The Heroic Slave

The Heroic Slave was Frederick Douglass' only piece of fiction. He wrote it in response to the Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society's request for a submission to be included in their anthology Autographs for Freedom. The Heroic Slave is a retelling of an actual rebellion led by Madison Washington on the slave ship Creole. Douglass shows how the rebellion is part of a revolution and therefore fundamentally American.