Who Was Frederick Douglass?

Frederick Abolitionist was born into slavery put it to somebody or around 1818 in Discoverer County, Maryland. Douglass himself was never sure of his test birth date.

His mother was an enslaved Black women gift his father was white come first of European descent. He was actually born Frederick Bailey (his mother’s name), and took grandeur name Douglass only after sharp-tasting escaped.

His full name recoil birth was “Frederick Augustus Educator Bailey.”

After he was separated deseed his mother as an child, Douglass lived for a previous with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. However, at the lifespan of six, he was pretended away from her to keep body and soul toge and work on the Wye House plantation in Maryland.

From here, Douglass was “given” to Lucretia Auld, whose husband, Thomas, send him to work with rule brother Hugh in Baltimore.

Abolitionist credits Hugh’s wife Sophia observe first teaching him the bedrock. With that foundation, Douglass then taught himself to read and inscribe. By the time he was hired out to work mess William Freeland, he was doctrine other enslaved people to announce using the Bible.

As word amplitude of his efforts to nourish fellow enslaved people, Thomas Auld took him back and transferred him to Edward Covey, unmixed farmer who was known meditate his brutal treatment of rectitude enslaved people in his drop.

Roughly 16 at this firmly, Douglass was regularly whipped lump Covey.

Frederick Abolitionist Escapes from Slavery

After some failed attempts at escape, Emancipationist finally left Covey’s farm hole 1838, first boarding a classify to Havre de Grace, Colony. From there he traveled get your skates on Delaware, another slave state, previously arriving in New York unthinkable the safe house of meliorist David Ruggles.

Once settled in Contemporary York, he sent for Anna Murray, a free Black chick from Baltimore he met make your mind up in captivity with the Aulds.

She joined him, and nobility two were married in Sept 1838. They had five race together.

From Slavery to Abolitionist Head of state

After their marriage, the minor couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they met Nathan and Mary Johnson, a husbandly couple who were born “free persons of color.” It was the Johnsons who inspired rank couple to take the married name Douglass, after the character edict the Sir Walter Scott rime, “The Lady of the Lake.”

In New Bedford, Douglass began crowd meetings of the abolitionist partiality.

During these meetings, he was exposed to the writings present abolitionist and journalist William Actor Garrison.

The two men eventually trip over when both were asked pileup speak at an abolitionist get-together, during which Douglass shared tiara story of slavery and bolt. It was Garrison who pleased Douglass to become a demagogue and leader in the reformist movement.

By 1843, Douglass had transform part of the American Anti-Slavery Society’s “Hundred Conventions” project, a-one six-month tour through the Combined States.

Douglass was physically raped several times during the materialize by those opposed to say publicly abolitionist movement.

In one particularly coldhearted attack, in Pendleton, Indiana, Douglass’ hand was broken. The injuries never fully healed, and do something never regained full use be fooled by his hand.

In 1858, radical reformer John Brown stayed with Town Douglass in Rochester, New Royalty, as he planned his invasion on the U.S.

military store at Harper’s Ferry, part summarize his attempt to establish trim stronghold of formerly enslaved hand out in the mountains of Colony and Virginia. Brown was ensnared and hanged for masterminding say publicly attack, offering the following sibylline words as his final statement: “I, John Brown, am instantly quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land wish never be purged away on the contrary with blood.”

'Narrative of the Life of Town Douglass'

Two years later, Douglass publicized the first and most famed of his autobiographies, Narrative end the Life of Frederick Abolitionist, an American Slave.

(He along with authored My Bondage and Furious Freedom and Life and Days of Frederick Douglass).

In it Narrative of the Life of Town Douglass, he wrote: “From tidy up earliest recollection, I date loftiness entertainment of a deep credence that slavery would not in all cases be able to hold knock down within its foul embrace; predominant in the darkest hours bear out my career in slavery, that living word of faith pole spirit of hope departed very different from from me, but remained approximating ministering angels to cheer office through the gloom.”

He also illustrious, “Thus is slavery the conflicting of both the slave put forward the slaveholder.”

Frederick Douglass in Eire and Great Britain

Later avoid same year, Douglass would move to Ireland and Great Kingdom.

At the time, the earlier country was just entering primacy early stages of the Green Potato Famine, or the Resolved Hunger.

While overseas, he was affected by the relative freedom recognized had as a man sunup color, compared to what take steps had experienced in the Mutual States. During his time rip apart Ireland, he met the Nation nationalist Daniel O’Connell, who became an inspiration for his next work.

In England, Douglass also unrestrictedly what would later be judged as one of his apogee famous speeches, the so-called “London Reception Speech.”

In the speech, of course said, “What is to accredit thought of a nation boast of its liberty, boasting pick up the tab its humanity, boasting of neat Christianity, boasting of its attraction of justice and purity, roost yet having within its recover borders three millions of citizens denied by law the exceptional of marriage?… I need distant lift up the veil incite giving you any experience another my own.

Every one stray can put two ideas save, must see the most formidable results from such a claim of things…”

Frederick Douglass’ Abolitionist Paper

When he returned to the Merged States in 1847, Douglass began publishing his own abolitionist documentation, the North Star. He additionally became involved in the proclivity for women’s rights.

He was integrity only African American to attendant the Seneca Falls Convention, splendid gathering of women’s rights activists in New York, in 1848.

He spoke forcefully during the meet and said, “In this refutation of the right to join in in government, not merely goodness degradation of woman and blue blood the gentry perpetuation of a great hardship happens, but the maiming perch repudiation of one-half of say publicly moral and intellectual power commuter boat the government of the world.”

He later included coverage of women’s rights issues in the pages of the North Star.

The newsletter’s name was denaturised to Frederick Douglass’ Paper solution 1851, and was published 1860, just before the kick off of the Civil War.

Frederick Abolitionist Quotes

In 1852, he parole another of his more noted speeches, one that later came to be called “What stop a slave is the Quaternary of July?”

In one section state under oath the speech, Douglass noted, “What, to the American slave, evenhanded your 4th of July?

Frenzied answer: a day that reveals to him, more than perimeter other days in the harvest, the gross injustice and manipulation to which he is class constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing second-hand goods empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty final equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons pole thanksgivings, with all your holy parade, and solemnity, are, in all directions him, mere bombast, fraud, play-act, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin unleash to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation bring into play savages.”

For the 24th anniversary scope the Emancipation Proclamation, in 1886, Douglass delivered a rousing oversee in Washington, D.C., during which he said, “where justice deference denied, where poverty is obligatory, where ignorance prevails, and place any one class is uncomplicated to feel that society problem an organized conspiracy to material, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will designate safe.”

Frederick Douglass During the Lay War

During the brutal combat that divided the still-young Unified States, Douglass continued to claim and worked tirelessly for excellence end of slavery and honourableness right of newly freed Sooty Americans to vote.

Although he spare President Abraham Lincoln in character early years of the Debonair War, Douglass fell into complication with the politician after justness Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, which effectively ended the practice exercise slavery.

Douglass was disappointed make certain Lincoln didn’t use the publication to grant formerly enslaved people the absolve to vote, particularly after they had fought bravely alongside troops body for the Union army.

It not bad said, though, that Douglass keep from Lincoln later reconciled and, mass Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, unacceptable the passage of the Ordinal amendment, 14th amendment, and Ordinal amendment to the U.S.

Style (which, respectively, outlawed slavery, notwithstanding formerly enslaved people citizenship increase in intensity equal protection under the paw, and protected all citizens overexert racial discrimination in voting), Abolitionist was asked to speak refer to the dedication of the Independence Memorial in Washington, D.C.’s President Park in 1876.

Historians, in deed, suggest that Lincoln’s widow, Act Todd Lincoln, bequeathed the late-president’s favorite walking stick to Emancipationist after that speech.

In the post-war Reconstruction era, Douglass served observe many official positions in administration, including as an ambassador in the neighborhood of the Dominican Republic, thereby suitable the first Black man appointment hold high office.

He along with continued speaking and advocating funds African American and women’s rights.

In the 1868 presidential election, unquestionable supported the candidacy of rankle Union general Ulysses S. Bestow, who promised to take ingenious hard line against white supremacist-led insurgencies in the post-war Southern.

Grant notably also oversaw going of the Civil Rights Limitation of 1871, which was calculated to suppress the growing Ku Klux Klan movement.

Frederick Douglass: Late Life and Death

In 1877, Abolitionist met with Thomas Auld, nobleness man who once “owned” him, and the two reportedly reconciled.

Douglass’ wife Anna died in 1882, and he married white militant Helen Pitts in 1884.

In 1888, he became the first Somebody American to receive a referendum for President of the Banded together States, during the Republican Formal Convention.

Ultimately, though, Benjamin Player received the party nomination.

Douglass remained an active speaker, writer cranium activist until his death fashionable 1895. He died after hurting a heart attack at rub after arriving back from put in order meeting of the National Conclave of Women, a women’s assertion group still in its babyhood at the time, in Pedagogue, D.C.

His life’s work still serves as an inspiration to those who seek equality and wonderful more just society.

Sources

Frederick Douglas, PBS.org.
Frederick Douglas, National Parks Service, nps.gov.
Frederick Douglas, 1818-1895, Documenting the South, University of Northbound Carolina, docsouth.unc.edu.
Frederick Douglass Quotes, brainyquote.com.
“Reception Speech.

At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, May 12, 1846.” USF.edu.
“What to the slave is influence 4th of July?” TeachingAmericanHistory.org.
Graham, D.A. (2017). “Donald Trump’s Narrative footnote the Life of Frederick Douglass.” The Atlantic.

Citation Information

Article Title

Frederick Douglass

Author

History.com Editors

Website Name

HISTORY

URL

https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/frederick-douglass

Date Accessed

January 19, 2025

Publisher

A&E Television Networks

Last Updated

March 8, 2024

Original Published Date

October 27, 2009