Works of Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland.
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Product details File Size: Golgotha Press August 26, Publication Date: August 26, Language: Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video. Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. Kindle Edition Verified Purchase. Frederick Douglass's autobiographical story about his growing up a slave is very moving and a worthwhile read. There are a lot of lessons applicable today in this book. I have read his autobiography and has changed my mentality towards African Americans.


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Read in High School and actually made me cry about the cruelties this race has been through. Just wanted to have book again as an adult to re-read his book again. Frederick tried to escape with three others in , but the plot was discovered before they could get away. Five years later, however, he fled to New York City and then to New Bedford , Massachusetts, where he worked as a labourer for three years, eluding slave hunters by changing his surname to Douglass.

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At a Nantucket , Massachusetts, antislavery convention in , Douglass was invited to describe his feelings and experiences under slavery. These extemporaneous remarks were so poignant and eloquent that he was unexpectedly catapulted into a new career as agent for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

From then on, despite heckling and mockery, insult, and violent personal attack, Douglass never flagged in his devotion to the abolitionist cause.

To counter skeptics who doubted that such an articulate spokesman could ever have been a slave, Douglass felt impelled to write his autobiography in , revised and completed in as Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. To avoid recapture by his former owner, whose name and location he had given in the narrative, Douglass left on a two-year speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland.

Abroad, Douglass helped to win many new friends for the abolition movement and to cement the bonds of humanitarian reform between the continents. Thus, after Douglass allied himself with the faction of the movement led by James G. He did not countenance violence, however, and specifically counseled against the raid on Harpers Ferry , Virginia October During the Civil War —65 Douglass became a consultant to Pres. Abraham Lincoln , advocating that former slaves be armed for the North and that the war be made a direct confrontation against slavery.

Frederick Douglass

After Reconstruction, Douglass served as assistant secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission , and in the District of Columbia he was marshal —81 and recorder of deeds — Finally, he was appointed U. We welcome suggested improvements to any of our articles. You can make it easier for us to review and, hopefully, publish your contribution by keeping a few points in mind.

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Unfortunately, our editorial approach may not be able to accommodate all contributions. He knew no familial affection, being estranged even from his three siblings. So, when he learned around the age of seven that he was to go to Hugh and Sophia Auld's home in Baltimore, Maryland, he was overjoyed at the prospect of seeing the fabled city.

It was here, under the instruction of Mrs. Auld that young Frederick first learned the alphabet. However it did not last long, for when Mr. Auld discovered these lessons he strictly forbade it in words that left a profound impression on young Frederick; that while knowledge and learning of the world around him could bring him great unhappiness, it could also give him great power over his enslavers who preferred their chattel to remain ignorant and unthinking.

Frederick earnestly set forth a plan to continue to learn to read and write on the sly, aided by the white children he met on the streets and among the shipyards and docks. A book that especially left an impression on him was Caleb Bingham's The Columbian Orator which contains a poignant conversation between a master and his slave, who successfully argues for his freedom.

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In the city Frederick witnessed a kinder, gentler slave owner, averse to the public, severe, and humiliating treatments of slaves he had so often witnessed on the plantations. After Anthony's death in Frederick was inherited by his brother Thomas Auld, and in he left Baltimore to go live with him in nearby St. Frederick was plummeted back into the harsh reality of a slave's life; the constant feeling of hunger and being controlled by the hand of an inhumane master.

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When he did not prove to suit Thomas's purpose he was sent "to be broken" by Edward Covey, working in his fields for a year, and for the first six months was beaten and whipped severely many times. Around the age of sixteen, while working for his next master, a Mr. Freeman, Frederick resolved to escape. He had been teaching some of his fellow slaves to read, and formed close friendships with many of them. With four others they planned their escape under the pretense of travelling up the Chesapeake Bay to go to Baltimore for the Easter holiday; but before they even attempted they were arrested and sent to jail.

Hugh Auld had him released and arranged for Frederick to work in the shipyards. After being beaten mercilessly by a group of white carpenters and finding no avenue of redress, Hugh and Sophie took Frederick to stay with them again. Hugh arranged his employment with another ship-builder, and he became very adept at the art of calking ships.

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He earned good wages for his master and became re-acquainted with the feeling of self-esteem that would carry him through the next stage of his struggle for freedom. While Hugh and Sophie Auld had bestowed some small merciful kindnesses on Frederick that many other slaves did not even know was a possibility in their wretched lives, Frederick grew increasingly discontented with his situation. He resolved to escape again, and out of respect to the many who would in future use the Underground Railroad and similar escape tactics, he provides no details as to his success in his Narrative.

However, almost forty years later in his essay "My Escape from Slavery" he does explain how he obtained the forged free man's papers of a black sailor, a perfect ruse for travel. In September of Frederick arrived in the free state of New York after a tense twenty-four hour journey by train and boat, having finally slipped the bonds of his master;.

Frederick's initial elation soon turned to one of constant vigilance and distrust of his fellow man, black and white, for anybody in the busy city could betray his status and turn him in as a fugitive, which was a lucrative business.