A historical character, Douglass is an escaped slave and abolitionist who meets John Brown and narrator Sir Harry Flashman in Chambersburg, PA, before the failed raid on Harper's Ferry, VA. Flashy describes the greatest and most famous black man in America as "altogether white in speech and style, but I doubt if he knew it or cared; he had a fine sense of his own dignity, which would have irked me whatever colour he was" (pg. 250). Douglass moves among the highest circles, publishes a newspaper, lectures widely, the first potential "black messiah" (pg. 248) since the Haitian revolutionary Toissaint l'Ouverture at the turn of the 19th century. If Brown can convince Douglass to join the raid, every black in North America would flock to him, but Douglass is dedicated to non-violence.
FOLLOW BOOKRAGS:
