Frederick Douglass 1818-1895

According to Odey M. Scruggs on World Book Online, Frederick Douglass was born on February 7th, 1817 in his grandmother's cabin in Holme Hill Farm along Tuckahoe Creek, Talbots country, on Maryland's eastern shore. Frederick Douglass's born name was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. His mothers name was Harriet Bailey who was a single mom at the time because her husband was shipped to a plantation in California just before the baby was born. Even when Frederick grew to the age of four and five and lived on the same plantation as his mother he very rarely got to see her. Frederick Douglass quotes on World Book Online " My only recollections of my own mother are few hasty visits made in the night on foot after the daily task were over." Frederick was in the care of his grandmother most of his early childhood but when he was six he was taken from that care and was put into a service i a breeding pen with pigs, dogs, and other small animals and children. He slept on mush that they claimed to be cornmeal for over two years of his childhood. While being on this plantation he witnessed many crimes of slavery one of which he saw his aunt being whipped until the skin was off her back. In 1826 he was sent to Baltimore to be a house boy for Sophia and Hugh Auld. The Aulds believed that it was to early in his childhood to be working the fields so he did chores around the house like scrubbing the floors and cleaning the dishes. While living in Baltimore he learned to read and write very well and became to love to read. He would spend all his extra time reading and rewriting the stories that he had read. Being a victim of slavery made him become a very strong man, mind and body. In 1838 Frederick was ready to see what opportunities he had out in the real world so he fled from his master and headed to New Bedford Massachusetts. Then he changed his last name to Douglass so he would not be suspected to be a runaway slave. In 1840 he married a woman with the name of Anna Muray who was a freed black woman who had been quarted in Baltimore. On April 5th 1841 he gave a speech to the city of New Bedford that explained what freedom meant to him and what he thought about black rights. The city was very impressed with his speech and they hired him to travel around the United States and give his speech to help try to abolish slavery. In 1845 Frederick published a biography called " The Narrative Life of Frederick Douglass. He became the first black man to have a biography published about themselves. The book sold all over the country and even in England. The only problem was that Frederick had the fear of his identity being figured out and captured again as a runaway slave so he moved to England with his wife where he would not even be suspected. In 1847 he returned to Massachusetts. As soon as he arrived he got an offer to be the writer of an anti slavery newspaper. The paper was called " The North Star" The paper became a hit and people every where were reading about the horrible things being done to the blacks. In the couple years to come Frederick lead many protest and rallies to abolish slavery and give the blacks equal rights as the whites. He often made people uncomfortable because he expected so much out of himself, other people, and his country. According the the article " Frederick Douglass 1818-1895" on Student Resource Center-Gold Frederick says " I urge men and woman, black and white, rich and poor to live on the great ideas in which the United States was founded. I will fight for the right of everyone to be educated, and to be able to vote fit the life of grace and dignity for all." According to Otey M. Scruggs, he charged that employers hire white immigrants ahead of black Americans. Frederick Douglass once said " Every hour sees a black man elbowed out of employment by newly arrived who's hunger and who's color are thought to give him a better title to the place." In this time Douglass also made a successful attack to a segregated school in Rochester. Frederick died of a sudden death inside his home on February 20th 1895

Work Cited- Otey M. Scruggs, "Douglass, Frederick", World Book Online
2010, February 24th 2010

"Frederick Douglass 1818-1895" Stundent Resource Center- Gold
Gale, 2008, February 24th 2010