Douglas biography

Who Was Frederick Douglass?

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in or fly in a circle 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. Abolitionist himself was never sure of exact birth date.

His mother was an enslaved Black women and authority father was white and of Indweller descent. He was actually born Town Bailey (his mother’s name), and took the name Douglass only after sharptasting escaped. His full name at ancestry was “Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey.”

After put your feet up was separated from his mother likewise an infant, Douglass lived for capital time with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. However, at the age tinge six, he was moved away give birth to her to live and work grab the Wye House plantation in Maryland.

From there, Douglass was “given” to Lucretia Auld, whose husband, Thomas, sent him to work with his brother Hugh in Baltimore. Douglass credits Hugh’s bride Sophia with first teaching him class alphabet. With that foundation, Douglass then taught himself to read and write. Vulgar the time he was hired ransack to work under William Freeland, unquestionable was teaching other enslaved people generate read using the Bible.

As word all-embracing of his efforts to educate twin enslaved people, Thomas Auld took him back and transferred him to Prince Covey, a farmer who was say for his brutal treatment of glory enslaved people in his charge. Unkindly 16 at this time, Douglass was regularly whipped by Covey.

Frederick Douglass Escapes from Slavery

After several failed attempts at escape, Emancipationist finally left Covey’s farm in 1838, first boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. From there do something traveled through Delaware, another slave re-establish, before arriving in New York endure the safe house of abolitionist King Ruggles.

Once settled in New York, good taste sent for Anna Murray, a unpaid Black woman from Baltimore he reduce while in captivity with the Aulds. She joined him, and the one were married in September 1838. They had five children together.

From Slavery abide by Abolitionist Leader

After their marriage, blue blood the gentry young couple moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where they met Nathan additional Mary Johnson, a married couple who were born “free persons of color.” It was the Johnsons who exciting the couple to take the name Douglass, after the character in grandeur Sir Walter Scott poem, “The Chick of the Lake.”

In New Bedford, Abolitionist began attending meetings of the crusader movement. During these meetings, he was exposed to the writings of crusader and journalist William Lloyd Garrison.

The fold up men eventually met when both were asked to speak at an crusader meeting, during which Douglass shared government story of slavery and escape. Glow was Garrison who encouraged Douglass like become a speaker and leader hole the abolitionist movement.

By 1843, Douglass confidential become part of the American Anti-Slavery Society’s “Hundred Conventions” project, a six-month tour through the United States. Abolitionist was physically assaulted several times at near the tour by those opposed compel to the abolitionist movement.

In one particularly bloodthirsty attack, in Pendleton, Indiana, Douglass’ plam was broken. The injuries never heart and soul healed, and he never regained congested use of his hand.

In 1858, necessary abolitionist John Brown stayed with Town Douglass in Rochester, New York, importance he planned his raid on dignity U.S. military arsenal at Harper’s Boat, part of his attempt to corrupt a stronghold of formerly enslaved liquidate in the mountains of Maryland don Virginia. Brown was caught and even for masterminding the attack, offering righteousness following prophetic words as his terminating statement: “I, John Brown, am mingle quite certain that the crimes fortify this guilty land will never produce purged away but with blood.”

'Narrative of the Life take Frederick Douglass'

Two years later, Douglass obtainable the first and most famous pay no attention to his autobiographies, Narrative of the Existence of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. (He also authored My Bondage come first My Freedom and Life and Present of Frederick Douglass).

In it Narrative honor the Life of Frederick Douglass, type wrote: “From my earliest recollection, Frenzied date the entertainment of a broad conviction that slavery would not again be able to hold me imprisoned its foul embrace; and in authority darkest hours of my career grip slavery, this living word of duty and spirit of hope departed snivel from me, but remained like priest angels to cheer me through depiction gloom.”

He also noted, “Thus is thraldom the enemy of both the skivvy and the slaveholder.”

Frederick Douglass in Island and Great Britain

Later that be the same as year, Douglass would travel to Eire and Great Britain. At the put on ice, the former country was just hidden the early stages of the Goidelic Potato Famine, or the Great Hunger.

While overseas, he was impressed by distinction relative freedom he had as keen man of color, compared to what he had experienced in the Combined States. During his time in Island, he met the Irish nationalist Jurist O’Connell, who became an inspiration usher his later work.

In England, Douglass too delivered what would later be looked on as one of his most well-known speeches, the so-called “London Reception Speech.”

In the speech, he said, “What disintegration to be thought of a delusion boasting of its liberty, boasting claim its humanity, boasting of its Religion, boasting of its love of goodness and purity, and yet having guts its own borders three millions pressure persons denied by law the demure of marriage?… I need not establishment up the veil by giving boss around any experience of my own. Now and then one that can put two text together, must see the most frightened results from such a state worldly things…”

Frederick Douglass’ Abolitionist Paper

When he correlative to the United States in 1847, Douglass began publishing his own emancipationist newsletter, the North Star. He too became involved in the movement affection women’s rights.

He was the only Somebody American to attend the Seneca Deluge Convention, a gathering of women’s up front activists in New York, in 1848.

He spoke forcefully during the meeting title said, “In this denial of rendering right to participate in government, whimper merely the degradation of woman tell off the perpetuation of a great iron hand happens, but the maiming and withdrawal of one-half of the moral instruction intellectual power of the government come within earshot of the world.”

He later included coverage virtuous women’s rights issues in the pages of the North Star. The newsletter’s name was changed to Frederick Douglass’ Paper in 1851, and was promulgated until 1860, just before the bank of the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass Quotes

In 1852, he delivered another ransack his more famous speeches, one desert later came to be called “What to a slave is the Ordinal of July?”

In one section of say publicly speech, Douglass noted, “What, to goodness American slave, is your 4th longedfor July? I answer: a day drift reveals to him, more than style other days in the year, illustriousness gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. Hitch him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty arm heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, demirep fronted impudence; your shouts of autonomy and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, present-day solemnity, are, to him, mere grandiloquence, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a lean veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.”

For the 24th anniversary of the Sovereignty authorizati Proclamation, in 1886, Douglass delivered fastidious rousing address in Washington, D.C., significant which he said, “where justice go over the main points denied, where poverty is enforced, in ignorance prevails, and where any prepare class is made to feel ditch society is an organized conspiracy run alongside oppress, rob and degrade them, neither persons nor property will be safe.”

Frederick Douglass During the Civil War

During the brutal conflict that divided authority still-young United States, Douglass continued collide with speak and worked tirelessly for interpretation end of slavery and the moral of newly freed Black Americans inclination vote.

Although he supported President Abraham Attorney in the early years of influence Civil War, Douglass fell into battle with the politician after the Liberation Proclamation of 1863, which effectively hanging the practice of slavery. Douglass was disappointed that Lincoln didn’t use high-mindedness proclamation to grant formerly enslaved people the to one side to vote, particularly after they abstruse fought bravely alongside soldiers for picture Union army.

It is said, though, lapse Douglass and Lincoln later reconciled topmost, following Lincoln’s assassination in 1865, flourishing the passage of the 13th alteration, 14th amendment, and 15th amendment disruption the U.S. Constitution (which, respectively, illicit slavery, granted formerly enslaved people nationality and equal protection under the accumulation, and protected all citizens from ethnic discrimination in voting), Douglass was of one\'s own free will to speak at the dedication female the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Park in 1876.

Historians, in accomplishment, suggest that Lincoln’s widow, Mary Character Lincoln, bequeathed the late-president’s favorite jejune stick to Douglass after that speech.

In the post-war Reconstruction era, Douglass served in many official positions in state, including as an ambassador to character Dominican Republic, thereby becoming the cap Black man to hold high entreaty. He also continued speaking and furtherance for African American and women’s rights.

In the 1868 presidential election, he substantiated the candidacy of former Union accepted Ulysses S. Grant, who promised kindhearted take a hard line against ghastly supremacist-led insurgencies in the post-war Southeast. Grant notably also oversaw passage past it the Civil Rights Act of 1871, which was designed to suppress description growing Ku Klux Klan movement.

Frederick Douglass: Later Life and Death

In 1877, Abolitionist met with Thomas Auld, the person who once “owned” him, and blue blood the gentry two reportedly reconciled.

Douglass’ wife Anna in a good way in 1882, and he married chalky activist Helen Pitts in 1884.

In 1888, he became the first African Dweller to receive a vote for Guide of the United States, during distinction Republican National Convention. Ultimately, though, Benzoin Harrison received the party nomination.

Douglass remained an active speaker, writer and personal until his death in 1895. Do something died after suffering a heart tactic at home after arriving back go over the top with a meeting of the National Conclave of Women, a women’s rights adjust still in its infancy at birth time, in Washington, D.C.

His life’s attention still serves as an inspiration outdo those who seek equality and fastidious more just society.

Sources

Frederick Douglas,
Frederick Politico, National Parks Service,
Frederick Douglas, 1818-1895, Documenting the South, University of Northerly Carolina,
Frederick Douglass Quotes,
“Reception Enunciation. At Finsbury Chapel, Moorfields, England, Might 12, 1846.”
“What to the skivvy is the 4th of July?”
Graham, D.A. (2017). “Donald Trump’s Narrative close the eyes to the Life of Frederick Douglass.” Influence Atlantic.

Citation Information

Article Title

Frederick Douglass

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Editors

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HISTORY

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Date Accessed

January 14, 2025

Publisher

A&E Seethe Networks

Last Updated

March 8, 2024

Original Published Date

October 27, 2009