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WHAT FREDERICK DOUGLASS LEARNED FROM AN IRISH ANTISLAVERY ACTIVIST:
‘AGITATE, AGITATE, AGITATE’  
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Christine Kinealy
June 14, 2024
The Conversation
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_ Even before Douglass arrived in Ireland in 1845, he was aware of
the rich tradition of Irish men and women involved in the
transatlantic movement to bring an end to the U.S. system of
enslavement. _

Born into slavery, Frederick Douglass became one of the leading
abolitionists in America. , Bettmann/Getty Images

 

Though Frederick Douglass
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remains the most well-known abolitionist to visit Ireland in the
decades prior to the American Civil War, he was not the only one.

As many as 30 Black abolitionists and activists also traveled to
Ireland between 1790 and 1860. Olaudah Equiano
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was one of them. Born in Africa, Equiano was kidnapped when he was
about 10 years old. But he later purchased his own freedom, wrote a
bestselling autobiography and arrived in Ireland in 1791 as a guest of
the United Irishmen, a group of radical nationalists
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Another was Sarah Parker Remond
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to Ireland in 1859 and stayed with the same family who had hosted
Douglass 14 years earlier. Having for the first time experienced
equality, she could not bear to return to America.

Instead, she completed a degree at a college in London and moved to
Italy, where she trained as a medical doctor. Both Equiano and Parker
Remond worked closely with Irish abolitionists.

Even before Douglass arrived in Ireland in 1845, he was aware of the
rich tradition of Irish men and women involved in the transatlantic
movement to bring an end to the U.S. system of enslavement.

In particular, he was an admirer of the Irish nationalist leader
Daniel O’Connell
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A vocal critic of enslavement
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O'Connell had played an important role in bringing it to an end
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in the British Empire in 1833.

The making of an abolitionist

Born into enslavement
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Maryland in 1818, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey met his
enslaved mother only a handful of times before she died. It was
generally assumed that his father was the white owner of the
plantation.

At the age of 20, Frederick escaped to New York, where he changed his
surname to Douglass.

Although he could have continued on to Canada, where he would have
been safe, he chose to remain in the U.S. and become involved in
abolitionist activities. Despite having received no formal education,
Douglass proved to be a dazzling orator who had firsthand experience
of enslavement.

Douglass’ primary motive for traveling to the United Kingdom in
August 1845 was to avoid being returned to enslavement. Seven years
earlier, Douglass declared himself free. But under American law, he
was still designated as a “fugitive slave” and, therefore, could
be captured at any time.

By the age of 27, his fame had grown, thanks to his lectures for the
American Anti-Slavery Society
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and the success of his autobiography, which he had published in May
1845.

Clearly, he was a thorn in the side of slavery and those who supported
the institution.

In the year before he visited Ireland, Douglass wrote
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“The real, and only-to-be-relied-on movement for the abolition of
slavery in this country, and throughout the world, is a great moral
and religious movement. The work of which is, the enlightenment of the
public mind, the quickening and enlightening of the dead conscience of
the nation into life, and to a sense of the gross injustice, fraud,
wrong and inhumanity of enslaving their fellow-men.”

The struggle in Ireland

Douglass left America reluctantly, as he was married and a father to
four young children.

Two days after arriving in the port of Liverpool, Douglass traveled to
Ireland, where a leading Irish abolitionist, Richard Webb
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to reprint Douglass’ autobiography to provide him with some
much-needed income. Douglass had intended to spend only a few days in
Dublin but ended up staying four months after receiving such a warm
welcome.

During this time, he gave almost 50 lectures throughout the country.
Despite his arduous schedule, he referred to these months as the
“happiest
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period of his life:

“I live a new life. The warm and generous co-operation extended to
me by the friends of my despised race … and the entire absence of
everything that looked like prejudice against me, on account of the
color of my skin – contrasted so strongly with my long and bitter
experience in the United States, that I look with wonder and amazement
on the transition.”

[An image of the front page of the North Star anti-slavery newspaper.]

The Sept. 8, 1848, issue of the North Star, the antislavery newspaper
published by Frederick Douglass. Heritage Art/Heritage Images via
Getty Images
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Part of Douglass’ transition was based on Irish leader O'Connell’s
political approach and belief in universal human rights
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“I am the friend of liberty in every clime, class and colour. My
sympathy with distress is not confined within the narrow bounds of my
own green island. No—it extends itself to every corner of the earth.
My heart walks abroad, and wherever the miserable are to be succoured,
or the slave to be set free, there my spirit is at home, and I delight
to dwell.”

O’Connell had won political rights for Catholics
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who were traditionally regarded by the British establishment as
second-class citizens in Ireland. The comparison was not lost on
Douglass, who wrote in an 1846 letter
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American abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison:

“I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess
I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but
that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over. He who really
and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the
woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot
enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for
his anti-slavery.”

Return to America

In January 1846, Douglass left Ireland to lecture in Scotland and
England. While there, he became homesick, longing to see his family
again.

A group of Irish and British women provided a solution. They raised
the money and completed the legal process to purchase Douglass’
freedom.

[A Black man with gray hair wears a dark suit as he poses for a
portrait.]

Abolitionist Frederick Douglass in 1880. Sepia Times/Universal Images
Group via Getty Images
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Douglass returned to America in April 1847 as a free man. But his
newfound status did not protect him from experiencing prejudice and
segregation.

Five years after his return home, Douglass delivered one of his most
scathing attacks
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on American enslavement:

“What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?
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I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the
year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant
victim. To him, your celebration is a sham.”

The long arc of history

In the years following the end of the American Civil War, Douglass’
influence as an international champion of human rights continued to
grow.

He revisited Ireland in 1887, but this time as an American citizen who
owned a passport and was allowed to cross the Atlantic in a
first-class cabin.

Douglass explained that the reason for the trip was “to look on the
faces of people who had been kind to me 40 years earlier.”

Sadly, most were dead.

During this visit, Douglass announced his support for Irish
nationalists and their long struggle for independence.

Back home, Douglass continued to lead the battle against “the hidden
practices of people who have not yet, abandoned the idea of Mastery
and dominion over their fellow man.”

For Douglass, continued resistance was necessary, and he invoked three
words that he had learned from O’Connell when in Dublin in 1845:
“Agitate, agitate, agitate.”[The Conversation]

Christine Kinealy
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of Ireland's Great Hunger Institute, _Quinnipiac University
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This article is republished from The Conversation
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the original article
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* Frederick Douglass
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* slavery
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* ireland
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* Black History
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