Frederick douglass biography summary forms

While overseas, he was impressed by the relative freedom he had as a man of color, compared to what he had experienced in the United States. When he returned to the United States inDouglass began publishing his own abolitionist newsletter, the North Star. I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy—a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.

For the 24th anniversary of the Emancipation ProclamationinDouglass delivered a rousing address in Washington, D. During the brutal conflict that divided the still-young United States, Douglass continued to speak and worked tirelessly for the end of slavery and the right of newly freed Black Americans to vote. Although he supported President Abraham Lincoln in the early years of the Civil War, Douglass fell into disagreement with the politician after the Emancipation Proclamation ofwhich effectively ended the practice of slavery.

Constitution which, respectively, outlawed slavery, granted formerly enslaved people citizenship and equal protection under the law, and protected all citizens from racial discrimination in votingDouglass was asked to speak at the dedication of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington, D. In the post-war Reconstruction era, Douglass served in many official positions in government, including as an ambassador to the Dominican Republic, thereby becoming the first Black man to hold high office.

In the presidential election, he supported the candidacy of former Union general Ulysses S. Grantwho promised to take a hard line against white supremacist-led insurgencies in the post-war South. Grant notably also oversaw passage of the Civil Rights Act ofwhich was designed to suppress the growing Ku Klux Klan movement. Ultimately, though, Benjamin Harrison received the party nomination.

She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. After separation from his mother during infancy, young Frederick lived with his maternal grandmother Betsy Bailey, who was also enslaved, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who was free. Returning much later, aboutto purchase land in Talbot County that was meaningful to him, he was invited to address "a colored school":.

I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.

That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table.

That boy was Frederick Douglass. At the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the Wye House plantationwhere Aaron Anthony worked as overseer [ 13 ] and Edward Lloyd was his unofficial frederick douglass biography summary forms. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket.

When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the alphabet. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage enslaved people to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly antislavery lecture" he had ever heard. Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass.

Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom.

Frederick douglass biography summary forms

In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Oratoran anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. First published inthe book is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches, and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar. He later learned that his mother had also been literate, about which he would later declare:.

I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, not to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated mother —a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.

When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he "gathered eventually more than thirty male slaves on Sundays, and sometimes even on weeknights, in a Sabbath literacy school. Thomas sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". He whipped Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal.

Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit. After Douglass won a physical confrontation, Covey never tried to beat him again. Recounting his beatings at Covey's farm in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveDouglass described himself as "a man transformed into a brute! Douglass first tried to escape from Freeland, who had hired him from his owner, but was unsuccessful.

InDouglass met and fell in love with Anna Murraya free black woman in Baltimore about five years his senior. Her free status strengthened his belief in the possibility of gaining his own freedom. Murray encouraged him and supported his efforts by aid and money. On September 3,Douglass successfully escaped by boarding a northbound train of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad in Baltimore.

Research cited inhowever, suggests that Douglass in fact boarded the train at the Canton Depot of the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore Railroad on Boston Street, in the Canton neighborhood of Baltimore, further east. Douglass reached Havre de Grace, Marylandin Harford Countyin the northeast corner of the state, along the southwest shore of the Susquehanna Riverwhich flowed into the Chesapeake Bay.

Although this placed him only some 20 frederick douglass biography summary forms 32 km from the Maryland—Pennsylvania state line, it was easier to continue by rail through Delaware, another slave state. Dressed in a sailor's uniform provided to him by Murray, who also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, he carried identification papers and protection papers that he had obtained from a free black seaman.

Douglass crossed the wide Susquehanna River by the railroad's steam-ferry at Havre de Grace to Perryville on the opposite shore, in Cecil Countythen continued by train across the state line to Wilmington, Delawarea large port at the head of the Delaware Bay. From there, because the rail line was not yet completed, he went by steamboat along the Delaware River farther northeast to the "Quaker City" of PhiladelphiaPennsylvania, an anti-slavery stronghold.

His entire journey to freedom took less than 24 hours. I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil. And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the 'quick round of blood,' I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life.

It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe. In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: 'I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions. Once Douglass had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him north to New York. She brought the basic supplies for them to set up a home. They were married on September 15,by a black Presbyterian minister, just eleven days after Douglass had reached New York.

As a child, Douglass was exposed to a number of religious sermons, and in his youth, he sometimes heard Sophia Auld reading the Bible. In time, he became interested in literacy; he began reading and copying bible verses, and he eventually converted to Christianity. I was not more than thirteen years old when, in my loneliness and destitution, I longed for some one to whom I could go, as to a father and protector.

The preaching of a white Methodist minister, named Hanson, was the means of causing me to feel that in God I had such a friend. He thought that all men, great and small, bond and free, were sinners in the sight of God: that they were but natural rebels against his government; and that they must repent of their sins, and be reconciled to God through Christ.

I cannot say that I had a very distinct notion of what was required of me, but one thing I did know well: I was wretched and had no means of making myself otherwise. I consulted a good coloured man named Charles Lawson, and in tones of holy affection he told me to pray, and to "cast all my care upon God. I loved all mankind, slaveholders not excepted, though I abhorred slavery more than ever.

I saw the world in a new light, and my great concern was to have everybody converted. My desire to learn increased, and especially did I want a thorough acquaintance with the contents of the Bible. Douglass was mentored by Rev. Charles Lawson, and, early in his activism, he often included biblical allusions and religious metaphors in his speeches.

Although a believer, he strongly criticized religious hypocrisy [ 51 ] and accused slaveholders of " wickedness ", lack of morality, and failure to follow the Golden Rule. In this sense, Douglass distinguished between the "Christianity of Christ" and the "Christianity of America" and considered religious slaveholders and clergymen who defended slavery as the most brutal, sinful, and cynical of all who represented "wolves in sheep's clothing".

He considered that a law passed to support slavery was "one of the grossest infringements of Christian Liberty" and said that pro-slavery clergymen within the American Church "stripped the love of God of its beauty, and leave the throne of religion a huge, horrible, repulsive form", and "an abomination in the sight of God". He further asserted, "in speaking of the American church, however, let it be distinctly understood that I frederick douglass biography summary forms the great mass of the religious organizations of our land.

There are exceptions, and I thank God that there are. Noble men may be found, scattered all over these Northern States May of Syracuse, and my esteemed friend [Robert R. He maintained that "upon these men lies the duty to inspire our ranks with high religious faith and zeal, and to cheer us on in the great mission of the slave's redemption from his chains".

In addition, he called religious people to embrace abolitionism, stating, "let the religious press, the pulpit, the Sunday school, the conference meeting, the great ecclesiastical, missionary, Bible and tract associations of the land array their immense powers against slavery and slave-holding; and the whole system of crime and blood would be scattered to the winds.

During his visits to the United Kingdom frederick douglass biography summary forms andDouglass asked British Christians never to support American churches that permitted slavery, [ 54 ] and he expressed his happiness to know that a group of ministers in Belfast had refused to admit slaveholders as members of the Church. On his return to the United States, Douglass founded the North Stara weekly publication with the motto "Right is of no sex, Truth is of no color, God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren.

Your wickedness and cruelty committed in this respect on your fellow-creatures, are greater than all the stripes you have laid upon my back, or theirs. It is an outrage upon the soul—a war upon the immortal spirit, and one for which you must give account at the bar of our common Father and Creator. Sometimes considered a precursor of a non-denominational liberation theology[ 56 ] [ 57 ] Douglass was a deeply spiritual man, as his home continues to show.

In addition to several Bibles and books about various religions in the library, images of angels and Jesus are displayed, as well as interior and exterior photographs of Washington's Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Blighthowever, "Douglass loved cigars" and received them as gifts from Ottilie Assing. Douglass praised the agnostic orator Robert G.

Ingersollwhom Douglass met in Peoria, Illinoisstating, "Genuine goodness is the same, whether found inside or outside the church, and that to be an 'infidel' no more proves a man to be selfish, mean and wicked than to be evangelical proves him to be honest, just and human. Perhaps there were Christian ministers and Christian families in Peoria at that time by whom I might have been received in the same gracious manner Charles and Rosetta helped produce his newspapers.

Anna Douglass remained a loyal supporter of her husband's public work. His relationships with Julia Griffiths and Ottilie Assingtwo women with whom he was professionally involved, caused recurring speculation and scandals. Untilshe often stayed at his house "for several months at a time" as his "intellectual and emotional companion".

Assing held Anna Douglass "in utter contempt" and was vainly hoping that Douglass would separate from his wife. Douglass biographer David W. Blight concludes that Assing and Douglass "were probably lovers". Anna died in Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr. She later worked as Douglass's secretary. Assing, who had depression and was diagnosed with incurable breast cancer, committed suicide in France in after hearing of the marriage.

The marriage of Douglass and Pitts provoked a storm of controversy, since Pitts was both white and nearly 20 years younger. Many in her family stopped speaking to her; his children considered the marriage a repudiation of their mother. But feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts an abolitionist center, full of former enslaved peopleinmoving to Lynn, Massachusettsin In New Bedford, the latter was such a common name that he wanted one that was more distinctive, and asked Nathan Johnson to choose a suitable surname.

Nathan suggested " Douglass ", after having read the poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scottin which two of the principal characters have the surname " Douglas ". Douglass thought of joining a white Methodist Churchbut was disappointed, from the beginning, upon finding that it was segregated. He held various positions, including stewardSunday-school superintendentand sexton.

InDouglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New Yorkthen a station on the Underground Railroadin which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by Douglass also joined several organizations in New Bedford and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He later said that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison.

Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and had written about his anti- colonization stance in The Liberator as early as At another meeting, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak. After telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his life as a slave.

While living in Lynn, Douglass engaged in an early protest against segregated transportation. Buffum were thrown off an Eastern Railroad train because Douglass refused to sit in the segregated railroad coach. InDouglass joined other speakers in the American Anti-Slavery Society 's "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour at meeting halls throughout the eastern and midwestern United States.

During this tour, slavery supporters frequently accosted Douglass. At a lecture in Pendleton, Indianaan angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family, the Hardys, rescued him. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life. I have no country. What country have I? The Institutions of this Country do not know me — do not recognize me as a man.

Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slavewritten during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts [ 82 ] and published in At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature. The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller.

Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11, copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe. Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime and revised the third of theseeach time expanding on the previous one. The Narrative was his biggest seller and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below.

Inin his sixties, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglasswhich he revised in Douglass's friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for LiverpoolEngland, on August 16, He traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning.

The feeling of freedom from American racial discrimination amazed Douglass: [ 83 ]. Eleven days and a half gone, and I have crossed three thousand miles of the perilous deep. Instead of a democratic government, I am under a monarchical government. Instead of the bright, blue sky of America, I am covered with the soft, grey fog of the Emerald Isle [Ireland].

I breathe, and lo! I gaze around in vain for one who will question my equal humanity, claim me as his slave, or offer me an insult. I employ a cab—I am seated beside white people—I reach the hotel—I enter the same door—I am shown into the same parlor—I dine at the same table—and no one is offended I find myself regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people.

When I go to church, I am met by no upturned nose and scornful lip to tell me, ' We don't allow niggers in here! Still, Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered in Dublin, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery. In a letter to William Lloyd GarrisonDouglass wrote "I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over.

He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith. He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist and strident abolitionist Daniel O'Connell[ 85 ] [ 86 ] who was to be a great inspiration.

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation". Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man". InDouglass met with Thomas Clarksonone of the last living British abolitionistswho had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies.

It commemorates his speech there on October 9, Douglass spent time in Scotland and was appointed "Scotland's Antislavery agent". He considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming. Maps of the places in the city that were important to his stay are held by the National Library of Scotland. After returning to the U.

Douglass also participated in the Underground Railroad. He and his wife provided lodging and resources in their home to more than four hundred fugitive slaves. Douglass also soon split with Garrison, whom he found unwilling to support actions against American slavery. Garrison had burned copies of the Constitution to express his opinion.

However, Lysander Spooner published The Unconstitutionality of Slaverywhich examined the United States Constitution as an antislavery document. Douglass's change of opinion about the Constitution and his splitting from Garrison around became one of the abolitionist movement's most notable divisions. Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.

In that speech, he said, "When I escaped from slavery, and was introduced to the Garrisonians, I adopted very many of their opinions I was young, had read but little, and naturally took some things on trust. Subsequent reading and experience", however, "brought me to other conclusions". He now believed that "dissolution of the American Union", which Garrison advocated, "would place the slave system more exclusively under the control of the slaveholding States Garrison and his friends tell us that frederick douglass biography summary forms in the Union we are responsible for slavery I deny that going out of the Union would free us from that responsibility The American people in the Northern States have helped to enslave the black people.

Their duty will not be done till they give them back their plundered rights. In Septemberon the tenth anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and inquiring after members of his family still held by Auld. At one point he is the proud parent, describing his improved circumstances and the progress of his own four young children.

But then he dramatically shifts tone:. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood. I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market.

In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda into slavery, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other. InDouglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Conventionthe first women's rights convention, in upstate New York.

He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere :. In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.

After Douglass's powerful words, the attendees passed the resolution. He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time. On the first count, Douglass acknowledged the "decorum" of the participants in the face of disagreement. In the remainder, he discussed the primary document that emerged from the conference, a Declaration of Sentiments, and the "infant" feminist cause.

He criticized opponents of women's rights: "A discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency by many of what are called the wise and the good of our land, than would be a discussion of the rights of woman. His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the North Star explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man.

After the Civil Warwhen the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement. Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote.

Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for universal suffrageand opposed any bill that split the issues. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success. Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage.

He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote.

InDouglass was elected the vice president of the American League of Colored Laborersthe first black labor union in the United States, which he had also helped found. Douglass was one of five people whose names were attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, The Claims of Our Common Cause.

Wagonerand George Boyer Vashon. Like many abolitionists, Douglass believed that education would be crucial for African Americans to improve their lives; he was an early advocate for school desegregation. In the s, Douglass observed that New York's facilities and instruction for African American children were vastly inferior to those for European Americans.

Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children. He said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage. Brown penned his Provisional Constitution during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was Shields Greena fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did.

Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to Chambersburg, PennsylvaniaBrown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, incognitosat in the audience.

A white reporter, referring to "Nigger Democracy", called it a "flaming address" by "the notorious Negro Orator". There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and John Henri Kagito discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him, considering the mission suicidal.

Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but David Blight called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality". Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. He read newspapers avidly and sought out political writing and literature as much as possible. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator with clarifying 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 read 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 the lessons, other local slave owners were less understanding.

Armed with clubs and stones, they dispersed the congregation permanently. With Douglass moving between the Aulds, he was later made to work for Edward Covey, who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker. Eventually, however, 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 slavery twice before he finally succeeded. Douglass married Anna Murray, a free Black woman, on September 15, Douglass had fallen in love with Murray, who assisted him in his final attempt to escape slavery in Baltimore. Murray had provided him with some of her savings and a sailor's uniform. He carried identification papers obtained from a free Black seaman.

Douglass made his way to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours. Anna and Frederick then settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which had a thriving free Black community. There they adopted Douglass as their married name. Charles and Rosetta assisted their father in the production of his newspaper The North Star.

Anna remained a loyal supporter of Douglass' public work, despite marital strife caused by his relationships with several other women. The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass was first published in and revised inthree years before his death. It covered events during and after the Civil War. Douglass was a firm believer in the equality of all peoples, whether black, female, Native American or recent immigrant.

He was a believer in dialogue and in making alliances across racial and ideological divides, and in the liberal values of the U. Douglass was born to a slave woman, Harriet Bailey. The exact identity of his father or date of his birth is not known. He was separated from his mother at an early age and was brought up by his maternal grandmother.

His mother died when he was ten. He became the property of Aaron Anthony, the overseer at the Wye House plantation.