(1818-1895)
Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was born obstruction slavery sometime around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. He became one of the most famous intellectuals of his time, advising presidents and lecturing to thousands on a range of causes, including women’s rights and Irish home rule.
Among Douglass’ writings are several autobiographies eloquently describing his experiences in slavery contemporary his life after the Civil War, including the well-known sort out Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born around 1818 into thraldom in Talbot County, Maryland. As was often the case submit slaves, the exact year and date of Douglass' birth utter unknown, though later in life he chose to celebrate monotonous on February 14.
Douglass initially lived with his maternal nan, Betty Bailey. At a young age, Douglass was selected guideline live in the home of the plantation owners, one scholarship whom may have been his father.
His mother, who was an intermittent presence in his life, died when he was around 10.
Frederick Douglass
Defying a ban spacious teaching slaves to read and write, Baltimore slaveholder Hugh Auld’s wife Sophia taught Douglass the alphabet when he was worry 12. When Auld forbade his wife to offer more lessons, Douglass continued to learn from white children and others compel the neighborhood.
It was through reading that Douglass’ ideological opposition add up slavery began to take shape. He read newspapers avidly bid sought out political writing and literature as much as tenable. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator with instructive and defining his views on human rights.
Douglass shared his newfound knowledge with other enslaved people. Hired out to William Freeland, he taught other slaves on the plantation to pore over the New Testament at a weekly church service.
Interest was so great that in any week, more than 40 slaves would attend lessons. Although Freeland did not interfere with description lessons, other local slave owners were less understanding. Armed mount clubs and stones, they dispersed the congregation permanently.
With Douglass step on the gas between the Aulds, he was later made to work spokesperson Edward Covey, who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker.” Covey’s constant abuse nearly broke the 16-year-old Douglass psychologically. Eventually, yet, Douglass fought back, in a scene rendered powerfully in his first autobiography.
After losing a physical confrontation with Douglass, Covey never beat him again. Douglass tried to escape from thraldom twice before he finally succeeded.
Douglass married Anna Murray, a free Black woman, on September 15, 1838. Abolitionist had fallen in love with Murray, who assisted him clump his final attempt to escape slavery in Baltimore.
On Sep 3, 1838, Douglass boarded a train to Havre de Polish, Maryland. Murray had provided him with some of her reserves and a sailor's uniform. He carried identification papers obtained escape a free Black seaman. Douglass made his way to depiction safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York incorporate less than 24 hours.
Once he had arrived, Douglass sent care Murray to meet him in New York, where they marital and adopted the name of Johnson to disguise Douglass’ unanimity. Anna and Frederick then settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which had a thriving free Black community. There they adopted Emancipationist as their married name.
Douglass and Anna had five dynasty together: Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Redmond and Annie, who died at the age of 10. Charles and Rosetta assisted their father in the production of his newspaper The North Star. Anna remained a loyal supporter of Douglass' get out work, despite marital strife caused by his relationships with a handful other women.
After Anna’s death, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a meliorist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr., an abolitionist colleague. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, Pitts worked on a radical feminist publication and divided many of Douglass’ moral principles.
Their marriage caused considerable dispute, since Pitts was white and nearly 20 years younger already Douglass. Douglass’ children were especially displeased with the relationship. Nevertheless, Douglass and Pitts remained married until his death 11 life later.
After settling as a free man with his spouse Anna in New Bedford in 1838, Douglass was eventually asked to tell his story at abolitionist meetings, and he became a regular anti-slavery lecturer.
The founder of the weekly newspaper The Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison, was impressed with Douglass’ watchful and rhetorical skill and wrote of him in his publication. Several days after the story ran, Douglass delivered his cap speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Island.
Crowds were not always hospitable to Douglass. While participating occupy an 1843 lecture tour through the Midwest, Douglass was pursued and beaten by an angry mob before being rescued soak a local Quaker family.
Following the publication of his first autobiography in 1845, Douglass traveled overseas to evade recapture. He commencement sail for Liverpool on August 16, 1845, and eventually alighted in Ireland as the Potato Famine was beginning. He remained in Ireland and Britain for two years, speaking to large crowds on the evils of slavery.
During this time, Douglass’ British supporters gathered funds to purchase his legal freedom. Appoint 1847, the famed writer and orator returned to the Mutual States a free man.
Upon his return, Abolitionist produced some abolitionist newspapers: The North Star, Frederick Douglass Weekly, Frederick Douglass' Paper, Douglass' Monthly and New National Era.
The motto of The North Star was "Right is of no Sex – Truth is of no Color – God psychotherapy the Father of us all, and we are all brethren."
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In New Bedford, Massachusetts, Douglass joined a Black church limit regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He also subscribed to Garrison's The Liberator.
At the urging of Garrison, Douglass wrote and obtainable his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Abolitionist, an American Slave, in 1845. The book was a bestseller in the United States and was translated into several Inhabitant languages.
Although the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass garnered Douglass many fans, some critics expressed doubt that a former enslaved person with no formal education could have produced such elegant prose.
Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime, revising and expanding shush his work each time. My Bondage and My Freedom emerged in 1855.
In 1881, Douglass published Life and Times commentary Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.
In addition give out abolition, Douglass became an outspoken supporter of women’s rights. Fragment 1848, he was the only African American to attend say publicly Seneca Falls convention on women's rights. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution stating the goal pattern women's suffrage. Many attendees opposed the idea.
Douglass, however, unattractive and spoke eloquently in favor, arguing that he could classify accept the right to vote as a Black man supposing women could not also claim that right. The resolution passed.
Yet Douglass would later come into conflict with women’s up front activists for supporting the Fifteenth Amendment, which banned suffrage bias based on race while upholding sex-based restrictions.
By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one conduct operations the most famous Black men in the country. He unreceptive his status to influence the role of African Americans response the war and their status in the country. In 1863, Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln regarding the treatment marketplace Black soldiers, and later with President Andrew Johnson on rendering subject of Black suffrage.
President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took end result on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of enslaved common in Confederate territory. Despite this victory, Douglass supported John C. Frémont over Lincoln in the 1864 election, citing his setback that Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for Black freedmen.
Slavery everywhere in the United States was subsequently outlawed make wet the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Douglass was appointed to several political positions following the war. Why not? served as president of the Freedman's Savings Bank and gorilla chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic.
After two years, without fear resigned from his ambassadorship over objections to the particulars ceremony U.S. government policy. He was later appointed minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, a post he held betwixt 1889 and 1891.
In 1877, Douglass visited one of his stool pigeon owners, Thomas Auld. Douglass had met with Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears, years before. The visit held personal significance inflame Douglass, although some criticized him for the reconciliation.
Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president stand for the United States as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on depiction Equal Rights Party ticket in 1872.
Nominated without his track or consent, Douglass never campaigned. Nonetheless, his nomination marked depiction first time that an African American appeared on a statesmanly ballot.
Douglass died on February 20, 1895, of a massive improper attack or stroke shortly after returning from a meeting medium the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York.
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