I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

Frederick Douglass

by Cleo Brown

Frederick Douglass’ given name at birth was Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. Born in February of 1818, he liked to claim February Fourteenth as his birthday because, according to Wikipedia, his mother once referred to him as “my little Valentine.” Frederick Bailey was traumatized at a very young age when he was taken away from his slave mother and given to his maternal grandmother. Frederick’s father was a Caucasian.

Much has been written about Frederick Douglass’ ancestry. His mother, named Harriet Bailey, was of Native American and African Ancestry yet, she was extremely dark-complexioned. Harriet Bailey’s parents were named Isaac and Betsey Bailey. Frederick Bailey’s father has been rumored to be his owner named Aaron Anthony. Aaron Anthony worked at The Wye House in Maryland as an overseer.

Douglass was born near the town of Easton on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. When he was six or seven years old, he was taken by his grandmother to the plantation of Aaron Anthony where Douglass remained for eight-and-a-half months. When he was eight years old, Aaron Anthony took Frederick Bailey to Baltimore, Maryland where he became the houseboy of his owner’s relatives named Hugh and Sophia Auld. In Baltimore, Douglass began to develop his social conscience, which not only encompassed his aversion to all forms of slavery but also included his disdain for the oppression of women.

In Baltimore, Douglass witnessed the cruelties of slavery and the oppression of women first hand. In fact, he realized that the two injustices were interwoven. First of all, he would not have been separated from his mother nor from his grandmother if he had not been a slave. Second, being a slave, he was not permitted to legally learn to read nor to write. Third, when his mistress (owner) named Sophia Auld, tried to teach him to read and to write she was chastised by her husband who forbid Sophia’s teachings because Hugh feared that Frederick would become discontent and “Uppity” as a slave if he was educated. This annihilation of Sophia’s humanitarian instincts by her husband was said to, by Douglass , oppress Sophia in that the cruelty she was forced to manifest towards Frederick impoverished her soul. Fourth, he witnessed the cruel beatings of a slave woman named Aunt Hester who was appealing to her Master. Because the woman secretly met another man she had been forbidden to see, she was beat across her bare back and her chest by her owner publicly and in front of Douglass. (Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, 1845)

Douglass, consequently, taught himself how to read and to write.(”Learning to Read and Write”, 1848) Having taught himself, he then proceeded to teach other slaves on The Hugh Auld Plantation the fundamentals of reading. When he was twenty years old and working as a sailor, Frederick Bailey wrote for himself a pass stating that he was a free man. With the pass in hand he walked away from the Institution of Slavery. In September, therefore, of 1838 Douglass escaped slavery traveling to New Bedford, Massachusetts where he met and married his first wife named Anna Murray. Anna Murray was a free Black Woman with whom Frederick Bailey had four children. The children’s names were Rosetta (1839), Lewis (1840), Frederick Jr. (1842), and Charles (1849). Frederick Bailey changed his name to Frederick Douglass after reading the Sir Walter Scott Book entitled The Lady of the Lake in which one of the characters was named Douglass. Otherwise, his owner would have been able to find him and reclaim Douglass as his slave.

Frederick Douglass, who not only was a great orator but was also extremely literate, published three autobiographies throughout his life time. They were: Narratives of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave in 1845, My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855, and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881. Because his 1845 autobiography was so successful, Douglass was forced to leave the United States touring Ireland and Great Britain for two years rather than to risk being captured and re-enslaved by slave catchers. It was believed that his owners sought his modest wealth. When he returned to the states in 1848, he attended the first Women’s Rights Convention held at Seneca Falls in Upstate New York. At Seneca Falls, he was the only man present who truly supported the adoption of the women’s rights agenda believing the women’s rights issue to be closely aligned to the rights of African Americans.

Douglass, who had begun his public speaking career as a member of The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society on behalf of the Abolitionist Movement, was also a journalist who owned his own newspaper called The North Star. In 1851 he merged The North Star with another publication entitled Liberty Party Paper to form The Frederick Douglass’ Paper which he published until 1860.

Although Douglass had great admiration for the abolitionist named William Lloyd Garrison, the two manifested an extreme difference of opinion before and during The Civil War. Garrison, in his publication entitled The Liberator, denounced all institutions of The United States which re-enforced the status-quo under the institution of slavery. Garrison was so radical that he advocated the dissolution of The United States. Douglass, on the other hand, believed that The Union should remain intact so that Southern Slaves would continue to be protected by The National Government and its Northern anti-slavery institutions and beliefs. He also believed that African-American Freedom would be of greater significance if the former slave holding south, as well as The North, were forced to incorporate African-Americans into its interior and with-in the mainstream of its culture, institutions, and way of life. Douglass, increasingly, began to view The Constitution to The United States as a work of art which, if adhered to, as The Founding Fathers had intended, would benefit the great masses of African-Americans and be used to their advantage. Garrison, on the other hand, believed The Constitution to be propaganda and a “pro-slavery document” which needed to be burnt (Judgement Day: People & Events: Frederick Douglass).

In addition to admiring William Lloyd Garrison and knowing The Woman’s Rights Advocate and Feminist named Susan B. Anthony, Douglass was also a contemporary of Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth. He was also a close personal friend of Abraham Lincoln. Douglass advised and influenced President Lincoln’s passage of The Emancipation Proclamation which freed all slaves in the slave-holding South. He also knew Harriet Beecher Stowe who served as a mediator between Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison when the pair were at odds with one another over the issue of the preservation of The United States as well as the uses to which The Constitution could be put in the hands of Blacks and Females.

During the Civil War Douglass, along with his son named Frederick Jr., was a recruiter for the Massachusetts 54th Colored Regiment. While another of his sons, named Louis, actually fought with the Massachusetts 54th. (Wikipedia) Frederick Douglass held many positions after the end of The Civil War. He was :
A. President of the Freedman’s Savings Bank
B. Marshall of The District of Columbia (1877)
C. Recorder of Deeds for The District of Columbia (1881)
D. Minister-resident and Consul-general to The Republic of Haiti (1889-1891)
E. Charge d’affaires for The Dominican Republic.

In addition to these honors, in 1872 he was also the first African-American to be nominated to the office of Vice-President of The United States as Victoria Woodhull’s running mate on The Equal Right’s Party Ticket. In 1888, at the Republican National Convention, Douglass also received one vote as President of The United States making him the first African-American to receive any vote at all as President of the United States in the United States. And, in 1892, he was appointed Commissioner to The Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition by The Haitian Government. Frederick Douglass was also referred to as “the founder of The American Civil Rights Movement.”

Douglass’ wife named Anna died in 1882. By 1884, therefore, he had married Helen Pitts. Helen Pitts was a beautiful and young Caucasian woman who had been Douglass’ secretary. Unfortunately, however, Douglass died from heart-failure on February 20th, 1895 after having attended a meeting of The National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. at which time Douglass had received a standing ovation. He was seventy-seven years old. Considered to be the “premier spokesperson for Blacks in the United States until the time of his death”; to be rivaled only by Booker T. Washington, Frederick Douglass is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, New York. (African-American Literature)

About the Author: Cleo E. Brown is a Free Lance Writer and an Editor on staff at HHR who received her training as an Historian at California State College (Suma Cum Laude), and The University of California at Davis (MA). She was also enrolled in a Ph.D. Program at The University of San Francisco. She also works as an Educator in New York City, New York where she is a Dean of Academic Instruction.