would be leaving behind their entire world – every person they knew and the only way of life they knew. To go overland presented terrible risks. There were no reliable maps available to them. Slave-catchers patrolled both the South and the North for runaways, who could be returned to their enslavers for a bounty. As a result, it was not enough to make it to the state line, or even to a big city like Philadelphia. Runaway slaves found that they had best keep going farther and farther North – as far as New England, or even all the way to that distant place called Canada.
In the end, Frederick decided that he would make his way to Pennsylvania, the nearest free state, this time by land. He chose to try the railroad. In all the United States, there were only a few hundred miles of railroad track then in operation, carrying a growing fleet of steam-powered locomotives pulling passengers and freight. Due to its location, Baltimore was an early hub of the rail business, and in 1837 a line was completed running north to Philadelphia. Frederick and Anna pooled their savings and placed their bet on the railroad. Still, one problem remained: any white person could challenge his right to travel, and the ticket-taker on the train was bound to do so. So, Frederick approached a retired sailor he knew, and the man let him borrow his official transit papers. Frederick knew how to talk like a sailor, and he got hold of some “sailor style” clothes.
Finally, all was set. Early on Monday, September 3, 1838, Frederick Bailey boarded a northbound train in Baltimore. For now, Anna stayed behind and went to work as usual. On board the smoky train, Frederick made his way north, mile by mile. Then, outside Havre de Grace a moment of truth: the white conductor entered the “negro car” and demanded to see Frederick’s ticket and his papers. Without much ado, he accepted them both and passed on.
“Minutes were hours, and hours were days,” Frederick would recall. “The heart of no fox or deer, with hungry hounds on his trail, in full chase, could have beaten more anxiously or noisily than did mine.” In Wilmington, Delaware, the passengers had to disembark. The next leg of the journey was by steamboat up the Delaware River, almost 30 miles farther north – a passage that would change not only Frederick’s life but the life of the country as well. Sometime that afternoon, the ship reached Philadelphia, and he stepped ashore – his first moment on free soil.

Despite his joy, there was no time to linger. He approached a Black man and asked how to find the train to New York. Departing from the Willow Street station, Frederick continued to put miles between slavery and himself, between his old life and his new one. This train took him another 80 miles or so north, as far as Hoboken, on the New Jersey shore of the great Hudson River. A short ferry ride later, Frederick set foot in the country’s biggest, freest city – New York. It was less than twenty-four hours since he had left slavery behind in Baltimore. Now, safely arrived in free territory, he was beginning his new life. Forever afterward, he would celebrate September third as his adopted birthday.