Life and Times of Frederick Douglass
Autobiography | 1892
Douglass published his third autobiography Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881, then a revised version in 1892. The latter contained reflections on his time as Minister-Resident and Consul-General to Haiti (1889-1891). Douglass faced attacks from various news media for failing to fulfill America’s intent to acquire Haitian territory, and he eventually resigned. Upon his return to America, Douglass spoke out against rampant racism and white supremacy which injured Haiti as well as Black Americans.
The charge is that I have been the means of defeating the acquisition of an important United States naval station at the Môle St. Nicolas. It is said, in general terms, that I wasted the whole of my first year in Haïti in needless parley and delay, and finally reduced the chances of getting the Môle to such a narrow margin as to make it necessary for our government to appoint Rear-Admiral Gherardi as a special commissioner to Haïti to take the whole matter of negotiation for the Môle out of my hands. One of the charitable apologies they are pleased to make for my failure is my color; and the implication is that a white man would have succeeded where I failed. This color argument is not new. It besieged the White House before I was appointed Minister-Resident and Consul-General to Haïti. At once and all along, the line of contention was then raised that no man with African blood in his veins should be sent as Minister to the Black Republic. White men professed to speak in the interest of black Haïti; and I could have applauded their alacrity in upholding her dignity if I could have respected their sincerity. They thought it monstrous to compel black Haïti to receive a Minister as black as herself. They did not see that it would be shockingly inconsistent for Haïti to object to a black Minister while she herself is black.
Prejudice sets all logic at defiance. It takes no account of reason or consistency. One of the duties of Minister in a foreign land is to cultivate good social as wella s civil relations with the people and government to which he is sent. Would an American white man, imbued with our national sentiments, be more likely than an American colored man to cultivate such relations? Would his American contempt for the colored race at home fit him to win the respect and good-will of colored people abroad? Or would he play the hypocrite and pretend to love negroes in Haïti when he is known to hate negroes in the United States,––aye, so bitterly that he hates to see them occupy even the comparatively humble position of Consult-General to Haïti? Would not the contempt and disgust of Haïti repel such a sham?
Haïti is no stranger to Americans or to American prejudice. Our white fellow-countrymen have taken little pains to conceal their sentiments. This objection to my color and this demand for a white man to succeed me spring from the very feeling which Haïti herself contradicts and detests. I defy any man to prove, by any word or act of the Haïtien Government, that I was less respected at the capital of Haïti than any white Minister or consul. This clamor for a white Minister for Haïti is based upon the idea that a white man is held in higher esteem by her than is a black man, and that he can get more out of her than can one of her own color. It is not so, and the whole free history of Haïti proves it not to be so. Even if it were true that a white man could, by reason of his alleged superiority, gain something extra from the servility of Haïti, it would be the height of meanness for a great nation like the United States to take advantage of such servility on the part of a weak nation. The American people are too great to be small, and they should ask nothing of Haïti on grounds less just and reasonable than those upon which they would ask anything of France or England. Is the weakness of a nation a reason for our robbing it? Are we to take advantage, not only of its weakness, but of its fears? Are we to wring it by dread of our power what we cannot obtain by appeals of its justice and reason? If this is the policy of this great nation, I own that my assailants were right when they said that I was not the man to represent the United States in Haïti.
I am charged with sympathy for Haïti. I am not ashamed of that charge, but no man can say with truth that my sympathy with Haïti stood between me and any honorable duty that I owed to the United States or to any citizen of the United States.
Frederick Douglass, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Autobiography, 1892, in The Frederick Douglass Papers, Series Two: Autobiographical Writings, Volume 3: Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Book 1: The Text and Editorial Apparatus, by Frederick Douglass and John R. McKivigan, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2012), 442-444.
