1. Survey of African American Writing
Frederick Douglass
Survey of African American Writing

2. Frederick Douglass was born in 1818 and died in 1895.

3. He was born in Maryland as Frederick Bailey.

4. He never knew his white father and was separated from his enslaved mother.

5. When he was 8, he was sent to live with the Auld family who lived in Baltimore.

6. While living there, Mrs. Auld introduced him to the magic of reading.

7. He realized quickly that education was the path to freedom.

8. To make him more obedient, Mrs
To make him more obedient, Mrs. Auld sent him to a “slave-breaker” who beat him over the slightest offence.

9. However, this just made him more determined to become free.

10. When he was 20, he finally escaped to freedom and changed his last name from Bailey to Douglass.

11. In 1841, he was asked to speak against slavery at a meeting and was asked to join the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

12. Orator: a public speaker

13. Others encouraged him to document his experience as a slave, so Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, his autobiography.

14. After writing this autobiography, he fled to England.

15. In 1847, English friends raised money to purchase his freedom.

16. Later, he returned to the United States and began publishing an antislavery newspaper.

17. He also republished his autobiography as My Bondage and My Freedom in 1855, and again as Life and Times of Frederick Douglass in 1881.