10 questions · Society & Everyday
He did not know his own birthday. Frederick Bailey was born into slavery in Maryland around 1818, and birth dates were not recorded for enslaved children: later he picked 14 February himself, because his mother had called him „my little valentine“. He saw her perhaps half a dozen times; she worked on another plantation and walked over at night to sit with him until she had to be back before sunrise. The decisive hint came when he was eight. The wife of his new owner in Baltimore secretly taught him his letters until her husband found out and forbade it: reading would make a slave useless and unhappy. Douglass understood the lesson better than the man who gave it: if reading was that dangerous, it was exactly what he needed. He went on learning from white street boys, paying them in pieces of bread. At twenty he escaped, disguised as a sailor and carrying a Black seaman's borrowed papers; the journey to New York took less than twenty-four hours. He chose the surname Douglass himself afterwards, from a character in Walter Scott. What followed was a career without precedent. He spoke at abolitionist meetings so well that opponents claimed he had never been a slave: no slave could talk like that. So in 1845 he wrote his life down, with names and places, which exposed him to his former owner. He spent two years in Britain and Ireland, where friends raised the money to buy his freedom outright. Back in America he founded the newspaper The North Star. Four years later, in his most famous speech, he asked what the Fourth of July was supposed to mean to a slave. During the Civil War he pressed Lincoln to let Black men enlist and then recruited them himself; two of his sons signed up. He campaigned for women's suffrage, was the most prominent male supporter at Seneca Falls in 1848, and later became the first Black American confirmed to a senior federal post. He also had himself photographed more often than any other American of his century: deliberately, seriously, with dignity, against the caricatures of the age.
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Reading
The mistress of the house had secretly begun teaching him his letters.
💡 Did you know? Douglass drew the conclusion of his life from it: if learning worried the owner that much, it was the way out. He kept learning from white street boys, paying in bread.
As a sailor
He carried a free Black seaman's borrowed papers and travelled to New York by train and steamboat.
💡 Did you know? The whole escape took less than twenty-four hours and hung on a conductor who barely glanced at the papers.
With his autobiography
He named names and places in it and thereby made himself findable for his former owner.
💡 Did you know? The book sold 30,000 copies in five years. Douglass promptly left the country for two years, to be safe.
Friends bought his freedom
Around 700 dollars went to his former owner: a bitter transaction, but it made him untouchable.
💡 Did you know? Some abolitionists accused him of recognising property rights in human beings. Douglass replied that he preferred freedom to the principle.
The North Star
The name was the point: people escaping north navigated at night by the pole star.
💡 Did you know? Its masthead read: „Right is of no sex: Truth is of no color.“
The Fourth of July
He asked what a celebration of freedom was supposed to mean to someone who had none.
💡 Did you know? He gave the speech deliberately on 5 July, not the 4th; the day after was part of the argument.
To let Black men enlist
Around 200,000 Black men served in the end; two of Douglass's sons volunteered.
💡 Did you know? He complained to Lincoln in person about the lower pay for Black soldiers and was received like a statesman.
Women's suffrage
He was the most prominent male supporter at the first women's rights convention in the United States.
💡 Did you know? He died in 1895 on the very day he had come home from a women's rights meeting.
Photographs
More than 160 different portraits survive: more than of Lincoln.
💡 Did you know? It was deliberate: against the caricatures in newspapers and on stage he set a serious, dignified face. He smiles in not a single one.
Foto: Unknown author · Public domain · Wikimedia Commons
Frederick Douglass
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