Many ships,” said he, “are there fitted out for the whaling business, and you may there find work at your trade, and make a good living.” Thus, in one fortnight after my flight from Maryland, I was safe in New Bedford, regularly entered upon the exercise of the rights, responsibilities, and duties of a freeman.
This quote reflects Douglass's sense of freedom and the responsibilities he embraced after escaping slavery.
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More from Frederick Douglass
None now denies the ability of the colored race to acquire knowledge of anything which can be communicated to the human understanding by letters.
In any fair condition of things the men who till the soil will become proprietors of the soil.
Still another ground of hope I find in the fact that colored men are strong in their gratitude to benefactors, and firm in their political convictions.
The nation or people which shall comply with them will rise, and those which violate them will fall, and perhaps will disappear altogether.