Frederick Douglass
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The “lame to fame” stories of artists, singers, and other celebrities are told over and over again. When someone hears the phrase people assume that its a rapper from the projects or some trailer trash pop singer, but those cant hold a single candle to the rise of Frederick Douglass. A slave born child from a broken (and shrinking) family, owned and moved from owner to owner and he had to learn from the streets (literally). Life wasnt easy for this kid, but as time went on, his knowledge grew, and his ambition for abolition sparked, he would find his place in history as one of the greats.
Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (before he changed it) was born on February in 1818, in the town of Tuckahoe (funny storyÐ Tuckahoe was named that because some farmer took another farmers hoe. Get it? “took a hoe”, Tuckahoe) in Talbot county on the eastern shores of Maryland. Long after that however, Douglass died of a massive heart attack on February 20, 1895 in Washington, D.C. (kind of weird how I start with his birth and immediately jump to his death, right?) His body remained in state for a public open casket viewing for ordinary people and school children who received the day off to mourn (like JFK or Princess Diana).
As I have stated before, young Freddy had a broken family life. In the time period involving slave trades, mothers and daughters, fathers and sons were often separated from one another. Because Fredericks mother, Harriett Bailey, worked on a different field, she left Frederick in the custody of his grandparents, Isaac and Betsy Bailey, after giving birth to him. Being a slave meant there wasnt any time off for family visits, leaving Freddy few times to be with his mother. “[He] never saw [his] motherÐmore than four or five times in [his] life, and each of those time was very short, and at night”.1(p. 16) Douglasss father is unknown, but he believed that his father was white. It was rumored to him that his father was his master, but no confirmation lead to this fact (most likely was though. Many owners were known to have a case of jungle fever here and there). Frederick also had five brothers and sisters: Perry, Sarah, and Eliza who were all older than him. After them were Kitty and Arianna who were the younger siblings.
Unlike today where the only things someone can learn from the streets are how to hustle or where the nearest crack den is, Frederick Bailey learned how to read and write. And when I say he gained his book smarts from the streets, I mean it. First he was taught, by one of his kind mistresses, the alphabet and simple words. After she was told not to teach him by her husband (a.k.a. The Man), Freddy had to look elsewhere to quench his thirst for knowledge. After meeting with some young white boys his age, Freddy befriended them and made a deal with them in which he would give the hungry boys food in exchange for “private tutoring”.2(p. 28) As a teenager, Frederick started a Sabbath school for other young black men to teach the gospel to black children. Thomas Auld, Fredericks master at the time, and some of his white neighbors charged in the school, wielding sticks, and ordered everyone to leave and later Auld told Frederick “never to attempt to teach black children anything”.3(p. 36)
While working one of his new jobs by taking his clients child to school, Frederick met Anna Murray, a free born black woman, who was working in the school at the time. Shortly after the encounter, Frederick escaped the Auld house and ventured to North to live a free life. After convincing Anna to come, they married in New Bedford, Mass. on September 17, 1838. Within the years to come the Douglasses had five children: Rosetta in 1839, Lewis Henry in 1840, Frederick in 1842, Remond in 1844, and Annie in 18494.
Douglasss adventures can partly be summed up with four words: that man can work! In the beginning the only job he had was being a slave. Eventually Thomas Auld got Frederick a job caulking ships at William Gardiners shipyard (I guess the first job wasnt paying well enough). Because he was black, he got the sh**Ð snot beaten out of him. Since workers comp didnt cover the damages, Frederick had to work at another shipyard. When Frederick reached twenty years old, he asked Auld to keep some of his income (since he was Aulds “property,” he had to give him his earnings) to which he agreed, but now Frederick had to afford his own needs and tools. With more responsibility on his hands, Frederick had to find more work and quick. He became a butler in the home of a stockbroker and this lead to the meeting of Anna. After the two moved to New Bedford and added a kids to the mix, Frederick had to work his bum off to support them. Early on he took any crap job he could get including, but not limited to shoveling coal, sawing wood, digging cellars, clearing rubbish, and loading and unloading ships. Apparently it all turned around for him when he got a job at a brass foundry and later as a caulker in the shipyards.5 (p. 50) After getting greater recognition as an abolitionist, Frederick wrote an autobiography about his earlier years. After widespread distribution of said book, Douglass starts an anti-slavery newspaper called The North Star.
Douglass has lived and traveled to many places. As a boy, Freddy lived in field houses on plantations like other slaves, yet constantly moving from owner to owner (he was moved