Life Accomplishments And Influence Of Frederick Douglass

Essay, Research Paper

The Life, Accomplishments, and Influence of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was a well established abolishinsits and writer who help open the eyes

of many Americans to the injustice of slavery.

Douglass was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey on the Holmes Hill farm near the town Easton of in Maryland. Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was born on a farm in February 1818 as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Talbot county, Maryland. The farm was owned by Aaron Anthony who is believed to be Douglass father. Douglass mother was Harriet Bailey who worked in the cornfield s on the farm. Douglass rarely saw his mother and was raised by his grandmother Betsey Bailey who was a mid wife. Frederick was separated from his mother when he was only a few weeks old, and was raised by his grandparents until he was six years old. At the age of six, Frederick’s grandmother took him to the plantation that was 12 miles form his the home of his master and left him there. At the age of eight, Frederick was sent to Baltimore to live as a houseboy with Hugh and Sophia Auld, relatives of his master. Shortly after Frederick’s arrival Sophia, taught him the alphabet, but she stopped teaching when her husband told her it was against the law to teach slaves to read. Frederick with the desire to learn how to read took it upon himself to do so. He made the neighborhood boys his teacher by trading his food in exchange of lesson in reading and writing. At the age of thirteen, Frederick brought a copy of The Columbian Orator, a popular school book at that time which helped him to gain an understanding and appreciation of the power of spoken and written words to bring about change. Frederick passed his knowledge on to other blacks in Baltimore. At the age of fifteen, Frederick returned back to the Eastern Shore of Maryland to become a field hand to work for Edward Covery, a known slave breaker. Frederick refused to accept being beaten by fighting back. This was the turning point in Frederick’s life as a slave. At the age of eighteen, Frederick changed his mind about an escape attempt and was sent back to Baltimore to live with the Auld family. At the age of twenty, Frederick met Anna Murray, a free black woman, and then escaped from slavery by impersonating a sailor. Frederick went to New Bedford, Massachusetts and changed his name to Frederick Douglass. He then sent for Anna Murray, the lady that he had fallen in love with while living in Baltimore. Frederick and Anna Murray got married and settled down in New Bedford, Massachusetts where he found a job and began to raise a family. Frederick attended abolitionist meetings. In 1839, Frederick Douglass made his first anti-slavery speech. In October, 1841 after attending an antislavery convention on Nantucket Island, Frederick Became a lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and an associate of William Lloyd Garrison. The work with the Anti-Slavery Society led Frederick into public speaking and writing. In 1845, he published a narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. In 1846, his abolitionist friends purchased his freedom for one thousand and two hundred fifty dollars. In 1847, Frederick Douglass began the publication of the newspaper, The North Star, to later be known as The Frederick Douglass Paper. In 1848, Frederick Douglass attended the first women’s rights convention in Seneca Falls, N.Y. He was the only man supporting women’s right to vote. In 1855, Douglass published the second version of his autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom. In 1859, Frederick Douglass started the publication of the Frederick Douglass Monthly. In 1861, the civil war began and Douglass rallied Northern opinion in support of emancipation and the acceptance of black troops in the union army. In 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation grants freedom to slaves in the areas under confederate control. Douglass recruited troops for black units. In 1865, the thirteenth amendment to the constitution abolishes slavery in the United States. Frederick Douglass promoted issues such as giving free men equal rights and the right to vote.

. During Reconstruction he became deeply involved in the civil rights movement and in 1871 he was appointed to the territorial legislature of the District of Columbia. He served as one of the presidential electors-at-large for New York in 1872 and shortly thereafter became the secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission. After serving for a short time as the police commissioner of the District of Columbia, he was appointed marshal in 1871 and held the post until he was appointed the recorder of deeds in 1881. In 1890 his support of the presidential campaign of Benjamin Harrison won him his minister resident and consul general to the Republic of Haiti. In 1891 he resigned the position in protest of the corrupt business practices of American businessmen. Douglass died at home in Washington, DC in 1895. In 1882, Frederick Douglass’s wife Anna Douglass of forty-four years dies. In 1884, Douglass marries Helen Pitts, a white woman who was a former clerk in his office. From 1886 to 1887 Frederick Douglass traveled to Europe and Africa. In 1894, Douglass wrote his last greatest address” The Lessons of the Hour” and in 1895 he attended a women’s rights rally and dies later that night. In conclusion, I realized how much Frederick Douglass affected the rights that African Americans have today in the United States.

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