My Bondage and My Freedom

Douglass heard that Charles Roberts and Henry Baily, two of his co-conspirators, did not receive whippings for attempting to seek freedom. William Hamilton, however, insisted that Thomas Auld remove Douglass from the neighborhood, otherwise he’d shoot him for “tampering with his slaves” (302). However, Hamilton couldn’t get Auld and Freeland as upset as he was over the matter. As reluctant as Thomas was to give Douglass up, he knew how dangerous it would be to keep him around. He, therefore, agreed to send the young man back to Baltimore.

When Douglass arrived there, he noticed some changes. His friendship with Little Tommy, now ‘Mas Tommy, had ended. Tommy had become a man and asserted the boundary between enslaver and enslaved person. Meanwhile, Hugh hired Douglass out to William Gardiner, a shipbuilder on Fell’s Point, where Douglass went to learn to calk [sic]. Douglass had some knowledge of the trade, gained when Hugh was an enslaver builder.

After eight months, Douglass’s apprenticeship ended due to his having been in a fight, which caused his left eye to be “nearly knocked out of its socket” (305). Not long before Douglass arrived in the shipyard, free Black and white ship carpenters worked together peacefully.