20

648 HISTORICAL ANNOTATION

victory guaranteed him the role of leader of the new independent regime in Haiti. In
1802 he was taken prisoner by the French, who had returned to reclaim the island.
While awaiting sentencing, L'Ouverture died of pneumonia in April 1803 after enduring
ten months of harsh conditions in a French prison. Ralph Korngold, Citizen
Toussaint (Boston, 1944); Martin Ros, Night of Fire: The Black Napoleon and the
Battle for Haiti (New York, 1994); Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates,
Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience
(New York, 1999), 904-05.
9.26-27 Alexander Dumas] Alexandre Dumas (1802-70), a French novelist and
playwright, was one of the pioneers of the Romantic theater in France. During his
career, he published more than 200 works of fiction. His best-known novels include
The Three Musketeers (1844) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1844-45). Rullin lists
him because Dumas's grandmother had been a black slave on the West Indian island
of Santo Domingo. Jacques Barzun, ed., European Writers: The Romantic Century, 7
vols. (New York, 1985), 6:723-24; Frank N. Magill, ed., Great Lives from History:
Renaissance to 1900 Series, 5 vols. (Pasadena, Calif., 1989), 2:665-69); Drabble,
Oxford Companion to English Literature, 294.
23 .8 Talbot County, Eastern Shore, State of Maryland, near Easton] Talbot
County, on Maryland's Eastern Shore, had been an important tobacco-growing region
since colonial times. In 1788 the state legislature designated Easton, until then known
as Talbot Town, as the administrative center for state operations for all nine of the
Eastern Shore counties. Preston and Harrington, Talbot County, 140, 191, 256;
Wilstach, Tidewater Maryland, 104-05.
23.13 ague and fever] A common symptom of malaria, ague is characterized by
paroxysms of chills, fever, and sweating recurring in intervals.
23.14 Choptank river] The Choptank River is the longest and best known of all
Eastern Shore rivers. It forms part of the eastern boundary of Talbot County. The
Choptank begins in Delaware County, Delaware, and flows southeast into Maryland.
At Cambridge, Maryland, the river's course turns westward and it flows into the
Chesapeake Bay at a very wide mouth, permitting navigation far inland. Footner,
Rivers of the Eastern Shore, 170-84.
23.29- 30 I suppose myself to have been born in February, 1817] As nearly as can
be determined, Douglass was born in February 1818. Ledger books kept by his master,
Aaron Anthony, contain a table, "My Black People," with the notation "Frederick
Augustus son of Harriott Feby 1818." Aaron Anthony Ledger B. 1812-26, folders 95,
165, Dodge Collection, MdAA; Further evidence for the year 1818 is presented in
Preston, Young Frederick Douglass, 31-34, 218-19.
23.32 Betsey] Betsey Bailey (1774-1849), the maternal grandmother of Frederick
Douglass, grew up a slave on the Skinner plantation in Talbot County, Maryland. In
1797 she became the property of Aaron Anthony, who acquired her and several other
slaves through his marriage to Ann Skinner. Anthony moved her to his farm on
Tuckahoe Creek in Talbot County. She married Isaac Bailey, a free black who earned