Fredrick Augustus Washington Bailey was born on the eastern shore of Maryland in February 1817, his exact birth date is unknown. He was born to slave parents and and separated from his mother at a very young age and sent to work for Captain Aaron Anthony. “As a slave, Douglass was not allowed to have much of a childhood. He was separated from his parents, and he was forced to work hard and suffered cruel treatment while working on the property of Captain Aaron Anthony.” stated on notablebiographies.com. He was later sent to work for Hugh Auld, where he was treated far better. Anthony died and Douglass was sent back to work for his nephew who mistreated slaves much like his uncle. Soon after, he was bought by the Auld’s and brought to Baltimore to work on the ship yards. There he borrowed a African American sailor's identification papers. By passing himself off as a sailor, he was able to escape to New York. He switched his name to Douglass and then married a free African American woman from the south.
“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.’” stated on pbs.org. Many days later Douglass gave a speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society annual convention in Nantucket. “Of the speech, one correspondent reported, ‘Flinty hearts were pierced, and cold ones melted by his eloquence.’” stated on pbs.org. After writing a autobiography about his coming to freedom, he was forced to flee to the British Isles, his English friends bought his freedom from his past owner for $711.66. (encyclopedia.com)
During the Civil War, he fought hard to make the abolishment of slavey an issue the union was working towards fixing. He met with Abraham Lincoln about the issue. “Lincoln's 1863 emancipation proclamation sent a strong signal that the North would seek the abolition of slavery in the South, and in 1865, the thirteenth amendment to the Constitution formally ended the institution of slavery in the United States. By the end of the war, nearly 200,000 African Americans had enlisted in the Union armed forces.” as stated on encyclopedia.com, “Douglass personally helped to enlist men for the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Colored Regiments and served as a leading advocate for the equal treatment of African Americans in the military.”
Douglass isn’t the only slavery ended but he is a very large reason, which insures him to be a true American hero.
