Frederick Douglass based this story on the real-life heroism of Madison
Washington, who led the largest successful slave revolt in U.S. history
in 1841. His story is told through the eyes and words of two white men.
First, Mr. Listwell from Ohio sees Madison enslaved in Virginia, then a
fugitive in Ohio, and finally a recaptured returnee bound from Richmond
to the slave markets of New Orleans. Lastly, Tom Grant, the mate on the
slave transport Creole, describes the ship's takeover by its human cargo
and its passage to the British Bahamas, where 128 men and women stepped
out of bondage and into freedom. Douglass contributed the story in 1853
to a book of collected pieces by anti-slavery writers and reformers. It
is his only known work of "fiction," and it is interesting especially
for its prismatic point of view: a black writer's account of white men
describing a black hero. What makes a person heroic? And what
possibilities for heroism even exist under slavery-for whites or blacks?
Could they act together to lift the the great national curse? The work
is brief, dramatic, and compelling, showing the gift for expression that
made Douglass such a powerful figure on the anti-slavery platform.