The Heroic Slave

"Liberty I will have, or die in the attempt to gain it... I have nothing to lose. If I am caught, I shall only be a slave. If I am shot, I shall only lose a life which is a burden and a curse. If I get clear, liberty, the inalienable birth-right of every man, precious and priceless, will be mine. My resolution is fixed. I shall be free."

-Frederick Douglass, The Heroic Slave

The Heroic Slave (1845), Frederick Douglass's only published work of fiction, is based on an actual event in which an enslaved cook and 19 other slaves captured a ship and ordered it to the Bahamas, where they and the rest of the slaves on board were freed. At the time he wrote it, Douglass, an abolitionist leader, had begun to advocate the use of violence to end slavery. By glorifying these rebellious slaves, Douglass addressed readers not only about engaging in the abolitionist movement but about supporting the right to apply force to end slavery.