What letter would you write to your former abuser?

Last night I was perusing a treasure I re-discovered on my bookshelf. Back in the dark ages my wife took a Black literature class at UConn and had the foresight to keep the books. This treasure, Dark Symphony: Negro Literature in America (Free Press, 1968) contains works from great writers such as Langston Hughes, W.E.B Dubois, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Ralph Ellison, and of course Frederick Douglass.

It is Douglass’ Letter to Thomas Auld (sometimes entitled, “To my old Master”) which first appeared September 22, 1848 in the Liberator. Thomas Auld was Douglass’ master before he escaped and gained his emancipation. Here’s a link to the whole letter but consider for a minute what you might write if you were writing to a past abuser.

He starts out:

Sir–the long and intimate, though by no means friendly relations which unhappily subsisted between you and myself, leads me to hope that you will easily account for the great liberty which I now take in addressing you in this open and public manner. The same fact may possibly remove any disagreeable surprise which you may experience on again finding your name coupled with mine, in any other way than in an advertisement, accurately describing my person, and offering a large sum for my arrest. In thus dragging you again before the public, I am aware that I shall subject myself to no inconsiderable amount of censure. I shall probably be charged with an unwarrantable, if not a wanton and reckless disregard of the rights and properties of private life…Not a few there are in our contry, who, while they have no scruples against robbing the laborer of the hard earned results of his patient industry, will be shocked by the extremely indelicate manner of bringing your name before the public.

Douglass asserts his right to publicize the atrocities of Mr. Auld just as anyone would agree that one “guilt of theft, robbery, or murder, has forfeited the right to concealment and private life…The public has a right to ferret them out, and bring their conduct before the proper tribunals…”

He writes on the ten year anniversary of his emancipation as a way to both celebrate his freedom and point out the agonies of his life prior to his escape. First he talks about his fear in trying to escape, “I was like one going to war without weapons–ten chances of defeat to one of victory.” But, “thanks be to the Most High, who is ever the God of the oppressed” he was successful in his escape.

Justification for freedom:
Douglass explains he rejected the belief that God was responsible for and approved of slavery. He was then justified to run away to the North. He then writes of the rich experiences he experienced as a free man: working on the wharves of New Bedford, MA where he earned his “first free dollar.” He then reminds Mr. Auld that when he was his slave in Baltimore all of the money he earned was taken from him because Mr. Auld owned him.

Providentially he meets the abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and is introduced to a “society the most pure, enlightened and benevolent  that the country affords. [And yet] amongst these I have never forgotten you, but have invariably made you the topic of conversation–thus giving you all the notoriety I could do.”

Truth-telling:
Notice that Douglass points out how being in a healthier place provides a clearer picture of just how horrible the abuser is. Truth has a way of bringing evil out into full light. He even is able to admit that Mr. Auld is not able to shape his view of white people any more.

Much of my early dislike of white persons was removed, and their manners, habits and customs, so entirely unlike what I had been used to in the kitchen-quarters on the plantations of the South…gave me a strong disrelish for the coarse and degrading customs of my former condition.

He goes on to talk about the wonderful care and safety he is able to provide his family. He can raise them up in the “nurture and admonition of the Gospel.” And he writes this to put a point on what the slaveholder has done: “Oh! sir, a slave-holder never appears to me so completely an agent of hell, as when I think of and look upon my dear children.” At this point he reveals a common experience of victims of abuse, “I meant to have said more with respect to my own prosperity and happiness, but thoughts and feelings which this recital has quickened unfit me to proceed further in that direction.” He wants to tell how well he is doing but the memories of suffering and abuse flood back and overwhelm him and he relives the agonies,

I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the death-like gloom…being torn away from wife and children, and sol like a beast in the market. Say not that this is a picture of fancy. You well know that I wear stripes on my back inflicted by your directions; and that you, while we were brothers in the same church… [here he goes into a story of being beaten for trying to escape].   

Call to righteousness:
At this point in the letter he accuses him of holding 3 of his sisters and his only brother in bondage. He wants to know how and where they are. And he asks him to send his grandmother to him in Rochester since he has turned her out and no longer uses her as a slave. He demands these favors in return for the sins of keeping his kin in “utter ignorance, having deprived them of learning to read and write and thus to receive letters from “absent friends and relatives.” He states that all of the stripes he and his kin received are less evil than failing to teach them to read and write. For this Mr. Auld will give account at the “bar of our common Father and Creator…”

Call to give up denial:
Douglass writes, “The responsibility which you have assumed in this regard is truly awful–and how you could stagger under it these many years is marvellous. Your mind must have become darkened, your heart hardened, your conscience seared and petrified, or you would have long since thrown off the accursed load and sought relief at the hands of a sin-forgiving God.” He goes on to do a “what if” by calling Mr. Auld to consider if the things done to his sisters were done to Mr. Auld’s precious daughters. Douglass does not spare the details, including the rape and full annihilation of the soul.  

Setting an example of real love:

Douglass ends his letter this way,

I intend to make use of you as a weapon with which to assail teh system of slavery–as a means of concentrating public attention on the system, and deepening their horror of trafficking in the souls and bodies of men. I shall make use of you as a means of exposing the character of the American church and clergy–and as a means of bringing this guilty nation with yourself to repentance. In doing this I entertain no malice towards you personally. There is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for your comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each others.
I am your fellow man, but not your slave, Frederick Douglass.

Notice how Douglass does not stoop to an “eye for an eye” response to his abuser. In turning the other cheek, he calls himself to set an example of fair treatment. But notice further that turning the other cheek does not mean that the truth of the abuse is kept quiet. No, love requires that he make known the facts in a newspaper for the whole world to see.

Could you, would you write this kind of letter to one who had done you terrible wrongs?