Poet Frederick Douglass
Lynn, MA
I wasn’t planning on writing about famous abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. I want to share stories of less-famous Essex County people whose efforts to oppose slavery receive little attention. But while doing this research, I learned two things I didn’t know before: Frederick Douglass lived in Lynn with his wife Anna and their young children from 1841-1848, early in his career as an abolitionist speaker. And in addition to his many books and essays and speeches on slavery and abolition, he wrote a handful of poems; not many, but they packed a punch. After reading one of his poems, I decided I really wanted to include Douglass as an Essex County antislavery poet.
Frederick Douglass (1818-1895)
You can read about Frederick Douglass’ life in dozens of books; one of them, Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom by David W. Blight even won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize. Douglass was born enslaved in Maryland, self-emancipated as a young man, made his way north, married his free Black sweetheart Anna, and began speaking against slavery after they settled in New Bedford, MA.
In the 1830s and 1840s, long before radio or television or the Internet, reformers brought the antislavery message to new audiences through lectures in towns across the North. Douglass quickly drew attention as a powerful anti-slavery orator, not least because he spoke with the authority that only someone who had suffered in bondage could claim. Movement leaders immediately recognized his abilities and invited him to join their panel of traveling abolitionist speakers.
So at age 23, Douglass moved with Anna and their young children to Lynn, MA. They lived among a friendly local group of Quaker abolitionists, just north of the Boston-based movement leaders who scheduled his lecture tours. Frederick and Anna added children to their family while in Lynn.
After sharing his life story on the lecture circuit for several years, Douglass decided to bring his story to a wider audience. He took some time off from lecturing, and in Lynn wrote his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The book, published in 1845, overthrew the myth of the “happy slave” through his first-hand account of slavery’s brutality, and quickly found an international audience. It is widely considered one of the most influential texts of the abolitionist movement.
Frederick Douglass chose to close his 1845 autobiography with a poem, which he titled “A Parody” because it parodied a popular Southern hymn. In 13 stanzas, he contrasted enslavers’ pretensions of Christian piety with their merciless treatment of the people they enslaved. Douglass’ lines reverberate all the more because he had experienced this hypocrisy first-hand. Here’s an excerpt; read the full poem at the end of this post.
Frederick Douglass’ work as an abolitionist had just begun when he lived in Lynn and wrote his autobiography. After that, Douglass moved with his his family to Rochester, New York, and began to edit his own abolitionist paper, The North Star, later renamed Frederick Douglass’ Paper. He published poems by abolitionists in his own papers as well — further proof of poetry’s ubiquity and importance in that era.
But that first poem, written for his autobiography while he lived in Essex County, continues to hit home as an indictment of slaveholders who professed to be Christian. Here’s the full text.
A Parody
“Come, saints and sinners, hear me tell
How pious priests whip Jack and Nell,
And women buy and children sell,
And preach all sinners down to hell,
And sing of heavenly union.
"They'll bleat and baa, dona like goats,
Gorge down black sheep, and strain at motes,
Array their backs in fine black coats,
Then seize their negroes by their throats,
And choke, for heavenly union.
"They'll church you if you sip a dram,
And damn you if you steal a lamb;
Yet rob old Tony, Doll, and Sam,
Of human rights, and bread and ham;
Kidnapper's heavenly union.
"They'll loudly talk of Christ's reward,
And bind his image with a cord,
And scold, and swing the lash abhorred,
And sell their brother in the Lord
To handcuffed heavenly union.
"They'll read and sing a sacred song,
And make a prayer both loud and long,
And teach the right and do the wrong,
Hailing the brother, sister throng,
With words of heavenly union.
"We wonder how such saints can sing,
Or praise the Lord upon the wing,
Who roar, and scold, and whip, and sting,
And to their slaves and mammon cling,
In guilty conscience union.
"They'll raise tobacco, corn, and rye,
And drive, and thieve, and cheat, and lie,
And lay up treasures in the sky,
By making switch and cowskin fly,
In hope of heavenly union.
"They'll crack old Tony on the skull,
And preach and roar like Bashan bull,
Or braying ass, of mischief full,
Then seize old Jacob by the wool,
And pull for heavenly union.
"A roaring, ranting, sleek man-thief,
Who lived on mutton, veal, and beef,
Yet never would afford relief
To needy, sable sons of grief,
Was big with heavenly union.
"'Love not the world,' the preacher said,
And winked his eye, and shook his head;
He seized on Tom, and Dick, and Ned,
Cut short their meat, and clothes, and bread,
Yet still loved heavenly union.
"Another preacher whining spoke
Of One whose heart for sinners broke:
He tied old Nanny to an oak,
And drew the blood at every stroke,
And prayed for heavenly union.
"Two others oped their iron jaws,
And waved their children-stealing paws;
There sat their children in gewgaws;
By stinting negroes' backs and maws,
They kept up heavenly union.
"All good from Jack another takes,
And entertains their flirts and rakes,
Who dress as sleek as glossy snakes,
And cram their mouths with sweetened cakes;
And this goes down for union."
Selected references
Blight, David W. 2019. Frederick Douglass, Prophet of Freedom. Pulitzer Prize-winning biography. https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/david-w-blight
Dalton, Thomas. 2018. Frederick Douglass: The Lynn Years 1841-1848.
Douglass, Frederick. 1845. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Autobiography written in Lynn, MA. https://archive.org/details/narrativeoflifeo1846doug
Richardson, Nathan. 2016. Recitation of Frederick Douglass’ poem on Youtube.