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Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in Maryland in 1818. He worked as a slave laborer and was taught to read by his owner’s wife. He escaped to freedom in New York and became an abolitionist, writer, and speaker. He fought for women’s rights and against racial inequality, and helped recruit black soldiers for the Union Army during the Civil War. He died in 1895.
Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, was a slave on a tobacco, corn, and wheat farm in Maryland in 1818. His mother was a slave named Harriet Bailey and his father was an unknown white man. His father was said to be Captain Aaron Anthony, his first owner.
After Douglass was born, he moved in with his grandmother, Betsey Bailey. He was unable to see his mother more than four or five times afterward, as she had to walk twelve miles each way to see him. Besides, he had to go back to work by dawn or be whipped. He died when he was seven years old.
When Frederick Douglass was six years old, he began slave labor in his master’s household. Later he wrote about the conditions of slavery. He was given only a long linen shirt to wear, no shoes, trousers, jacket or socks, and fed only boiled polenta. He often awoke to hear slaves being beaten, including his own relatives.
At the age of eight, Douglass was sent to Baltimore to be the slave of Sophia and Hugh Auld, relatives of his master’s daughter. He cared for their infant son and ran errands for them. Sophia Auld had never owned slaves before her and she began teaching Douglass to read until her husband told her that she was against the law and that a slave should know nothing but obey her master. Nonetheless, Douglass continued to read and learn.
As Frederick Douglass grew older, he began to question slavery and racial inequality. As a teenager, he opened a secret Sunday school and illegally taught slaves to read. Douglass and other slaves began planning to escape by boat, but were caught and put in prison. He was sent back to work for Hugh Auld again.
Working in a shipyard in Baltimore, Frederick Douglass met many free African Americans, including his future wife, Anna Murray. They planned his escape, traveling north by train. Murray gave him the money he needed and borrowed documents to prove he was not a slave. After three ferries, three trains, and a steamboat, Douglass arrived in New York a free man. To make himself harder to trace, he changed his last name twice, finally settling on Douglass.
Douglass and Anna Murray married in 1838, moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, and later had five children. In 1841, she met William Lloyd Garrison, editor of the antislavery journal The Liberator, and began working for him. A few years later, in 1845, Douglass published an autobiography, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, which included his original name and the name of his master.
Risking capture, Douglass set out for England, speaking of the evils of slavery. While there, some of his English friends bought his freedom, allowing him to return to the United States. Upon his return in 1847, he founded his own paper, The North Star, soon renamed the Frederick Douglass Paper. Douglass has spoken out for women’s rights and against racial inequality. His house was a stop on the underground railroad.
Douglass helped recruit black soldiers for the Union Army during the US Civil War. He was able to meet with President Lincoln after the Thirteenth Amendment was passed. Later in his life, he wrote two more books, My Bondage and My Freedom, in 1855, and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, in 1881. He was appointed marshal of Washington, D.C. in 1877, recorder of deeds in 1881, and consul general in Haiti in 1889.
In 1882, Frederick Douglass’ wife Anna died. Two years later, in 1884, Douglass married a white woman named Helen Pitts. Although many people, black and white, were upset by this, they stayed married. At the end of his life, Douglass spoke out against the violence and lynching of African Americans in the Southern United States. Douglass died of a heart attack on February 20, 1895. He had hoped to see an end to racial tensions in the United States.
