37

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 665

and had within his household two white males, six white females, and one black
female. Whereas in 1820 he owned seventeen slaves, in 1830 he had none, possibly
indicating a preference for renting black labor by then. 1820 U.S. Census, Maryland,
Talbot County, 19; 1830 U.S. Census, Maryland, Talbot County, 31; Preston, Young
Frederick Douglass, 130.
43.35 uncles Harry, Peter, and Jake] One of the slave crew of the Sally Lloyd,
Harry was Harry Kellem, husband of Nelly. The business records of Edward Lloyd V
give the birth year for a slave named Peter as 1799. Land Papers--Maintenance of
Property, Land Volume 39, reel 10, Lloyd Family Papers, MdHi.
44.17 Ireland, in the days of want and famine] In the 1840s over 75 percent of the
Irish population was dependent upon agriculture, most cultivating potatoes on small
plots. A partial potato crop failure occurred in the fall of 1845. The potato blight
spread in 1846, resulting in a complete crop failure and a famine throughout the country.
In 1847 the blight was less severe, but living conditions, especially among the
poor, were still terrible. Famine and starvation left people susceptible to disease, fever,
dysentery, scurvy, cholera, influenza, and typhus. During the famine and afterward,
England continued to export grain and animal products from Ireland. Government
relief efforts were, on the whole, too little and too late. They consisted of the importation
of Indian corn from the United States as a basic food source, employment of the
poor through public works, the building of workhouses, and the establishment of soup
kitchens and fever hospitals. Some private charity was helpful at a local level, with
the Quakers as leading contributors. The most noticeable effect of the famine was the
loss of population. From 1841 to 1851 there was a loss of two million people, mainly
on account of mass emigration. Starvation caused the deaths of 20,000 from 1846 to
1851, and 339,000 died from disease. From 31 August 1845 to 6 January 1846,
Frederick Douglass visited Dublin, Cork, Limerick, and Belfast while on an abolitionist
speaking tour of Ireland. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 1:xcvi-xcvii; Edward Norman,
A History of Modern Ireland ( London, 1971), 108-17; Noel Kissane, The Irish
Famine A Documentary History (Dublin, Ire., 1995), 27, 46-48, 75, 107-08, 123.
44.21-24 "I am going away. . .O, yea! O, yea!"] Douglass recalled this song in
both of his earlier autobiographies. Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:20, 2:57.
44.33-38 "I did not. . .ineffable sadness."] Douglass offers a close paraphrase of
his statement in the Narrative. He repeated the passage in My Bondage and My
Freedom, Douglass Papers, ser. 2, 1:20, 2:58.
45.5-6 The songs. . .their joys] Slaves' songs were an important and regular part
of work and home life. Both secular and sacred music enabled bondsmen to communicate
with one another in improvised codes that their owners did not understand.
Because they employed techniques like innuendo, these songs could be sung in front
of whites as a form of resistance. When in a master's presence, slaves sang songs that
seemed to reflect a more positive view of their situation than was the case. However,
the majority of antebellum slave songs focused on the oppressive conditions of daily
life and work, such as cruel treatment at the hands of a master or overseer. Some songs