A Valentine on Douglass Day
Frederick Douglass did not know his own birthday. For a variety of awful reasons, enslaved people were never told their date and time of birth. At some point, however, Lucretia Auld, the wife of Capt. Thomas Auld (and through whom Auld came to claim “ownership” of Douglass), told the young Frederick that he was born in February 1817. On Thomas Auld’s deathbed in 1877, Auld told Douglass that he thought Frederick was born in February 1818. This later year was supported by the discovery in 1980 by historian Dickson Preston of a birth ledger in the Maryland Archives listing “Frederick Augustus son of Harriott, Feby 1818.” Frederick’s mother was Harriet Bailey, but the identity of his father was not indicated, as was usual in slave records. (Preston points out that this notation may not have been contemporary, but rather a later addition to the ledger.)
Frederick’s early years were under the care of his grandmother, not his mother. However, his mother, on rare occasions, was allowed to visit him – if she was able to walk the twelve miles to do so, and twelve miles back before the next morning’s sunrise. In his autobiography Douglass records the occasion of his last visit with his mother, on a day during which he was being punished by the household cook by not being fed:
“And now, dear reader, a scene occurred which was altogether worth beholding, and to me it was instructive as well as interesting. The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest need—and when he did not dare to look for succor—found himself in the strong, protecting arms of a mother; a mother who was, at the moment (being endowed with high powers of manner as well as matter) more than a match for all his enemies. I shall never forget the indescribable expression of her countenance, when I told her that I had had no food since morning; and that Aunt Katy said she “meant to starve the life out of me.” There was pity in her glance at me, and a fiery indignation at Aunt Katy at the same time; and, while she took the corn from me, and gave me a large ginger cake, in its stead, she read Aunt Katy a lecture which she never forgot. My mother threatened her with complaining to old master in my behalf; for the latter, though harsh and cruel himself, at times, did not sanction the meanness, injustice, partiality and oppressions enacted by Aunt Katy in the kitchen. That night I learned the fact, that I was, not only a child, but somebody’s child. The “sweet cake” my mother gave me was in the shape of a heart, with a rich, dark ring glazed upon the edge of it. I was victorious, and well off for the moment; prouder, on my mother’s knee, than a king upon his throne. But my triumph was short. I dropped off to sleep, and waked in the morning only to find my mother gone, and myself left at the mercy of the sable virago, dominant in my old master’s kitchen, whose fiery wrath was my constant dread” [Douglass, My Bondage, pp. 56-57].
This episode, with its sweet, heart-shaped ginger cake, is taken by many to resonate with the fact that, later in his life, Douglass may have taken to celebrating his birthday on February 14, Valentine’s Day, a day whose traditions are in accord with the leanings of his own heart.
Lest we wax too sentimental, however, we should note that during a celebration of his birthday on February 28, 1888, as reported in the Washington Evening Star, Douglass, being prevailed upon to speak, said, “I understand from some things that have occurred since I came in that you have been celebrating my seventy-first birthday. What in the world have you been doing that for? Why Frederick Douglass. That day was taken from him long before he had the means of owning it. Birthdays belong to free institutions. We, at the South, never knew them. We were born at times: harvest times, watermelon times, and generally hard times. I never knew anything about the celebration of a birthday except Washington’s birthday, and it seems a little strange to have mine celebrated. I think it is hardly safe to celebrate any man’s birthday while he lives.”
Nevertheless, February 14, Valentine’s Day, has been adopted by many to do double duty as Douglass Day, and it is only right that we should join in remembrance of all that Frederick Douglass did throughout his long life to further the cause of freedom and equality for everyone – including us.
Sources:
Douglass, Frederick. My Bondage and My Freedom. New York and Auburn, 1855. Text available at https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/202/pg202-images.html
Information on the birth ledger and the 1888 celebration can be found at
https://constitutioncenter.org/blog/the-story-behind-the-frederick-douglass-birthday-celebration