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Know more about Frederick Douglass and the Richardsons 

A quick note on Douglass' name - Douglass’ name changes are interesting.  After freeing himself, he is vulnerable to recapture so enlists the help of others. One tells him that there are too many Johnsons who are runaways and advises him to change it again, which he does finally to Douglass. He lets this person choose Douglass. Again, this is Douglass’ choice now to bestow this privilege of naming him to another person. He was adamant to retain Frederick in forming his own identity.

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Ellen Richardson recalled to Ida B Wells that she was moved to the idea to buy Douglass’s freedom after ‘observing his sadness.’

 

The objection came from the point of view that no person could actually be owned, so therefore to engage with Thomas Auld went against this principle and backed up the pro-slavery argument.

 

The moral point here is worth spending time on with students: Were they all wrong to give in and pay for Douglass’s freedom? Is the argument changed when the Richardsons are actually helping a person who, while right in front of them, is suffering from this hold over him? Do morals have to be put aside at this point for practicalities?

 

Stay away from the role play aspects that may arise. (Use they instead of you when posing questions, such as: how they would feel about . . . What would they think . . .)

 

Douglass himself takes on this moral backlash in correspondence he received from notable American abolitionists by saying that, if it were not for the American government being on the slave owners’ side, the argument would be simpler. It was as though the money paid to Auld was also a license to exist in terms of the government of his homeland.


Douglass’s fame could also be discussed here. He was a major figure on both sides of the Atlantic. Him now being free could take away from his status as a Fugitive. This may have been in the minds of some abolitionists.

 

(I often think that if he had not been legally freed would he have had the opportunity to meet President Lincoln. Would have been able to sway Lincoln on a number of issues and further develop his understanding over how to treat Black people, if he was still a fugitive.)

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