It also has much to teach us about Douglass’s changing views of the antislavery struggle. The novella, one of the few works of fiction published by an African American prior to the Civil War, is increasingly being recognized as a major work in Douglass’s canon and as an impressive work of art. Douglass first published the novella in the 1853 Autographs for Freedom, a fund-raising volume of antislavery writings, and then reprinted it as a four-part serial in the March 1853 issues of his newspaper, Frederick Douglass’ Paper. According to Douglass, Madison Washington, the leader of the rebellion, was a patriotic freedom fighter in the heroic tradition of the American revolutionaries.

Several months after delivering this lecture, Douglass began writing his only work of fiction, The Heroic Slave, which was inspired by the true story of the slave rebellion aboard the Creole. your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery.” As he proclaims at the end of the lecture: “Your celebration is a sham your boasted liberty, an unholy license your national greatness, swelling vanity. In that lecture, Douglass attacked the hypocrisy of a nation that celebrated freedom while slavery remained the law of the land. This new critical edition, ideal for classroom use, includes the full text of Douglass’s fictional recounting of the most successful slave revolt in American history, as well as an interpretive introduction excerpts from Douglass’s correspondence, speeches, and editorials short selections by other writers on the Creole rebellion and recent criticism on the novella.Seven years later, and just two years after Douglass had publicly broken with Garrison, Douglass delivered, in 1852, what would become his most famous oration, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July? ”. It is inspired by the true story of Madison Washington, who, along with eighteen others, took control of the slave ship Creole in November 1841 and sailed it to Nassau in the British colony of the Bahamas, where they could live free.

Frederick Douglass’s only work of fiction-an imaginative retelling of the most successful slave revolt in American history-accompanied by an interpretive introduction, notes, and a selection of related writings by Douglass and others First published nearly a decade prior to the Civil War, The Heroic Slave is the only fictional work by abolitionist, orator, author, and social reformer Frederick Douglass, himself a former slave.

Douglass the heroic slave