irish historian christine. kenneally discusses frederick douglass's time in ireland during an 18-month trip to promote abolitionism abroad in 1845 and 1846. she insisted that frederick douglass was moved by his time in ireland and particular the respectful treatment. he received as a formerly enslaved african-american. then nantucket historical association recorded this event and provided the video. i'm delighted to be on nantucket. it's my first time and it's beautiful. so i'm pretty wide up if i slip out of sound. please tell me and i've been given some very modern technology, which if it doesn't work, please tell me also i just admitted to dr. lovely camera woman. i've already seen my first spelling mistake. i've misspelled my own name. that is not how you spell christine. i was doing it quickly. please forgive me. i do know how to spell my own name.

so anyway, i'm delighted to be here james. thank you for persisting. i would have loved to have come in march but delighted be here when? i'm pretending this sunshine there isn't so much yet. i've just come back from ireland. we've had the hottest summer ever. so anyway, so i do come from university the unpronounceable university in connecticut, but you may hear from my accent. i've moved around a lot my family i explained to the ambassador. we're from mayo and temporary they emigrated through poverty to liverpool when i became teenager. i wanted to return to ireland, so i went to trinity college in dublin after a few years. i moved to belfast and then moved around and five. no ten years ago. i came to america and five years ago. i moved to quinnipiac. so i have moved around quite a bit and my accent probably

reflects that we were speaking with the ambassador before about a wonderful irish man. john hugh another wonderful irishman and the ambassador was saying you his message is that unity comes through accepting diversity and to me that is exactly the message preached through frederick douglass and just hearing what molly has planned for this year. i think it's for because frederick douglass as we know he didn't know is 200 years old this year and if you did notice he is dead but you to agree he is doing wonderful work. he is incredible and he may be dead, but i think very much his legacy lives on so you have a wonderful program molly. it's great and my own specialty is his relationship with ireland which was enduring and i think very special so i'm going to talk about that relationship.

how did i say? how did i an irish historian come to frederick? so i am a historian of ireland my specialty which i've written about is the great famine as we know tonight in ireland more generally known as the great hunger within the united states. i've written a number of books on that at some stage. i was asked to write a book on daniel o'connell you may have heard of him are liberator. and i had some skepticism about o'connell. but anyway, i was to put together a series of documents about him while doing my research. i came across his work as an abolitionist now you through as an irish historian. i know him as somebody who brought about catholic emancipation has some as somebody who tried to bring independence to ireland but as an abolitionist, i didn't really know him and that really intrigued me and i went on to write a whole book about daniel o'connell as an abolitionist the

saddest people the sun seas and through daniel o'connell. i came to the great frederick douglass and douglas's relationship with ireland. so that's how inadvertently i came to frederick douglass. so frederick douglass fugitive slave civil rights champion, and if i can just stop by talking about things at quinnipiac this year and if you are in the vicinity, please come and visit us. we have a great hunger museum, which has the largest collection of artwork devoted to the great hunger. currently in ireland skibbereen. it doesn't come back till next april but on campus we have a frederick douglass exhibit. it will be there till next march. it's open to the public and it's free and it's explores his time with ireland. so the booklet outside is actually about that exhibit. it's really talks about the exhibit. one of the features of our

exhibit is this beautiful statue? and this is a statue of frederick douglass when he came to ireland. it's unusual because most representations of douglas depict him as an older man as the oldest statesman the grizzly herd whitehead statesman this depicts frederick as i know him as a 27 year old fugitive slave who came to ireland this is the young frederick. this such is by an sculptor. it's deeply symbolic. it's the cloak is the cloak of daniel o'connell his great hero the waistcoat you may court vest is the best of abraham lincoln who he came to have a friendship with and the outstretched hand is exactly modeled on the hand of present obama. and in his left hand his clutching a copy of the narrative. so it's a beautiful powerful

statue unusual because it's frederick speaking as he loved to speak. he was such a great arter. it's also impressive not only is it impressive because it's so dynamic but because it's size. it's almost 9 foot by nine foot, which is great, except it did not fit in our library. so the exhibitors in our main library frederick is at the law school, so we are spreading the frederick around campus. but anyway, so i hope you come and see this exhibit if i can also social promote myself, so i have been interested in my children would say obsessed with frederick douglass for almost 10 years and when i came to no frederick, i started casually and then very ardently i suppose transcribing every speech he made while he was in ireland and he made almost 50 speeches. so this is taking me some time but just this month my two volume book on frederick has come out i don't have it for

sale because it's expensive. so i'm not recommending anyone buyers, but yes, but just so you know you i have also done that and through transcribing his speeches and you as molly said his early speeches were not written down so i've constructed them from newspaper accounts in ireland and multiple newspaper accounts. i came to feel i really knew the young and incredible. douglas i was feel very close to him. so if i call him frederick tonight, it's because you know, i feel i know him anyway, and i feel he's sort of found me which is maybe presumptuous. but anyway, so that's my connection with frederick. so i'm sure you know a lot about him already, but just in case you don't he was born in maryland 1818, but as was common with slaves, he never knew his birthday or in fact the year of his birth when he was asked how old he was he would say, i think i am and he would approximate he thought he was born in 1817.

it wasn't until after his death we found out or it was found out he was born in 1818. his mother was a slave his father. it is thought was her master. so he was of mixed race as i said, he didn't know his birthday during his young life. he saw his mother about six or seven times. she worked on a different estate and would come sometimes to see him late at night. but she later recollected at one point. she referred to him as my little valentine so as an adult. chose the 14th of february as his birthday. but again, we do not know his precise birth date and his birth name was frederick augustus, washington bailey and bailey to me sounds very irish. but again, we don't know much about that particular connection, but when he escaped out of slavery, he changed his

name to douglas after a scottish hero by walter raleigh, so we know him as frederick douglass. escape again, our islanders always so important for him and he talks in his narrative about working on the docks in baltimore and on the dockside. he encountered two irish duck workers who praise him. he helped them and they praise him for his kindness and said a fine young lad like you should not be a slave and they encouraged him to go to the north. and at that point he wasn't sure what that meant. he wasn't sure if they were. him, but at that stage he knew he could not be a slave for all of his life. and so he determined that he would escape and when age 20 he escaped to the north. now most slaves were escaped were told to follow the north star because how else would they know to get to the north? but he escaped by a different

route. he'd met a young free black woman and the murray and she at great risk to herself gave him the clothes of a sailor and the papers of a sailor and so under that guys he was able to escape to new york. he was there joined by anna and the two of them married and at that point he changed his name to douglas. and escaping was very high risk because if you were caught and he tried to escape for being thrown into jail, but if you escaped again, you would be branded on the cheek and if you escaped a third or fourth time you would be castrated so the punishments escaping were extremely harsh when he escaped, he and anna settled a new bedford again. this was a brave choice. he chose new bedford because like nantucket at the time. it was a quaker community and quakers were great abolitionists. many slaves to escape chose to

go to canada because only in canada would they be truly free? but he said no going to canada is not an option. i have to stay and fight for the freedom of my other fellow slaves and so in your bedford who worked on the docs, he encountered prejudice, but he dedicated himself also to abolition. now at that time it was illegal to teach a slave to read or write. but as a young boy, he'd had a mistress who taught him the abc until her husband intervened, but he had enough knowledge to develop his own literacy. so he was self-taught. and he very early on had realized that education was his pathway his ladder to freedom. so even though he came he worked as a doc labor at this point. he was very educated and at this point he started to become interested in abolition and to purchase garrison william lloyd

garrison's newspaper deliberator, and he started to attend abolitionist meetings in new bedford and the new bedford area. so 1838 frederick always claimed that she had heard of daniel o'connell first in 1838 and o'connell as i said was a great abolitionist. in 1838 the new american ambassador to england had been in london had seen o'connell and introduced himself to the great daniel o'connell and o'connell said he refused to shake hands with any american until he knew his stance. slavery, but he already knew about ambassador stevenson and he refused to shake his hand on the ground. he was a slave breeder. and the ambassador was and furious and challenged o'connell, who was then almost 70 to a jewel and o'connell

refused, but this issue reached the newspapers and it was played out in the newspaper columns in britain in ireland. and of course in america, and of course it divided public opinion and douglas said that was when he first heard the name daniel o'connell, and he said i heard my master lambast him and my master hated him that i should love him. so that was douglas's first encounter with o'connell so nantucket and nantucket like ireland is very important in douglas's personal development and douglas at this stage had been interested in abolition and he was persuaded by a quaker banker abolitionist on the island of nantucket to come to an abolitionist an annual abolitionist meeting and so he came to nantucket and it's also propriet in some ways that the

weather prevents me from being here in march because i'm here in august and it was actually in august 1841 that frederick douglass came to the island of nantucket as a spectator at this great abolitionist meeting and the convention lasted for three days and it was multi race. so this is where frederick spoke in the and i hope i pronounce it wrong at the name. that's how you say it. okay at the name and this is the original building and sadly it burned down the great fire on the island. i think 1846 local historians can tell me if i'm right and it was re so frederick spoke in the original antonym and his intention was not to speak originally, but he was called on because there's great life story. he was unusual and he was somebody who for the first 20 years of his life had been a slave somebody who had actually been whipped. he later talked about the scars

on his back for his impotence so he had a very compelling story to tell and he writes in his narrative that he was called on to speak and he stood up and he spoke reluctantly and he thought he was stammering and his knees were shaking. but his great artery and his compelling story mesmerized the audience and in the audience there was of course the most famous abolitionist of the day william lloyd garrison and garrison heard this young. former slave speak and invited him to be a lecturer for the american antislavery soc. and she was the only former slave to speak on their behalf. and garrison was initially very cautious he invited douglas to perform this role initially for four months. but again because douglas was so amazing at what he did. it was made a permanent job. and so at this point douglas

became electron on behalf of this society and lectured throughout the so-called free states. but although they were called the free slight say sorry the free states douglas could never feel totally safe because the fugitive slave act of 1793 meant this is any part of america of the united states of former slave was he was by law compelled to go back to where he'd come from. and people who harbored him were found guilty of crime. so frederick never felt. quickly free and now here he was actually making himself very public drawing attention to himself to his public lectures. so again, he felt it great doing this at great risk to himself and at this point he and anna had some small children. so again a very brave thing to do in the context of the time.

so for garrison, this is garrison this actually a photograph of garrison taken when he was in ireland in 1846 and garrison said to the audience. have we been listening to a thing a piece of property or a man? and what did the audience all answer? and exactly and often during the course of his speeches that when he was in ireland frederick would refer to the fact that as a slave as a fugitive slave. he was not a man. he was not a citizen. he was simply chattel or a color. so, this is the great frederick and this is an image of frederick, but we have from a later period many photographs of frederick douglass and you probably know he was the most photographed man in america in the 19th century and in the 1840s photography was in it infancy, but as he got older frederick became more and more

photographed. used photography in a very deliberate sense because he believed it was an instrument of democracy because the photographs could not lie and because negroes black people slaves had been so stereotyped in such a negative way for so long. he believed that photographs actually provided true representations of them and if you look at photographs of frederick, he's always immaculately turned out he has a great sense of style and of dress was so unusually, he looks directly at the camera and at the time this is very unusual. and again, it's very very deliberate and this is frederick saying i may have been the slave but i am a man. this is me. this is what we are so he used photography in a very very deliberate way. so he returned to nantucket two more times 1842 and 1843.

42 speakers were attacked by a mob now again, this was not unusual around the same time frederick was traveling on the train and had been dragged off the train by an angry white mob and his right hand was broken. so being attacked was not new for him. 1843 he came back and at that point they went to attack by mr. but they were internal divisions and over the issue of the sabbath day at that point it changes because at that point douglas like garrison believed that the sabbath day was not special that each day was a special day to worship. that was very very controversial at the time. so frederick, he made all these public appearances. he traveled extensively. but he achieving of toiety and people could not believe that this young man who was so articulate who was so immaculously turned out could

have been 20 years moreover slave who claimed that she had been badly treating and whipped and so he was persuaded to write down his life story now slave narratives were not unusual. this was not the first or last slave narrative, but it was probably the most popular in terms of sales and notoriety. so in may 1845 frederick douglass's first order biography narrative was published and it's very interesting because it includes a preface as was the tradition written by a white man. and that person of course was william lloyd garrison, but in the harrison refers to the great irish abolitionist daniel o'connell. so again frederick douglass is very aware this irish, man. daniel o'connell but it was a

double edged sword it brought some income it brought more fame it brought attention to the abolitionist movement. but his also put the young frederick douglass in danger of being captured and his master at that point said we are going to bring you back. this is what you deserve and so at this point frederick was persuaded. he needed to leave america and he was persuaded by garrison. he should go to britain because in britain slaves were free and in britain, there was an abolitionist an abolitionist movement that garrison wanted to actually create and strengthen the transitant ties with so frederick even though he now had four young children sailed. from boston to liverpool in august 1845. he said with a fellow abolitionist a white abolitionist james buffum and with a group of singers called. the and i've suddenly forgotten

their name. i remembered it the hutchinson family and they were singers from new hampshire. it was four brothers and one sister and they again were very progressive in their politics and that outlook and they sailed with frederick and they attended a number of antislavery meetings with him in britain and ireland and it was the first time there had been music in these gatherings. so it was very unusual for people in britain, ireland to hear music and just i know because molly talked about one event you're going to have music and it's so appropriate because frederick was so musical. he loved music he liked to sing and in ireland as a few of the abolitionist meetings towards the end of them. he burst into song and he also heard while he was in ireland some irish laments and he said that it reminded him of the music of the plantation and he always held up with him. it was very close to his heart and after he left ireland he went to scotland and felt homesick and with his income.

he bought himself a violin and he was self-taught to play the fiddle and he said whenever he played whenever he felt homesick, he would play the fiddle and he would feel as happy as a cricket and just in case i forget to say this later and he actually talks his young grandson joseph to play the violin and joseph douglas became the first black concert violinist in the world. so the legacy continued to frederick was very very musical. so back to ireland frederick arrived in liverpool at the end of august 1845. he stayed there two days and then he and james buffum took the boat to dublin. why because a quaker printer abolitionist in dublin richard webb had agreed to reprint a copy of the narrative. the day that frederick arrived in ireland he wrote back to and he said he was safe in old

island and for douglas. this was remarkable feeling because while in america, he never ever felt truly safe, but now for the first time in his life he could feel safe. also, and this is really important during his life frederick had never felt he was honored or treated as an equal evil women in the so called free states. and again, he wrote garrison saying that in ireland for the first time in his life. he felt an equal i find myself not treated as a color but as a man not as a thing, but as a child of the common father of us all and again, this is very important because the sense of freedom and equality provides a springboard for frederick to find his own voice in so many ways. so frederick, he's in ireland and he has many highlights

frederick as an abolitionist was also like many quakers like many abolitionists was a great supporter of temperance. he never drank and partly he wanted to always be in control of his body his self, but he attended many temperance meetings in ireland and he also met the great champion of temperance father matthew. and took the pledge from him even though he didn't drink anyway. he met the mayor of dublin who invited him to dine at the mansion house in dublin again something that would never have happened in america. and of course the great meeting was with daniel o'connell has champion and he later said i came to dublin for four days, but i stayed for a month because i hope to meet the great daniel o'connell and towards the time in dublin. he did indeed meet o'connell.

and he measure o'connell because o'connell was speaking in conciliation hall about repeal and frederick went and heard him speak and he said of all the speakers i've ever heard my life. i've never heard one as great as daniel o'connell and at the end of the speech frederick has been at the back of the hall and was moved slowly to the front and john o'connell danielson said meet my father and so frederick met his great hero daniel o'connell and at that point o'connell invited douglas to get on stage and speak and frederick douglass was such a great speaker, but he was also very modest and he started off in his usual self-deprecating wasting. i'm not good enough for you. you are all so great and i'm not worthy and then went on to make and most amazing speech but his speech was important for a number of reasons. is he praised the great liberator the great champion of of irish civil rights, but initi

also said and made this is very important. he said what my people need is a black o'connell who will come and liberate us and that i do that we ourselves need to liberate ourselves. i think is really really significant and then he finished his speech by saying three words which became associated with him agitate agitate agitate. and i have to say it was a phrase. he stole from daniel o'connell, but he made his own because you probably know his famous philosophy that power concedes nothing without a struggle. and o'connell again you this idea agitate agitate agitate o'connell believed that you should never use violence for political ends. and again, this was to have a great influence on the young frederick douglass. so frederick left ireland

january 1846 again at that point he wrote to garrison and he reflected on this time in ireland and you reflected on the poverty. he had witnessed in ireland now at that point nobody knew that ireland was about to undergo seven years of devastating famine. nobody knew that frederick douglass did not know that but he witnessed poverty. and again, he likened the poverty he witnessed in ireland to that that he had witnessed on the plantations, and he said you i came here as an abolitionist, but now i know my struggle has to be beyond abolition the struggle of human rights is the same the whole world over and so again, ireland was very pivotal in his education and he also in the same letter wrote garrison. i can truly say i have spent some of the happiest moments of my life since landing in this country and again, idea of being

safe free and equal was so important to the young frederick douglass. the frederick after he left ireland. he went to scotland there. he became involved in the campaign against the free presbyterian church in scotland, which had taken money from slave holding states and he urged them to send back the money. it wasn't totally successful and while in scotland, it's very obvious. he did become homesick. and as i said in scotland, he purchased a fiddle to try and cheer himself up. from scotland. he went down to england and while in england some women abolitionists and women were very important in the abolitionist movement actually purchased his freedom, and this was very controversial the idea of purchasing his freedom. some of his fellow abolitionists said this is wrong because we're paying lip service to the idea. you were owned in the first place was he explain i've been away from home.

i need to return to my family. i need to return to my country and so in april 1847. that's exactly what he did and on the return home returned journey home just as on the journey to liverpool. he was not allowed to travel as a first-class passenger because of his color. so despite all he'd achieved in his 18 months away from america. he was still subject to so much prejudice. significantly when he got back to america he moved away from the orbit of garrison again, i would argue in ireland he found his voice and his agency and his independence as an abolitionist and so he and his family moved to rochester. he had a number of female friends in rochester. so his far away from garrison and in rochester. he started his own newspaper the north star and again something that garrison didn't like because garrison had his own

newspaper the liberator so he was in direct competition with his former. mentor garrison so he came back shortly afterwards to nantucket. he returned to nantucket in 1850 and in 1850 a new more draconian fugitive slave law was introduced and so frederick while and nantucket spoke. i was against this new law, of course, he was unsuccessful and you law was introduced. so later life, what did frederick do he fought not just for abolition, but for equality won the first things frederick had done when coming back to the united states was to attend the women's conference in seneca falls in 1848. he was one of the few men to attend and to sign the declaration of sentiments and it was the only afric american man

to do so so again a first for frederick douglass and when he came back after ireland after his time and exile he campaigned for human rights for all as you know, he advised a number of presidents including most famously president lincoln during the civil war initially. he was very skeptical about present lincoln's intentions, but after 1863 became more confident that he was genuine when lincoln was assassinated mrs. lincoln gave douglas. her husband's favorite walking stick. so i think that speaks of their great friendship together. so 85 frederick comes back to nantucket at this stage. he still doesn't know his age, but he's in his late 60s. he's an old man and in some ways his speech reflects some of his disappointments the is even though there had been a civil

war his people did not enjoy equality. there was lynching. there was jim crow. so in some ways he was disappointed and he spoke at that point about all the friends. he had lost. he also spoke about his former friend john brown you all know about john brown john brown who led the rise in the harpers ferry frederick tried to dissuade him, but when he couldn't he gave him some financial support and apparently the final words that frederick said to john brown were i will meet you in heaven. and i hope that happened so at that point when in nantucket 1885 frederick spoke on these themes and he also again urged that ending slavery in itself was not sufficient then needed to be true equality. so he asked he for that he almost begged his audience for that. so frederick died 20th of february 1895 we now know he was

77 years old that day as was appropriate. he had attended a meeting in washington for women's suffrage and while there he got a standing ovation. he came back to have dinner with his wife before going back to the meeting and on leaving the house in the hall. he was telling his wife helen about the day's proceedings. and she said he came very animated and then he fell to his knees and she thought he was play acting because he had a great scent of human. he loved to play out. exactly. he's had a massive heart attack and so he died at his home with his beloved wife helen. so to conclude frederick douglass, never forgot ireland as an old man. he returned there in 1887 and he said i'm going to ireland to look the faces of my friends who looked after me. two years earlier sadly they

were all dead, but he stayed with their children and at that point he came out and support of irish independence and on his return to america. he spoke as a home raw meeting in washington saying ireland wants its independence and injustice. ireland should get its independence. and ireland have never forgotten frederick douglass. i'm happy to say there is a wall mural to frederick in belfast. there are plaques to frederick in waterford and cork. we're working on getting one in dublin and in fact in getting a statue to frederick in belfast, so we have not forgotten frederick. and as i would say he may be dead, but the gift the wonderful gift of frederick douglass is very much alive today. thank you. american history tv is on social

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the c-span cities tour travels the country exploring the american story since 2011. we've been to more than 200 communities across the nation like many americans our staff is staying close to home due to the coronavirus. next a look at one of our city's tour visits. toledo is known as the glass capital of the world because from that one company that came here in 1888 the libya glass company came all of these tertiary companies that have built this economy of glass here in toledo. so we are standing in the glass pavilion, which is part of the toledo museum of art. well, the purpose really is to showcase the glass collection, which is one of the significant parts of our collection here. it's actually almost a third of the overall collection here in toledo. it's also one of the larger collections of glass in the united states and the