Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York. He was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, be they white, black, female, Native American, or Chinese immigrants.

About Frederick Douglass in brief

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York. Douglass wrote several autobiographies, notably describing his experiences as a slave in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which became a bestseller. He was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, be they white, black, female, Native American, or Chinese immigrants. He also actively supported women’s suffrage, and held several public offices. Without his approval, Douglass became the first African-American nominated for Vice President of the United States as the running mate and Vice Presidential nominee of Victoria Woodhull, on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He later chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her “Little Valentine. ” Douglass’ wife, Lucretia Auld, was essential in creating who he was as she shaped his experiences and had a special interest in giving him a better life from the time he was a child. When he was about 12, Hugh Auld’s wife Sophia began teaching him the alphabet. He wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of FrederickDouglass. First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers events both during and after the Civil War. It was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom.

Following the Civil war, he remained an active campaigner against slavery and wrote his third autobiography, The Story of My Life and Freedom, which was published in 1880 and 1892. He died in 1895 in New York City at the age of 83. He is buried in Mount Sinai Cemetery in New Jersey, where he lived with his wife and three children until his death in 1895. He had a daughter, Harriet Bailey, who was also a slave, and a son, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, Jr., who was born in Maryland in 1818. His father was almost certainly white, as argued by historian David W. Blight in his 2018 biography of Douglass. In contrast, his mother Harriet Bailey gave him his grand name and, after escaping to the North years later, he took the surname Douglass,. He later wrote of his earliest times with his mother: “The opinion was…whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing.” He was of mixed race, which likely included Native American and African on his mother’s side, as well as European. His birthplace was likely his grandmother’s cabin east of Tappers Corner, and west of Tuckahoe Creek. The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova, Maryland, the birthplace of his grandmother, Betsy Bailey, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who would live until 1849. His mother remained on the plantation about 12 miles away.

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