Rachel Lippert
Natalie Logan
Zack Reed
Zach Sellards
May 12 th , 2011
1836
Douglass makes an escape
plan but is discovered, jailed,
and then finally released.
He returns to work for the
Auld’s in Baltimore
Hired out to work as a caulker
in a Baltimore shipyard.
The knowledge he gains there
helps him escape slavery two
years later.
 Acquire free papers that were
required of all freed slaves
 Depart September 3, 1838
 Train ride to Susquehanna River, to be crossed via ferry
 Ride a northbound train to Wilmington to board a
steamboat to Philadelphia
 Find a new life and work in New York, a “free” state
 Meets Anna Murray, a freed house-maid, after joining
the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, a
debating club of free black men
 Douglass and Murray fall in love and Douglass borrows
money from Anna in order to purchase a train ticket
 Also meets an African-American sailor from whom he
obtains seaman’s protection certificate that matches a
description similar to his own
 While on the train Douglass
is asked to produce
documentation proving his
freedom
Conductor: "I suppose you have your free papers?"
Douglass: "No sir; I never carry my free papers to
sea with me."
Conductor: "But you have something to show that
you are a freeman, haven't you?"
Douglass: "Yes, sir, I have a paper with the
American Eagle on it, and that will carry me
around the world."
 The papers that Douglass had
were not actual free papers,
and they did not exactly
describe him too accurately
 While on the ferry crossing the Susquehanna River,
Douglass is almost discovered by another black man
 A man named Nichols who is a hand on the boat
“insisted upon knowing [him], and asking [him]
dangerous questions as to where I was going, when I
was coming back, etc.”
 Later while riding the train Douglass saw several people
that he recognized
 Douglass states that had one man, a Captain McGowan
whose ship he had worked on in Baltimore, if he had
simply looked out his train window at him, he would have
been easily spotted and turned in to any slave trappers
 Another time Douglass encounters a German blacksmith
who he knew well, but the blacksmith, who despite
recognizing him does not report him escaping
 Douglass rides the steamboat up the Delaware River
until he reaches Philadelphia and is finally in the free
North
 From here he asks for directions to New York and finds
his way further north
 Douglass met up with a friend, William Dixon who
had previously escaped from slavery and fled North
 Dixon tells him that even in the free state of New York
there were dangers; other black men would be hired to
betray fugitive slaves by gaining their trust, and
colored boarding houses and places of business were
often monitored by slave captors
 Douglass marries Anna Murray and they move to
Massachusetts where he finds work as an unskilled
laborer
 Eventually he becomes a preacher at the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, sparking the
beginnings of his anti-slavery and abolitionist
workings