Major Works

• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave (1845)
• My Bondage and My Freedom (1855)
• The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881, 1892)

Family

• Father: unknown white man 
• Mother: Harriet Bailey
• Grandparents:  Isaac and Betsey Bailey
• Wife: Anna Murray
• Second Wife: Helen Pitts

• Publisher
• Editor
• Orator
• Author
• Bank president
• Marshall 
• Foreign minister 

 

Chronology

Resources

http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/
DOUGLASS/home.html
This site gives a detailed biography of Frederick Douglass. 

http://douglass.speech.nwu.edu/garriso.htm
This is a site which includes a specch William Llloyd Garrison made about Douglass. 
 

"Those who profess freedom and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing up the ground; they want rain without thunder or lightening.  They want the ocean without the awful roar of it many waters." 
                                                  -Frederick Douglass, 1857 speech 

"I have seen dark hours in my life, and I have seen the darkness gradually disappearing, and the light gradually increasing.  One by one, I have seen obstacles removed, errors corrected, prejudices softened, proscriptions relinquished, and my people advancing in all elements that make up the sum of general welfare.  I remember that God reigns in eternity, and that whatever delays, disappointments and discouragement's may come, truth, justice, liberty, and humanity will prevail.
                                           -Frederick Douglass, 7 December 1890 

"When a man raises himself from the lowest condition in society to the highest, mankind pays him the tribute of their admiration; when he accomplishes this elevation by native energy, guided with prudence and wisdom, their admiration is increased; but when his course, onward and upward, excellent in itself, furthermore proves possible, what had hitherto been regarded as an impossible, reform, then he becomes a burning and shining light, on which the aged may look with gladness, the young with hope, and the down-trodden, as a representative of what they may themselves become." 
                                     -James McCune Smith, 
                                     Introduction,  My Bondage and My Freedom
 

Douglass can definitely be said to be a man who raised himself from the lowest condition in society - a condition forced on him by a society that made him a slave for nineteen years.  He rose from slavery to be one of the most famous orators and writers of all time and arguably  the most famous African American  orator and writer of the nineteenth century.   Douglass is not a man who knew good fortune without hard work unlike the men he mentions in his 1857 speech previously mentioned.  He carefully plotted his future, took advantage of every  opportunity presented to him and made a life and a name for himself.  He did see the darkness disappear but his road to the light was not without stumbles and falls and many people along the way were determined to stop him from reaching his destination.  Douglass prevailed, however, in paving the road for African Americans to walk taller, prouder and easier because of his noble life. 

Douglass paved this road beginning with his days as a slave and continuing with the work he did after his escape and subsequently-granted freedom.  Initially believing in a lack of political involvement to try and change America's minds, he made it his work to write and speak about his past and his hopes for the future of America.  He joined with others who advocated a peaceful persuasion to  abolish slavery.  He changed his mind as the Civil War approached and the country seemed bound to keep its slaves, at least in some parts.  Douglass knew there were things in life worth fighting for and he knew you couldn't reap the rewards of much needed rain without some occasional thunder and lightening.  He published and edited papers voicing his opinions, wrote autobiographies, spoke internationally for the rights of all men and women and eventually held political offices in a country he had helped mold into something new.  Douglass' life inspired others to rally for their cause, his literature gave them the reason for the rally and his journalism was the vehicle with which he delivered it. 

Life

Thus begins Douglass'  exposure to masters of all descriptions.  To some he owed his life and some nearly took it away.  Master Aaron Anthony was Douglass' first master until he was 6 years old.  His experiences there were similar to that of any young child left by his family and raised by someone who called himself their master.  He was treated relatively well but witnessed their harsh treatment of others. From age 6 to 8 he ws owned by Thomas Auld.  At age 8, Douglass was sent to live with Hugh and Sophia Auld in Baltimore.  Here he was to be a companion to the family's son Tommy.  In one of Sophia's  reading lessons to  her son Tommy, Douglass asked if he too could learn.  Sophia readily agreed and began the lesson that would prove to be the single most important in the life of Frederick Douglass.  They learned letters and small words and read and studied daily the Bible.  Here also began Douglass' fascination with religion and its role in holding man captive. Douglass also learned here why slaves weren't taught to read; he overheard his mater tell his wife that Douglas would become "unmanageable" if he learned to read. Also while in Baltimore, Douglass learned another skill that played out well in his life- mimicry. Douglass had a keen ear for listening to and modeling the educated Southern voices of his masters.  At this stage in life he did it for entertainment but the attention to good speech and grammar played well into his future also. 

In 1833, Douglass was moved back to the home of his master's brother, Thomas Auld.  At age 16, Douglass was a force to be reckoned with and Thomas Auld felt he needed to be broken so in 1834, he sent Douglass to Edward Covey for one year of intense, hard labor and brutal treatment.  In August of that year Covey prepared to beat Douglass and Douglass refused to go down without a fight.  In his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, Douglass describes the two hour fight that ensued.  Douglass states in his autobiography that Covey must have not reported him because of the shame that he could be  beaten by his own slave; there were no more beatings. 

In 1838, Douglass met Anna Murray in a meeting of Black Methodists.  They fell in love and made plans for his escape.  Anna Murray was already a free woman working as domestic help in the North.  Dressed in sailor's clothes and taking a train from Baltimore to Philadelphia and then to New York, Douglass escaped on September 3, 1838.  He and Anna Murray were married on September 15 and subsequently changed there name for safely purposes. 

By 1839, Douglass had already begun attending anti-slavery meetings and his name even appeared in William Lloyd Garrison's paper The Liberator on March 29, 1839 when Garrison heard him speak briefly at a meeting of abolitionists. This meeting of the two men would be only the beginning of a long-standing union  between two minds set on removing slavery from America, though the two would not always see eye-to-eye. 

The relationship between the two would be one of the most noteworthy unions of two abolitionist minds.  The two shared a unique outlook on how to change the minds of America.  By 1841, Douglass would be a featured speaker at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society meeting where he and Garrison voiced their opinions. They believed that changing the minds of the country could not be done through political action but by using reason and moral persuasion.  They opposed the idea of an Anti-Slavery Party.  They stated their belief that the Constitution was the political document on which this county had been founded and it allowed for slavery; therefore, politics had already failed this country.  They also believed in peaceful, nonaggressive measures. The two men's ideas would leave an impression on American thought; however, they would not always stay in agreement. 
 

After the 1845 publication of Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Douglass fled to England and Scotland for 19 months because he was in danger after publishing the names of his former owners and their treatment of him.  He spoke widely throughout the British Isles about man's rights and was greatly received and admired.  He spoke widely for womens' rights too and gained financial support in this manner.  Lending his support, Garrison joined Douglass in England and Scotland and gave speeches as well.

Douglas returned to America in 1847 and continued speaking against slavery, carefully refining his argument over the next 14 years.  The country however, was not mending.  The rift, it seemed, was widening.  Over the next 14 years as the country struggled with the idea of slavery Douglass continued to speak and refine his argument.  It was in this refining period that some of his ideas matured and changed; as a result, he and Garrison eventually came to a point where they no longer shared any common ground on which to voice their arguments.  Douglass began to regularly voice his opinions in his own paper, The North Star, rather than in Garrison's Liberator.  Douglass also began avidly supporting women's rights, speaking at the First National Women's Rights Convention in 1850. 

With the passing of the Fugitive Slave Law, Douglass began his involvement with the Underground Railroad.  While in Rochester, New York, Douglass witnessed escaped slaves at the last stop before freedom in Canada.  According to the Dictionary of Literary Biography, Douglass may have helped as many as 400 slaves escape.  He also began studying those with ideas of a political party to abolish slavery.  During this time, Douglass met a friend Gerrit Smith who had a struggling paper, The Liberty Party.  Their relationship would help seal the split with William Garrison.  Smith urged Douglass to merge their papers and rename them to help promote subscription while Smith contributed finances for the next two years.  The papers merged in 1851 and became known as the Frederick Douglass Papers.  By 1852, Smith was elected to Congress on the Liberty Party ticket.  This was the beginning of Douglass' support of politics to end slavery. 

In 1856, a new party was forming in America.  Douglass was invited to address one of the first meetings of the newly formed political group, the Republicans.  Douglass also lent support to the Radical Abolitionist Party who nominated Gerrit Smith for the Presidential ticket in 1856.  Douglass pondered these two groups thoughtfully before deciding to shift support from his friend Smith to the Republicans because the Republicans were more likely to win and prevent Democrat James Buchanan from becoming president.  This move cost Douglass some following from long-time supporters, caused a permanent split between Douglas and Garrison and was the starting point for Douglass' most influential work. 

In the process of Douglass' reevaluation of politics, he published My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855.  The book sold 5,000 copies in 2 days and thousands more in the days and months following. However,  in 1859, the famous John Brown Raid of the US Armory at Harper's Ferry ended Douglass' short-lived fame once again.  Because  Brown and Douglass were friends and Douglass had been informed of the plot (though he gave his disapproval), he was forced to flee to Canada for 6 months. 

By 1860, Douglass' Papers became the Douglass Monthly because finances were short due to his hiatus in Canada.  1860 also brought another election year that saw Gerrit Smith once again nominated on the Radical Abolitionist ticket despite the weak 5 percent vote his ticket received in 1854.  This time, however, Douglass was nominated for Presidential Elector-at-Large; this was a first for an African American.  Douglass maintained his connection to the Radical party because Republicans stated they would attempt only to prevent slavery from spreading beyond where it was already.  This was not enough for Douglass who had once lived where it was allowed and was not permitted to leave on his own accord. 

1860, however, would see the election of one of the most famous names associated with the abolitionist movement - Abraham Lincoln.  A new relationship would form in the life of Frederick Douglass.  After Lincoln's election, Douglass requested to meet with Lincoln about black   recruits for what appeared to be an upcoming war.  Lincoln would later request to meet with Douglass to discuss others issues of the war. 
 

The year 1861 saw the beginning of the Civil War.  Douglass spoke diligently throughout the war and didn't give up with the end of the war or slavery.    He was only 47 years old when the war ended but he worked 30 more years to further his cause of freedom for all. His later life was as full as his early days. In 1870, he published the New Era and after financial trouble reorganized it as the New National Era. 

The year 1874 was full of events for Douglass.  He was appointed President of Freedman's Saving and Trust Company in DC but both the bank and his paper closed in the same year due to national economic trouble.  In 1877, Rutherford B. Hayes appointed him Marshall of DC, the first Senate confirmed position for a Black in America.  His wife died in 1882 and in 1884 he married a white woman by the name of Helen Pitts.  In 1889, Benjamin Harrison appointed Douglass minister to Haiti. 

Frederick Douglass - slave, freeman, writer, speaker, publisher, editor, appointed official and national reformer - was 77 years old when he made his final speech.  In 1894, he made a speech at a women's rights rally, continuing to speak for equal rights for all.  Just after the speech and before returning to make another appearance, he died.  The man who had come into the world a slave died after speaking up for those whose rights had been denied just as his had been. 
 

Journalism and Literature

Just 7 years after his escape from slavery and at the young age of 27, Douglass published his first autobiography.  The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass:  An American Slave  was published in 1845.  The book recounts Douglass' life as a slave. 

Houston A. Baker, Jr. in his introduction to the autobiography, tells some history of the slave narratives' rise in the years before the Civil War.  Baker also states how slave narratives were often extensions of a slaves' speeches or demonstrations at rallys or public gatherings.  Most who wrote successful narratives had mastered the art of storytelling during these demonstrations where they used their flare for language to tell the audience a gripping tale.  This carried over into their writing, making it successful as well.  Baker says, "The shift from an oral to a written mode of presentation for their stories was prompted by various motives.  The most important spur to this transformation was the white abolitionists' desire to disseminate the fugitive's story to the largest and most diverse audience possible." (11).  Douglass could surely fall into this category.  He had been making speeches since 1839, just one year after his escape.  By 1841, he was invited to speak at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.  White abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison were there to hear.  Their relationship began and as a leading white abolitionist, Garrison did want the information out there.  Garrison, on many accounts, praised the Douglas' narrative and printed the praises of others in his Liberator. 

Douglass' first work met with much success but also with some harsh criticism.  A.C.C. Thompson claimed that the work was a fraud.  His accusations and Douglass' rebuttals were printed in the Liberator. Thompson felt no slave could be educated enough to write such an elegant piece of work.  Douglass' rebuttals alone proved he was worthy as did the literature and journalistic work that would follow. 

Just two years later, in 1847, Douglass' journalistic career began.  In this prominent career, Douglass assumed the role of editor, publisher, writer and reformer.  The North Star was much like that of any other paper of its day.  The papers averaged four pages of seven columns each.  Douglass devoted the first page of his paper to the publication of the full text of speeches given for the cause of abolition, says Philip S. Foner in his biography of Douglass (92).  Any news of anti-slavery meetings helped fill any extra space on the front page.  Editorial information made the second page and poetry, novel installments and  book reviews filled the other pages.  Advertisements were throughout the inner pages of the paper and were mostly for medicines and remedies. Douglass' publications were always carefully edited.  The former slave took  pride in his educational achievement  and wanted grammatically and typographically correct papers.  Anything less would be seen as inferior and not help promote the cause of the black man's equality; Douglass wanted Negroes to take pride in such detailed work. 

Douglass, of course, included much of his own work throughout the paper and for many it was the force behind the paper.  Foner states that Douglass gave to the paper his "remarkable feeling for words, a gift for vivid phrases, a sensitiveness to language forms and a wonderful sense of humor" (93). In this description, Douglass' journalism style parallels that of his literature.   Both forms of Douglass' writing, be it his autobiographies or his work in his papers, Douglass hoped to effect a change.  Foner quotes Dr. James McCune Smith as saying that Douglass' journalistic work was "the organ of the enslaved and down-trodden throughout the land- an instrument, which proves beyond gainsaying, the practicability, the safety, and the glory of Emancipation and of Self Emancipation." (100) 

The change Douglass longed for was freedom and equality for all.  Although his methods to bring about change varied throughout his career, Douglass' papers chronicled publicly the changes he went through in his own search for the best way to abolish slavery.  The North Star was full of peaceful commentary on ways to change the morals of the people of America.  Douglass, at that point, was very Garrisonian and felt politics would not change the people as politics had created the system that oppressed people.  The ideas began to change as the paper merged with Gerrit Smith's paper to become the Frederick Douglass Paper  in 1851.  This association with Smith was the beginning of Douglass' association with the Radical Abolitionist political party.  Over the next ten years, Douglass explored the Radical Abolitionist Party and the Republican party.  His support of Presidential candidates Lincoln and Grant were chronicled in his paper.  He was now an avid political supporter.  The paper had become a vehicle with which to deliver political views. 

Douglass contributed to other papers as well.  His article "An Appeal to Congress for Impartial Suffrage"  appeared in the Atlantic Monthly in 1867.  Douglass hoped with this piece to make Congress see the inhumanity of slavery.  It attacked the politics that had allowed for slavery.  This article came during the part of Douglass' life when he advocated political action to end slavery.  Douglass hoped this would create social change with some kind political action being taken by Congress. 

Douglass' autobiographies cannot be read without a twinge of remorse, a shutter for his torture or a tear for his lost childhood.  The first person accounts are personal.  Douglass tells us his story and adds the comments of a well-educated man who understands with his mind what he knew in his heart was wrong when he was growing up.  His accounts are vivid and unforgettable.  The language and rhetoric are that of an educated man.  You cannot help but know that Douglass despised this life and wanted no one else to live it.  He did not however, rally for change in his autobiographies. 

Douglass' papers and speeches, on the other hand, did rally strongly behind the cause of abolitionists.  Douglass spoke of the injustices done to slaves.  He used moral reasoning and in his later papers, political tactics to try and convince America of the danger and harm of this dark spot on human history.  The autobiographies had given the public the confidence that Douglass knew the subject about which he spoke.  His papers and speeches, therefore, did not need first person accounts of this lifestyle.  His autobiographies were spaced throughout his editorial career, giving his audiences constant reminders of where Douglass was coming from and where the passion for his cause lay. 

Douglass was a master storyteller because his stories were real.  Douglass was a master orator because he spoke with a true passion.  Douglass was a master editor because he truly desired to give the public information which would convince them that slavery and inequality for any person was wrong.  Douglass made a lasting impression on the literary and journalistic world.  It must also be said that Douglass made his mark on history as well. 
 
 

Study Questions

Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick.  The Narrative of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave.   New York: Penguin Books, 1982. 

Foner, Philip S.  Frederick Douglass.  New York:  The Citadel Press, 1964.

Huggins, NAthan Irwin. Slave and Citizen:  The Life of Frederick Douglass.  Boston:  Little, Brown and Company:  1980.

Ritchie, Donald A. American Journalists:  Getting the Story.  New York:  Oxford University Press, 1997.