Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time, Douglass overcame his nervousness and gave a stirring, eloquent speech about his life as a slave. He had not intended to speak, and was only at the conference because he had overworked himself and needed two days rest which coincided with the abolitionist meeting. Douglass remarks of that speech that it was the only speech he gave, where he does not remember a word of what he said. Soon, he began giving more speeches, sticking to his own personal narrative, with no interposition of philosophy or meaning, so as not to betray his enormous intelligence and make those present wary about whether he was an actual slave.
Douglas gave many speeches, sticking to his narrow script, until he could do so no longer and rebelled against his well-meaning white handlers and began to expound upon his experiences. Soon, he found himself on board a steamer to England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, where he stayed for two years living life and enjoying freedoms he thought were unavailable to a Black man anywhere in the world. when he had returned, it was with several thousand dollars to start publication of his abolitionist paper, "The North Star".
The son of a slave woman and an unknown white man thought to be his slave owner, "Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey" was born in February of 1818 on Maryland's eastern shore. He remarks that the location of his birth is notable, only for the low character and baseness of it's inhabitants. He spent his early years with his grandparents enjoying the unrestricted pleasures of childhood, ignorant of slavery, until the day his grandmother tricked him and left him at the plantation. Over the course of the next 14-odd years, Douglas was exposed to the degradations of slavery, witnessing firsthand brutal whippings, deplorable conditions, near-starvation, whippings, rapes, beatings, and, at the other extreme, extreme opulence and wealth that dazzled all, Black and White who beheld it.
By a strange happenstance, when he was eight he was sent to Baltimore to live with a ship carpenter named Hugh Auld. His wife, religious, and loving of her child and "Freddy" whose job was to protect her child, ignorantly took pride in Freddy and taught him to read, amazed at his progress and intelligence, until her husband found out and forbade it, and gave his wife an exhaustive speech on slavery, subjugation and the politics, culture and philosophy of keeping slaves ignorant to perpetuate the system of slavery. Unbeknownst to either of them, Freddy stood and listened and received a 5-star education, on the psychology of the slave master and justification for brutality and inhumanity for systematic ends.
Douglass spent seven relatively comfortable years in Baltimore before being sent back to the country, where he was hired out to a farm run by a notoriously brutal "slavebreaker" named Edward Covey. And the treatment he received was indeed brutal. Whipped daily and barely fed, Douglass was "broken in body, soul, and spirit", yet, he took a stand and refused to allow himself to be beaten anymore. he did not strike Covey, but he fended his blows all the same. In this Douglas became one of those rare slaves, that is not beaten, while others get more than their fair share as an example.
Douglas purchased a book with earnings made on the side, that had speeches, essays and an argument between a slave and slave master, where the slave bested the master in reason and won his freedom. This became Douglass' dream. On January 1, 1836, Douglass made a resolution that he would be free by the end of the year. He planned an escape. But early in April he was jailed after his plan was told to the slave owner by one of his accomplices. Two years later, while living in Baltimore and working at a shipyard, Douglass would finally realize his dream: he fled the city on September 3, 1838. Travelling by train, then steamboat, then train, he arrived in New York City the following day. Several weeks later he had settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, living with his newlywed bride (whom he met in Baltimore and married in New York) under his new name, Frederick Douglass.
Always striving to educate himself, Douglass continued his reading. He joined various organizations in New Bedford, including a black church. He attended Abolitionists' meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal, the Liberator. In 1841, he saw Garrison speak at the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society's annual meeting. Douglass was inspired by the speaker, later stating, "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison." Garrison, too, was impressed with Douglass, mentioning him in the Liberator. Several days later Douglass gave his speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket-- the speech described at the top of this page. Of the speech, one correspondent reported, "Flinty hearts were pierced, and cold ones melted by his eloquence."
Despite apprehensions that the information might endanger his freedom, Douglass published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself. The year was 1845.
Ever since he first met Garrison in 1841, the white abolitionist leader had been Douglass' mentor. But the views of Garrison and Douglass ultimately diverged. Garrison represented the radical end of the abolitionist spectrum. He denounced churches, political parties, even voting. He believed in the dissolution (break up) of the Union. He also believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-slavery document. After his tour of Europe and the establishment of his paper, Douglass' views became more pragmatic. In 1851 Douglass announced at a meeting in Syracuse, New York, that he did not assume the Constitution was a pro-slavery document, and that it could even "be wielded in behalf of emancipation," especially where the federal government had exclusive jurisdiction.
Frederick Douglass would continue his active involvement to better the lives of African Americans. He conferred with Abraham Lincoln during the Civil War and recruited northern blacks for the Union Army. After the War he fought for the rights of women and African Americans alike and was one of the charter members of the Red Cross.
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