FROM FUGITIVE SLAVE TO FUGITIVE ABOLITIONIST

Abstract

This article focuses upon Frederick Douglass's speeches on the Creole slave ship mutiny, which he gave in North America and Britain in the 1840s and 1850s to examine the complexities of his transatlantic abolitionist discourse. Douglass's commitment, not only to freedom from slavery but also freedom from mainstream abolition, remained undiminished throughout his life as he argued against the “spirit” as much as the “fact” of slavery. Douglass's speeches, autobiographies, diaries, and letters reveal a complex literary figure as well as a forceful and impassioned agitator. There can be little doubt that Douglass engaged throughout his works in literary subterfuge, polemical play, and subversive experimentation to express the full extent of his radicalism and challenge the boundaries of permissible antislavery discourse. His speeches on Madison Washington, the heroic liberator aboard the Creole slave ship revolt, afforded Douglass the highly prized opportunity to extend his subject matter beyond personal autobiography and challenge abolitionist demands for an authentic recital of the facts of his own life. He was able to exalt a black heroic tradition of violence and self-sacrifice as he articulated his own creative independence in retelling the story to suit his transatlantic audiences.