He was a slave and had no one to care for him. I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. Returning much later, about 1883, to purchase land in Talbot County that was meaningful to him, he was invited to address "a colored school": Frederick's mother remained on the plantation about 12 miles (19 km) away, only visiting Frederick a few times before her death when he was 7 years old. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone.Īfter separation from his mother during infancy, young Frederick lived with his maternal grandmother Betsy Bailey, who was also a slave, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who was free. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant.
The opinion was.whispered that my master was my father but of the correctness of this opinion I know nothing. He later wrote of his earliest times with his mother:
Douglass said his mother Harriet Bailey gave him his name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and, after he escaped to the North in September 1838, he took the surname Douglass, having already dropped his two middle names. Blight in his 2018 biography of Douglass. In contrast, his father was "almost certainly white", according to historian David W. Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her "Little Valentine." Birth familyĭouglass was of mixed race, which likely included Native American and African on his mother's side, as well as European. Preston determined that Douglass was born in February 1818. In his first autobiography, Douglass stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it." However, based on the extant records of Douglass's former owner, Aaron Anthony, historian Dickson J.
The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova his birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin east of Tappers Corner, ( 38★3′04″N 75★7′29″W / 38.8845°N 75.958°W / 38.8845 -75.958) and west of Tuckahoe Creek. 5.2 Fight for emancipation and suffrageįrederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland.3.2 Travels to Ireland and Great Britain.When radical abolitionists, under the motto "No Union with Slaveholders", criticized Douglass's willingness to engage in dialogue with slave owners, he replied: "I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong." ĭouglass believed in dialogue and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, as well as in the liberal values of the U.S. Without his permission, 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. Douglass also actively supported women's suffrage, and held several public offices. First published in 1881 and revised in 1892, three years before his death, the book covers events both during and after the Civil War. Following the Civil War, Douglass was an active campaigner for the rights of freed slaves and wrote his last autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. ĭouglass wrote three autobiographies, describing his experiences as a slave in his Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), which became a bestseller and was influential in promoting the cause of abolition, as was his second book, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855). It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography.
Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been a slave. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to slaveholders' arguments that slaves lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an African-American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c.