Black History Month: Frederick Douglass
The great African-American social reformer Frederick Douglass was born with the name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey sometime in February 1818. (He was unsure of the exact date, and decided that he would celebrate his birthday on St. Valentine's Day). He died on February 20, 1895 (127 years ago today) and in the 77 years that he lived, he was one of the most influential men of his time. His resume includes the jobs of reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, preacher and statesman, but it began as a slave. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York. Douglass was a man far ahead of his time. He firmly believed in the equality of all peoples, whether black, white, male, female, Native American, or recent immigrant.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. His birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin. In his first autobiography, Douglass wrote "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it." After escaping to the North years later, he took the surname Douglass, having already dropped his two middle names. When Douglass was about twelve he was taught the alphabet by Sophia Auld, wife of Hugh Auld, the slave-owner Douglass was working for. Douglass wrote that Sophia was a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another". Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage slaves to desire freedom. Douglass secretly taught himself how to read and write. He later taught other slaves to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school until this was discovered and ended. As punishment, Douglass was sent to work for Edward Covey, a farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". There Douglass was whipped regularly.
On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped Covey's farm by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland, in Harford County, in the northeast corner of the state. Dressed in a sailor's uniform, he carried identification papers and protection papers that he had obtained from a free black seaman. Douglass traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, and went by steamboat to Philadelphia, an anti-slavery stronghold. From there he traveled to the safe house of noted abolitionist David Ruggles in New York City. His entire journey took less than 24 hours.
Douglas had met Anna Murray, a free African American woman from Baltimore who had helped him in his escape. After Douglass arrived in new York, he sent for Murray and the couple were married on September 15, 1838. The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination first established in New York City. Other church members were Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Douglas became a licensed preacher in 1839.
In 1840, Douglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New York, then a station on the Underground Railroad. He regularly attended abolitionist meetings and subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal The Liberator. Douglass wrote of Garrison, "his paper took a place in my heart second only to The Bible." In 1841, Douglass heard Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society. At another meeting, Douglass was invited to speak and after telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Soon after, Douglass spoke at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket at the age of 23.
In 1843, Douglass 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. At a lecture in Pendleton, Indiana, an angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family came to his rescue. His hand was broken in the attack. It never healed properly and bothered him for the rest of his life.
In 1845 Douglas published his first autobiography entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The book received positive reviews and became a bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe. Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime, each time expanding on the previous one. In 1855, Douglass published My Bondage and My Freedom. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.
Douglass embarked on a tour of Ireland in the summer of 1845. He spent two years in Ireland and Britain, where he gave many lectures in churches and chapels, speaking to large crowds. Douglass wrote that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man." In 1846 Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies. During this trip British supporters led by Anna Richardson raised funds to buy his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld. Douglass returned home in the spring of 1847.
After returning to the U.S. in 1847, Douglass started publishing his first abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, from the basement of the Memorial Zion Church in Rochester, New York. Douglass's abolitionist newspapers were mainly funded by English supporters. It was at this time that Douglass split with Garrison, considering Garrison to be too radical. In September 1848, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, criticizing Auld for his conduct, and asking Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda as a slave, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.
In 1848, Douglass was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, held in upstate New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor, telling the crowd that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He made the case that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere. After Douglass spoke, the attendees passed the resolution. Douglass wrote editorials in his paper, the North Star, to support women's rights.
In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. He continued to make abolitionist speeches. On March 12, 1859, Douglass met with radical abolitionists John Brown, George DeBaptiste, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation. He met Brown again, when Brown visited his home two months before leading the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. Douglass disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South and he told Brown that attacking federal property would enrage the American public. After the raid, Douglass fled to Canada, fearing that he would be arrested as a co-conspirator. In March 1860, he traveled to England, but soon returned home after the death of his youngest daughter Annie.
By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was nationally well known for his advocacy about the conditions of slaves and on other issues such as women's rights. Douglass and the abolitionists argued that African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom on the side of the Union in the war. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. In 1863 Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln on the treatment of black soldiers, and later with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.
President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. Enslaved persons in Union-held areas and Northern states were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865. Despite Lincoln's progressive views, during the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864, Douglass supported John C. Frémont, who was the candidate of the abolitionist Radical Democracy Party. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African-American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote. However during the war, Douglass worked with Lincoln to move liberated slaves out of the South. During the war, Douglass also helped the Union cause by serving as a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. His eldest son, Charles Douglass, joined the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. His son Lewis Douglass fought at the Battle of Fort Wagner. Another son, Frederick Douglass Jr., also served as a recruiter.
When Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Douglass mourned the loss of the slain president. Speaking on April 14, 1876, Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park. In that speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President. Douglass criticized Lincoln for not joining the cause of emancipation sooner, but Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?" Lincoln's widow Mary Lincoln gave Lincoln's favorite walking-stick to Douglass in appreciation.
After the Civil War, Douglass continued to work for equality for African-Americans and women. Due to his prominence and activism during the war, Douglass received several political appointments. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank. He also became chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic, but resigned that position after two years because of disagreements with U.S. government policy.
After the end of the war, many white insurgents had banded together in the South, organizing first as secret vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Powerful paramilitary groups included the White League and the Red Shirts, both became active during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections. They called for white supremacy, enforced by a combination of violence, Jim Crow laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. In an effort to combat these efforts, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. Grant sent a Congressionally sponsored commission, accompanied by Douglass, on a mission to the West Indies to investigate if the annexation of Santo Domingo would be good for the United States. Grant believed annexation would help relieve the violent situation in the South allowing African Americans their own state. Douglass and the commission favored annexation, but Congress was opposed to annexation. Douglass criticized Senator Charles Sumner, who opposed annexation, stating if Sumner continued to oppose annexation he would "regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent."
After the midterm elections, Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Klan Act), and the second and third Enforcement Acts. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states. Under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made. Grant's diligence in fighting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but earned Douglass's praise.
In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States. He was chosen as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge and did not campaign for the ticket or even acknowledged that he had been nominated. That same year his home on South Avenue in Rochester, New York, burned down and arson was suspected. Following this, Douglass moved to Washington, D.C.
When Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President, Douglass accepted an appointment as United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, which helped assure his family's financial security. In 1877, Douglass visited Thomas Auld, who was on his deathbed. The two men reconciled. Douglass had met Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears a few years earlier and she had requested the meeting. She had also attended and cheered one of Douglass' speeches. Her father was said to be grateful to her for reaching out to Douglass. Some abolitionists criticized Douglass for doing so.
In 1881, Douglass both published the final edition of his autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. He received another political appointment, as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. His wife Anna died in 1882. He remarried in 1884 to Helen Pitts, a white suffragist and abolitionist from Honeoye, New York. The marriage was controversial at the time because Pitts was white and was almost 20 years younger than Douglass. Her family stopped speaking to her and his children also disapproved, but feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.
Douglass also continued his speaking engagements and travel, both in the United States and abroad. He and his wife Helen traveled to England, Ireland, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887. Douglass also spoke on behalf of Irish Home Rule. In 1888, at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote. President Benjamin Harrison appointed Douglass to be the United States's minister resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti and Chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo in 1889, but Douglass resigned the commission in July 1891. He served as Haiti's co-commissioner of its pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. But he was not feeling well. Later that day, after he returned home from the meeting, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack. He was 77 years of age. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Thousands of people passed by his coffin to show their respect. Douglass' coffin was transported back to Rochester, New York, where he had lived for 25 years. He was buried next to his first wife Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery. Helen joined them in 1903.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. His birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin. In his first autobiography, Douglass wrote "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it." After escaping to the North years later, he took the surname Douglass, having already dropped his two middle names. When Douglass was about twelve he was taught the alphabet by Sophia Auld, wife of Hugh Auld, the slave-owner Douglass was working for. Douglass wrote that Sophia was a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another". Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that literacy would encourage slaves to desire freedom. Douglass secretly taught himself how to read and write. He later taught other slaves to read the New Testament at a weekly Sunday school until this was discovered and ended. As punishment, Douglass was sent to work for Edward Covey, a farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". There Douglass was whipped regularly.
On September 3, 1838, Douglass successfully escaped Covey's farm by boarding a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland, in Harford County, in the northeast corner of the state. Dressed in a sailor's uniform, he carried identification papers and protection papers that he had obtained from a free black seaman. Douglass traveled to Wilmington, Delaware, and went by steamboat to Philadelphia, an anti-slavery stronghold. From there he traveled to the safe house of noted abolitionist David Ruggles in New York City. His entire journey took less than 24 hours.
Douglas had met Anna Murray, a free African American woman from Baltimore who had helped him in his escape. After Douglass arrived in new York, he sent for Murray and the couple were married on September 15, 1838. The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts. He joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, an independent black denomination first established in New York City. Other church members were Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman. Douglas became a licensed preacher in 1839.
In 1840, Douglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New York, then a station on the Underground Railroad. He regularly attended abolitionist meetings and subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal The Liberator. Douglass wrote of Garrison, "his paper took a place in my heart second only to The Bible." In 1841, Douglass heard Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society. At another meeting, Douglass was invited to speak and after telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer. Soon after, Douglass spoke at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket at the age of 23.
In 1843, Douglass 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. At a lecture in Pendleton, Indiana, an angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family came to his rescue. His hand was broken in the attack. It never healed properly and bothered him for the rest of his life.
In 1845 Douglas published his first autobiography entitled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The book received positive reviews and became a bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11,000 copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe. Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime, each time expanding on the previous one. In 1855, Douglass published My Bondage and My Freedom. In 1881, after the Civil War, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.
Douglass embarked on a tour of Ireland in the summer of 1845. He spent two years in Ireland and Britain, where he gave many lectures in churches and chapels, speaking to large crowds. Douglass wrote that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man." In 1846 Douglass met with Thomas Clarkson, one of the last living British abolitionists, who had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies. During this trip British supporters led by Anna Richardson raised funds to buy his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld. Douglass returned home in the spring of 1847.
After returning to the U.S. in 1847, Douglass started publishing his first abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, from the basement of the Memorial Zion Church in Rochester, New York. Douglass's abolitionist newspapers were mainly funded by English supporters. It was at this time that Douglass split with Garrison, considering Garrison to be too radical. In September 1848, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, criticizing Auld for his conduct, and asking Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda as a slave, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.
In 1848, Douglass was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, the first women's rights convention, held in upstate New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor, telling the crowd that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He made the case that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere. After Douglass spoke, the attendees passed the resolution. Douglass wrote editorials in his paper, the North Star, to support women's rights.
In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. He continued to make abolitionist speeches. On March 12, 1859, Douglass met with radical abolitionists John Brown, George DeBaptiste, and others at William Webb's house in Detroit to discuss emancipation. He met Brown again, when Brown visited his home two months before leading the raid on the federal armory in Harpers Ferry. Douglass disapproved of Brown's plan to start an armed slave rebellion in the South and he told Brown that attacking federal property would enrage the American public. After the raid, Douglass fled to Canada, fearing that he would be arrested as a co-conspirator. In March 1860, he traveled to England, but soon returned home after the death of his youngest daughter Annie.
By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was nationally well known for his advocacy about the conditions of slaves and on other issues such as women's rights. Douglass and the abolitionists argued that African Americans should be allowed to engage in the fight for their freedom on the side of the Union in the war. Douglass publicized this view in his newspapers and several speeches. In 1863 Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln on the treatment of black soldiers, and later with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of black suffrage.
President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, which took effect on January 1, 1863, declared the freedom of all slaves in Confederate-held territory. Enslaved persons in Union-held areas and Northern states were freed with the adoption of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865. Despite Lincoln's progressive views, during the U.S. Presidential Election of 1864, Douglass supported John C. Frémont, who was the candidate of the abolitionist Radical Democracy Party. Douglass was disappointed that President Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for black freedmen. Douglass believed that since African-American men were fighting for the Union in the American Civil War, they deserved the right to vote. However during the war, Douglass worked with Lincoln to move liberated slaves out of the South. During the war, Douglass also helped the Union cause by serving as a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. His eldest son, Charles Douglass, joined the 54th Massachusetts Regiment. His son Lewis Douglass fought at the Battle of Fort Wagner. Another son, Frederick Douglass Jr., also served as a recruiter.
When Lincoln was assassinated on April 14, 1865, Douglass mourned the loss of the slain president. Speaking on April 14, 1876, Douglass delivered the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial in Washington's Lincoln Park. In that speech, Douglass spoke frankly about Lincoln, noting what he perceived as both positive and negative attributes of the late President. Douglass criticized Lincoln for not joining the cause of emancipation sooner, but Douglass also asked, "Can any colored man, or any white man friendly to the freedom of all men, ever forget the night which followed the first day of January 1863, when the world was to see if Abraham Lincoln would prove to be as good as his word?" Lincoln's widow Mary Lincoln gave Lincoln's favorite walking-stick to Douglass in appreciation.
After the Civil War, Douglass continued to work for equality for African-Americans and women. Due to his prominence and activism during the war, Douglass received several political appointments. He served as president of the Reconstruction-era Freedman's Savings Bank. He also became chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic, but resigned that position after two years because of disagreements with U.S. government policy.
After the end of the war, many white insurgents had banded together in the South, organizing first as secret vigilante groups, including the Ku Klux Klan. Powerful paramilitary groups included the White League and the Red Shirts, both became active during the 1870s in the Deep South. They operated as "the military arm of the Democratic Party", turning out Republican officeholders and disrupting elections. They called for white supremacy, enforced by a combination of violence, Jim Crow laws imposing segregation and a concerted effort to disfranchise African Americans. In an effort to combat these efforts, Douglass supported the presidential campaign of Ulysses S. Grant in 1868. Grant sent a Congressionally sponsored commission, accompanied by Douglass, on a mission to the West Indies to investigate if the annexation of Santo Domingo would be good for the United States. Grant believed annexation would help relieve the violent situation in the South allowing African Americans their own state. Douglass and the commission favored annexation, but Congress was opposed to annexation. Douglass criticized Senator Charles Sumner, who opposed annexation, stating if Sumner continued to oppose annexation he would "regard him as the worst foe the colored race has on this continent."
After the midterm elections, Grant signed the Civil Rights Act of 1871 (also known as the Klan Act), and the second and third Enforcement Acts. Grant used their provisions vigorously, suspending habeas corpus in South Carolina and sending troops there and into other states. Under his leadership over 5,000 arrests were made. Grant's diligence in fighting the Klan made him unpopular among many whites, but earned Douglass's praise.
In 1872, Douglass became the first African American nominated for Vice President of the United States. He was chosen as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket. He was nominated without his knowledge and did not campaign for the ticket or even acknowledged that he had been nominated. That same year his home on South Avenue in Rochester, New York, burned down and arson was suspected. Following this, Douglass moved to Washington, D.C.
When Republican Rutherford B. Hayes was elected President, Douglass accepted an appointment as United States Marshal for the District of Columbia, which helped assure his family's financial security. In 1877, Douglass visited Thomas Auld, who was on his deathbed. The two men reconciled. Douglass had met Auld's daughter, Amanda Auld Sears a few years earlier and she had requested the meeting. She had also attended and cheered one of Douglass' speeches. Her father was said to be grateful to her for reaching out to Douglass. Some abolitionists criticized Douglass for doing so.
In 1881, Douglass both published the final edition of his autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. He received another political appointment, as Recorder of Deeds for the District of Columbia. His wife Anna died in 1882. He remarried in 1884 to Helen Pitts, a white suffragist and abolitionist from Honeoye, New York. The marriage was controversial at the time because Pitts was white and was almost 20 years younger than Douglass. Her family stopped speaking to her and his children also disapproved, but feminist Elizabeth Cady Stanton congratulated the couple. Douglass responded to the criticisms by saying that his first marriage had been to someone the color of his mother, and his second to someone the color of his father.
Douglass also continued his speaking engagements and travel, both in the United States and abroad. He and his wife Helen traveled to England, Ireland, France, Italy, Egypt and Greece from 1886 to 1887. Douglass also spoke on behalf of Irish Home Rule. In 1888, at the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States in a major party's roll call vote. President Benjamin Harrison appointed Douglass to be the United States's minister resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti and Chargé d'affaires for Santo Domingo in 1889, but Douglass resigned the commission in July 1891. He served as Haiti's co-commissioner of its pavilion at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and received a standing ovation. But he was not feeling well. Later that day, after he returned home from the meeting, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack. He was 77 years of age. His funeral was held at the Metropolitan African Methodist Episcopal Church. Thousands of people passed by his coffin to show their respect. Douglass' coffin was transported back to Rochester, New York, where he had lived for 25 years. He was buried next to his first wife Anna in the Douglass family plot of Mount Hope Cemetery. Helen joined them in 1903.