How Did Frederick Douglass Learn How to Read and Write

Who Was Frederick Douglass?

Abolitionist leader Frederick Douglass was built-in into slavery sometime around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. He became ane of the most famous intellectuals of his fourth dimension, advising presidents and lecturing to thousands on a range of causes, including women'south rights and Irish abode rule.

Amid Douglass' writings are several autobiographies eloquently describing his experiences in slavery and his life after the Civil War, including the well-known work Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave.

Early Life

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was built-in around 1818 into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland.  As was often the case with slaves, the verbal twelvemonth and date of Douglass' birth are unknown, though subsequently in life he chose to celebrate it on February 14.

Douglass initially lived with his maternal grandmother, Betty Bailey. At a immature age, Douglass was selected to live in the home of the plantation owners, i of whom may have been his father.

His mother, who was an intermittent presence in his life, died when he was around 10.

Frederick Douglass

Photo: Collection of the National Museum of African American History and Culture, 2010.36.10ab

Learning to Read and Write

Defying a ban on pedagogy slaves to read and write, Baltimore slaveholder Hugh Auld'south wife Sophia taught Douglass the alphabet when he was around 12. When Auld forbade his married woman to offer more lessons, Douglass continued to larn from white children and others in the neighborhood.

It was through reading that Douglass' ideological opposition to slavery began to have shape. He read newspapers avidly and sought out political writing and literature as much every bit possible. In later years, Douglass credited The Columbian Orator with clarifying and defining his views on human being rights.

Douglass shared his newfound cognition 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 xl slaves would nourish lessons. Although Freeland did not interfere with the lessons, other local slave owners were less agreement. Armed with clubs and stones, they dispersed the congregation permanently.

With Douglass moving betwixt the Aulds, he was later on fabricated to piece of work for Edward Covey, who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker." Covey'south constant abuse well-nigh broke the 16-year-old Douglass psychologically. Eventually, however, Douglass fought back, in a scene rendered powerfully in his outset autobiography.

After losing a physical confrontation with Douglass, Covey never crush him again. Douglass tried to escape from slavery twice before he finally succeeded.

Wife and Children

Douglass married Anna Murray, a free Black adult female, on September 15, 1838. Douglass had fallen in love with Murray, who assisted him in his final endeavor to escape slavery in Baltimore.

On September 3, 1838, Douglass boarded a train to Havre de Grace, Maryland. 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 firm of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York in less than 24 hours.

In one case he had arrived, Douglass sent for Murray to meet him in New York, where they married and adopted the name of Johnson to disguise Douglass' identity. Anna and Frederick and then settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, which had a thriving free Blackness community. There they adopted Douglass as their married name.

Douglass and Anna had v children 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 paper The North Star. Anna remained a loyal supporter of Douglass' public work, despite marital strife acquired by his relationships with several other women.

After Anna'south death, Douglass married Helen Pitts, a feminist from Honeoye, New York. Pitts was the daughter of Gideon Pitts Jr., an abolitionist colleague. A graduate of Mount Holyoke Higher, Pitts worked on a radical feminist publication and shared many of Douglass' moral principles.

Their union caused considerable controversy, since Pitts was white and nearly 20 years younger than Douglass. Douglass' children were especially displeased with the human relationship. Even so, Douglass and Pitts remained married until his death 11 years later.

Abolitionist

Afterwards settling as a free man with his married woman Anna in New Bedford in 1838, Douglass was somewhen asked to tell his story at abolitionist meetings, and he became a regular anti-slavery lecturer.

The founder of the weekly journalThe Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison, was impressed with Douglass' forcefulness and rhetorical skill and wrote of him in his newspaper. Several days afterward the story ran, Douglass delivered his showtime speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Lodge'south annual convention in Nantucket.

Crowds were not e'er hospitable to Douglass. While participating in an 1843 lecture tour through the Midwest, Douglass was chased and beaten by an angry mob before being rescued by a local Quaker family.

Following the publication of his first autobiography in 1845, Douglass traveled overseas to evade recapture. He set canvas for Liverpool on August xvi, 1845, and eventually arrived in Ireland equally the Irish potato Dearth was beginning. He remained in Ireland and Britain for two years, speaking to big crowds on the evils of slavery.

During this time, Douglass' British supporters gathered funds to purchase his legal freedom. In 1847, the famed writer and orator returned to the United states of america a free man.

'The North Star'

Upon his render, Douglass 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 is the Begetter of us all, and we are all brethren."

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'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass'

In New Bedford, Massachusetts, Douglass joined a Blackness church and regularly attended abolitionist meetings. He besides subscribed to Garrison'sThe Liberator.

At the urging of Garrison, Douglass wrote and published his start autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in 1845. The book was a bestseller in the United States and was translated into several European languages.

Although theNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass garnered Douglass many fans, some critics expressed doubt that a quondam enslaved person with no formal didactics could have produced such elegant prose.

Other Books by Frederick Douglass

Douglass published three versions of his autobiography during his lifetime, revising and expanding on his piece of work each time. My Chains and My Freedom appeared in 1855.

In 1881, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, which he revised in 1892.

Women's Rights

In improver to abolitionism, Douglass became an outspoken supporter of women's rights. In 1848, he was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls convention on women's rights. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to laissez passer a resolution stating the goal of women'southward suffrage. Many attendees opposed the idea.

Douglass, nonetheless, stood and spoke eloquently in favor, arguing that he could not take the right to vote equally a Black man if women could non too claim that right. The resolution passed.

Yet Douglass would later come up into conflict with women's rights activists for supporting the Fifteenth Amendment, which banned suffrage discrimination based on race while upholding sex activity-based restrictions.

Civil War and Reconstruction

By the time of the Civil War, Douglass was one of the virtually famous Black men in the country. He used his condition to influence the role of African Americans in the war and their status in the country. In 1863, Douglass conferred with President Abraham Lincoln regarding the handling of Blackness soldiers, and after with President Andrew Johnson on the subject of Black suffrage.

President Lincoln's Emancipation Announcement, which took effect on January ane, 1863, declared the freedom of enslaved people in Confederate territory. Despite this victory, Douglass supported John C. Frémont over Lincoln in the 1864 election, citing his disappointment that Lincoln did not publicly endorse suffrage for Black freedmen.

Slavery everywhere in the U.s.a. was later outlawed past the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Douglass was appointed to several political positions following the war. He served as president of the Freedman's Savings Bank and every bit chargé d'affaires for the Dominican Republic.

Afterward two years, he resigned from his ambassadorship over objections to the particulars of U.S. government policy. He was later on appointed government minister-resident and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti, a post he held between 1889 and 1891.

In 1877, Douglass visited one of his former owners, Thomas Auld. Douglass had met with Auld's girl, Amanda Auld Sears, years before. The visit held personal significance for Douglass, although some criticized him for the reconciliation.

Vice Presidential Candidate

Douglass became the first African American nominated for vice president of the U.s.a. as Victoria Woodhull's running mate on the Equal Rights Party ticket in 1872.

Nominated without his cognition or consent, Douglass never campaigned. Nonetheless, his nomination marked the first time that an African American appeared on a presidential ballot.

Death

Douglass died on Feb 20, 1895, of a massive middle attack or stroke shortly after returning from a meeting of the National Quango of Women in Washington, D.C. He was buried in Mount Promise Cemetery in Rochester, New York.

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Source: https://www.biography.com/activist/frederick-douglass

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