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.
Rumor had it that his father was
Captain Aaron Anthony, Frederick
Douglass's first owner.
After Frederick Douglass was born, he
went to live with his grandmother,
Betsey Bailey. He was not able to see
his mother more than four or five times
after that, since she had to walk twelve
miles each way to see him. In addition,
she had to be back at work by sunrise
or face a whipping. She died when
Frederick Douglass was seven years old.
When Frederick Douglass was six years old, he began to work as a slave in
his master's house. He later wrote about the conditions of slavery. He was
only given a long linen shirt to wear, with no shoes, pants, jacket, or socks
and fed only boiled corn mush. He often awoke to hear slaves being beaten,
including his own relatives.
At age eight, Frederick Douglass was sent to Baltimore to be the slave of
Sophia and Hugh Auld, relatives of his master's daughter. He took care of
their infant son and ran errands for them. Sophia Auld had never owned
slaves before and began to teach Douglass to read until her husband told her
it was against the law and that a slave should not know anything except to
obey his master. However, Frederick Douglass continued to read and learn.
As Frederick Douglass got holder, 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 to plan to escape by
boat but were caught and put in jail. 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 he borrowed papers to show that he was not a slave. After three ferries,
three trains, and a steamboat, Douglass arrived in New York City a free
man. In order to make himself more difficult to trace, he changed his last
name twice, finally settling on Douglass.
Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray were married in 1838, moved to New
Bedford, Massachusetts and later had five children. In 1841, he met William
Lloyd Garrison, editor of the anti-slavery newspaper 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.
Being in danger of being caught, Douglass left for England, speaking about
the evils of slavery. While he was there, some of his English friends bought
his freedom, allowing him to return to the United States. Upon his return in
1847, he began his own newspaper, The North Star, soon renamed Frederick
Douglass' Paper. Douglass spoke 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 United
States Civil War. He was able to meet President Lincoln after the Thirteenth
Amendment was passed. Later in his life, he authored two more books, My
Bondage and My Freedom, in 1855, and The Life and Times of Frederick
Douglass, in 1881. He was named marshal of Washington, D.C. in 1877,
recorder of deeds in 1881, and consul-general to 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 remained married. At the
end of his life, Douglass spoke out against violence and lynchings of
African-Americans in the Southern United States. Douglass died of a heart
attack on 20 February 1895. He had hoped to see the end of racial tension in
the United States.