Frederick Douglass: Life of the Former Slave and Abolitionist Leader

The biography of Frederick Douglass is emblematic of the lives of slaves and former slaves. His struggle for freedom, devotion to the abolitionist cause, and lifetime battle for equality in America established him as perhaps the most important African-American leader of the 19th century.

Frederick Douglass was born in February 1818 on a plantation on the eastern shore of Maryland. He was not sure of the his exact birth date, and he also did not know the identity of his father, who was assumed to be a white man and likely a member of the family who owned his mother.

He was originally named Frederick Bailey by his mother, Harriet Bailey. He was separated from his mother when he was young, and was raised by other slaves on the plantation.

When he was eight years old he was sent to live with a family in Baltimore, where his new mistress taught him to read and write. Young Frederick demonstrated considerable intelligence, and in his teens he was hired out to work in the shipyards of Baltimore as a caulker, a skilled position. His salary was paid to his legal owners, the Auld family.

Frederick became determined to escape to freedom. After one failed attempt, he was able to secure identification papers in 1838 stating he was a seaman. Dressed as a sailor, he boarded a train northward and successfully escaped to New York City at the age of 21.

Anna Murray, a free black woman, followed Douglass northward, and they were married in New York City. The newlyweds moved onward to Massachusetts (adopting the last name Douglass). Douglass found work as a laborer in New Bedford.

In 1841 Douglass attended a meeting of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket. He got onstage and gave a speech which riveted the crowd. His story of life as a slave was delivered with passion, and he was encouraged to dedicate himself to speaking out against slavery in America.

He began touring the northern states, to mixed reactions. In 1843 he was nearly killed by a mob in Indiana.

Frederick Douglass was so impressive in his new career as a public speaker that rumors circulated that he was somehow a fraud and had never actually been a slave. Partly to contradict such attacks, Douglass began writing an account of his life, which he published in 1845 as The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. The book became a sensation.

As he became prominent, he feared slave catchers would apprehend him and return him to slavery. To escape that fate, and also to promote the abolitionist cause overseas, Douglass left for an extended visit to England and Ireland, where he was befriended by Daniel O'Connell, who was leading the crusade for Irish freedom.

While overseas Douglass made enough money from his speaking engagements that he could have lawyers affiliated with the abolitionist movement approach his former owners in Maryland and purchase his freedom.

At the time, Douglass was actually criticized by some abolitionists. They felt that buying his own freedom only gave credibility to the institution of slavery. But Douglass, sensing danger if he returned to America, arranged for lawyers to pay $1,250 to Thomas Auld in Maryland.

Douglass returned to the United States in 1848, confident he could live in freedom.

Throughout the 1850s, when the country was being torn apart by the issue of slavery, Douglass was at the forefront of abolitionist activity.

He had met John Brown, the anti-slavery fanatic, years earlier. And Brown approached Douglass and tried to recruit him for his raid on Harper's Ferry. Douglass though the plan was suicidal, and refused to participate.

When Brown was captured and hanged, Douglass feared he might be implicated in the plot, and fled to Canada briefly from his home in Rochester, New York.

During the Lincoln-Douglas debates of 1858, Stephen Douglas taunted Abraham Lincoln with crude race-baiting, at times mentioning that Lincoln was a close friend of Frederick Douglass. In fact, at that time they had never met.

When Lincoln became president, Frederick Douglass did visit him twice at the White House. At Lincoln's urging, Douglass helped recruit African-Americans into the Union army. And Lincoln and Douglass obviously had a mutual respect.

Douglass was in the crowd at Lincoln's second inaugural, and was devastated when Lincoln was assassinated six weeks later.

Following the end of slavery in America, Frederick Douglass continued to be an advocate for equality. He spoke out on issues related to Reconstruction and the problems faced by newly freed slaves.

In the late 1870s President Rutherford B. Hayes appointed Douglass to a federal job, and he held several government posts including a diplomatic posting in Haiti.

Douglass died in Washington, D.C. in 1895.