The Life of Frederick Douglass

Main

Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a slave, in Tuckahoe, Maryland.

1818

Mother dies; sent to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia.

1826

Makes an escape plan but is discovered, jailed, and released.

1836

Returns to work for the Aulds.

1836

Is hired out to work as a caulker in a Baltimore shipyard.

1837

The knowledge he gains there helps him escape slavery two years later.

1837

He escapes from slavery to New York and changes his last name to Douglass.

1838

Speaks about his life at an antislavery meeting in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

1841

Publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.

1845

Buys printing press and begins publishing the abolitionist weekly North Star.

1847

Begins sheltering escaped slaves fleeing north on the "underground railroad."

1848

Publication of his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom.

1855

Begins publishing Douglass' Monthly, first as a 2nd to Frederick Douglass' Paper

1859

Douglass becomes a recruiter for the 54th MA Infantry, the 1st of black soldiers

1863

Meets with Lincoln to discuss the unequal pay & treatment black soldiers receive

1863

Lincoln asks Douglass to prepare an effort to help slaves escaping to the North

1864

Douglass lectures on Reconstruction and women's rights.

1865

President Ulysses Grant appoints Douglass to help deal w/ Dom. Repub. annexation

1871

Becomes president of the troubled Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company.

1874

Douglass is appointed U.S. marshal of D.C. by President Hayes.

1877

Publishes 3rd and final autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

1881

Douglass's long-time wife dies. He goes into depression.

1882

Appointed U.S. minister resident and consul general of Republic of Haiti.

1889

Dies of heart failure after a meeting of the National Council of Women in DC

1895