Frederick douglas biography for kids

He slept on the floor, sometimes stealing a flour sack to keep warm under. He saw the grown-ups go off to the fields to work before dawn, and not return until it was dark, so tired they were ready to collapse. He saw his aunt whipped for talking to a man she liked. There, he would live in a house and be frederick douglas biography for kids better clothes to wear.

Still, for a brief time, Frederick got a glimpse of a better life. But the nice house, the big, bustling city, and the real clothes were just a small part of that better life. His new mistress, Sophia Auld, gave him something far more valuable than those things. She taught him to read. Sophia Auld did not come from a family that kept slaves.

But she was delighted to see how quickly Frederick learned, and he loved his lessons. Hugh Auld was not so pleased. He scolded Sophia that reading would ruin Frederick as a slave. He thought, like many other slaveholders, that if slaves knew how to read they might learn about ideas that made them question slavery. They might start thinking about freedom and democracy.

They might rebel or run away. She stopped teaching Frederick. She became distant and cold. Hugh Weld was right about one thing though. Reading gave Frederick power. Like many enslaved people, Frederick had wished for freedom even before he could read. But in books, he found people who argued that he deserved freedom, who said he was just as human as any white person.

He learned about people and ideas that gave him the strength to keep hoping — for his own freedom and that of all enslaved people. He befriended white children in the streets of Baltimore. He convinced them to help him with his reading and writing. They saw Frederick as just another little boy. By the time he was 12, he convinced many of these children that he should be free when he grew up, just like them.

Thomas Auld was far more strict than Hugh, and he and Frederick clashed from the beginning. But maybe he secretly wished that frederick douglas biography for kids could be so easy for him. Thomas soon got tired of this behavior. He thought he knew how to teach Frederick to be obedient and meek. He sent him to live with a man named Edward Covey.

Covey was the worst person yet. He worked Frederick harder than any other master had, and punished him more cruelly. Douglass reached Havre de Grace, Marylandin Harford Countyin the northeast corner of the state, along the southwest shore of the Susquehanna Riverwhich flowed into the Chesapeake Bay. Although this placed him only some 20 miles 32 km from the Maryland—Pennsylvania state line, it was easier to continue by rail through Delaware, another slave state.

Dressed in a sailor's uniform provided to him by Murray, who also gave him part of her savings to cover his travel costs, he carried identification papers and protection papers that he had obtained from a free black seaman. Douglass crossed the wide Susquehanna River by the railroad's steam-ferry at Havre de Grace to Perryville on the opposite shore, in Cecil Countythen continued by train across the state line to Wilmington, Delawarea large port at the head of the Delaware Bay.

From there, because the rail line was not yet completed, he went by steamboat along the Delaware River further northeast to the "Quaker City" of PhiladelphiaPennsylvania, an anti-slavery stronghold. His entire journey to freedom took less than 24 hours. Douglass later wrote of his arrival in New York City:. I have often been asked, how I felt when first I found myself on free soil.

And my readers may share the same curiosity. There is scarcely anything in my experience about which I could not give a more satisfactory answer. A new world had opened upon me. If life is more than breath, and the "quick round of blood," I lived more in one day than in a year of my slave life. It was a time of joyous excitement which words can but tamely describe.

In a letter written to a friend soon after reaching New York, I said: "I felt as one might feel upon escape from a den of hungry lions. Once Douglass had arrived, he sent for Murray to follow him north to New York. She brought the basics for them to set up a home. They were married on September 15,by a black Presbyterian minister, just eleven days after Douglass had reached New York.

At first they adopted Johnson as their married name, to divert attention. The couple settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts an abolitionist center, full of former enslaved peopleinmoving to Lynn, Massachusettsin After meeting and staying with Nathan and Mary Johnsonthey adopted Douglass as their married name. Douglass had grown up using his mother's surname of Bailey; after escaping slavery he had changed his surname first to Stanley and then to Johnson.

In New Bedford, the latter was such a common name that he wanted one that was more distinctive, and asked Nathan Johnson to choose a suitable surname. Nathan suggested "Douglass", after having read the poem The Lady of the Lake by Walter Scottin which two of the principal characters have the surname " Douglas ". Douglass thought of joining a white Methodist Churchbut was disappointed, from the beginning, upon finding that it was segregated.

He became a licensed preacher inwhich helped him to hone his oratorical skills. He held various positions, including steward, Sunday-school superintendent, and sexton. InDouglass delivered a speech in Elmira, New Yorkthen a station on the Underground Railroadin which a black congregation would form years later, becoming the region's largest church by Douglass also joined several organizations in New Bedford and regularly attended abolitionist meetings.

He later said that "no face and form ever impressed me with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as did those of William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass and had written about his anti- colonization stance in The Liberator as early as At another meeting, Douglass was unexpectedly invited to speak. After telling his story, Douglass was encouraged to become an anti-slavery lecturer.

Then 23 years old, Douglass conquered his nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about his life as a slave. While living in Lynn, Douglass engaged in an early protest against segregated transportation. Buffum were thrown off an Eastern Railroad train because Douglass refused to sit in the segregated railroad coach. InDouglass joined other speakers in the American Anti-Slavery Society 's "Hundred Conventions" project, a six-month tour at meeting halls throughout the eastern and midwestern United States.

During this tour, slavery supporters frequently accosted Douglass. At a lecture in Pendleton, Indianaan angry mob chased and beat Douglass before a local Quaker family, the Hardys, rescued him. His hand was broken in the attack; it healed improperly and bothered him for the rest of his life. I have no country. What country have I?

The Institutions of this Country do not know me—do not recognize me as a man. Douglass's best-known work is his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slavewritten during his time in Lynn, Massachusetts and published in At the time, some skeptics questioned whether a black man could have produced such an eloquent piece of literature.

The book received generally positive reviews and became an immediate bestseller. Within three years, it had been reprinted nine times, with 11, copies circulating in the United States. It was also translated into French and Dutch and published in Europe. Douglass published three autobiographies during his lifetime and revised the third of theseeach time expanding on the previous one.

The Narrative was his biggest seller and probably allowed him to raise the funds to gain his legal freedom the following year, as discussed below. Inin his sixties, Douglass published Life and Times of Frederick Douglasswhich he revised in Douglass's friends and mentors feared that the publicity would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his "property" back.

They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former slaves had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for LiverpoolEngland, on August 16, He traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning. Douglass was astounded by the extreme levels of poverty he encountered, much of it reminding him of his experiences in slavery. In a letter to William Lloyd GarrisonDouglass wrote "I see much here to remind me of my former condition, and I confess I should be ashamed to lift up my voice against American slavery, but that I know the cause of humanity is one the world over.

He who really and truly feels for the American slave, cannot steel his heart to the woes of others; and he who thinks himself an abolitionist, yet cannot enter into the wrongs of others, has yet to find a true foundation for his anti-slavery faith. He also met and befriended the Irish nationalist and strident abolitionist Daniel O'Connellwho was to be a great inspiration.

Douglass spent two years in Ireland and Great Britain, lecturing in churches and chapels. His draw was such that some facilities were "crowded to suffocation". Douglass remarked that in England he was treated not "as a color, but as a man". InDouglass met with Thomas Clarksonone of the last living British abolitionistswho had persuaded Parliament to abolish slavery in Great Britain's colonies.

During this trip Douglass became legally free, as British supporters led by Anna Richardson and her sister-in-law Ellen of Newcastle upon Tyne raised funds to buy his freedom from his American owner Thomas Auld. Many supporters tried to encourage Douglass to remain in England but, with his wife still in Massachusetts and three million of his black brethren in bondage in the United States, he returned to America in the spring ofsoon after the death of Daniel O'Connell.

It commemorates his speech there on October 9, Douglass spent time in Scotland and was appointed "Scotland's Antislavery agent. He considered the city of Edinburgh to be elegant, grand and very welcoming. Maps of the places in the city that were important to his stay are held by the National Library of Scotland. A plaque and a mural on Gilmore Place in Edinburgh mark his stay there in After returning to the U.

Originally, Pittsburgh journalist Martin Delany was co-editor but Douglass didn't feel he brought in enough subscriptions, and they parted ways. Douglass also participated in the Underground Railroad. He and his wife provided lodging and resources in their home to more than four hundred fugitive slaves. Douglass also soon split with Garrison, who he found unwilling to support actions against American slavery.

Earlier Douglass had agreed with Garrison's position that the Constitution was pro-slavery, because of the Three-Fifths Clausethe compromise that provided that 60 percent of the number of enslaved people would be added to "the whole Number of free Persons" for the purpose of apportioning congressional seats; and protection of the international slave trade through Garrison had burned copies of the Constitution to express his opinion.

However, Lysander Spooner published The Unconstitutionality of Slaverywhich examined the United States Constitution as an antislavery document. Douglass's change of opinion about the Constitution and his splitting from Garrison around became one of the abolitionist movement's most notable divisions. Douglass angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery.

In Septemberon the tenth anniversary of his escape, Douglass published an open letter addressed to his former master, Thomas Auld, berating him for his conduct, and inquiring after members of his family still held by Auld. In the course of the letter, Douglass adeptly transitions from formal and restrained to familiar and then to impassioned.

At one point he is the proud parent, describing his improved circumstances and the progress of his own four young children. But then he dramatically shifts tone:. It is then that my feelings rise above my control. The grim horrors of slavery rise in all their ghastly terror before me, the wails of millions pierce my heart, and chill my blood.

I remember the chain, the gag, the bloody whip, the deathlike gloom overshadowing the broken spirit of the fettered bondman, the appalling liability of his being torn away from wife and children, and sold like a beast in the market. In a graphic passage, Douglass asked Auld how he would feel if Douglass had come to take away his daughter Amanda into slavery, treating her the way he and members of his family had been treated by Auld.

Yet in his conclusion Douglass shows his focus and benevolence, stating that he has "no malice towards him personally," and asserts that, "there is no roof under which you would be more safe than mine, and there is nothing in my house which you might need for comfort, which I would not readily grant. Indeed, I should esteem it a privilege, to set you an example as to how mankind ought to treat each other.

InDouglass was the only black person to attend the Seneca Falls Conventionthe first women's rights convention, in upstate New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton asked the assembly to pass a resolution asking for women's suffrage. Many of those present opposed the idea, including influential Quakers James and Lucretia Mott. Douglass stood and spoke eloquently in favor of women's suffrage ; he said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could also not claim that right.

He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere. In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world.

He recalled the "marked ability and dignity" of the proceedings, and briefly conveyed several arguments of the convention and feminist thought at the time. On the first count, Douglass acknowledged the "decorum" of the participants in the face of disagreement. In the remainder, he discussed the primary document that emerged from the conference, a Declaration of Sentiments, and the "infant" frederick douglas biography for kids cause.

Strikingly, he expressed the belief that "[a] discussion of the rights of animals would be regarded with far more complacency His opinion as the editor of a prominent newspaper carried weight, and he stated the position of the North Star explicitly: "We hold woman to be justly entitled to all we claim for man. After the Civil Warwhen the 15th Amendment giving black men the right to vote was being debated, Douglass split with the Stanton-led faction of the women's rights movement.

Douglass supported the amendment, which would grant suffrage to black men. Stanton opposed the 15th Amendment because it limited the expansion of suffrage to black men; she predicted its passage would delay for decades the cause for women's right to vote. Stanton argued that American women and black men should band together to fight for universal suffrageand opposed any bill that split the issues.

Douglass and Stanton both knew that there was not yet enough male support for women's right to vote, but that an amendment giving black men the vote could pass in the late s. Stanton wanted to attach women's suffrage to that of black men so that her cause would be carried to success. Douglass thought such a strategy was too risky, that there was barely enough support for black men's suffrage.

He feared that linking the cause of women's suffrage to that of black men would result in failure for both. Douglass argued that white women, already empowered by their social connections to fathers, husbands, and brothers, at least vicariously had the vote. Black women, he believed, would have the same degree of empowerment as white women once black men had the vote.

Douglass assured the American women that at no time had he ever argued against women's right to vote. Douglass was one of five people whose names were attached to the address of the convention to the people of the United States published under the title, The Claims of Our Common Cause. Wagonerand George Boyer Vashon.

Frederick douglas biography for kids

Like many abolitionists, Douglass believed that education would be crucial for African Americans to improve their lives; he was an early advocate for school desegregation. In the s, Douglass observed that New York's facilities and instruction for African-American children were vastly inferior to those for European Americans. Douglass called for court action to open all schools to all children.

He said that full inclusion within the educational system was a more pressing need for African Americans than political issues such as suffrage. Douglass met Brown again when Brown visited his home two months before leading the raid on Harpers Ferry. Brown penned his Provisional Constitution during his two-week stay with Douglass. Also staying with Douglass for over a year was Shields Greena fugitive slave whom Douglass was helping, as he often did.

Shortly before the raid, Douglass, taking Green with him, travelled from Rochester, via New York City, to Chambersburg, PennsylvaniaBrown's communications headquarters. He was recognized there by black people, who asked him for a lecture. Douglass agreed, although he said his only topic was slavery. Green joined him on the stage; Brown, incognitosat in the audience.

There, in an abandoned stone quarry for secrecy, Douglass and Green met with Brown and John Henri Kagito discuss the raid. After discussions lasting, as Douglass put it, "a day and a night", he disappointed Brown by declining to join him. Anne Brown said that Green told her that Douglass promised to pay him on his return, but David Blight called this "much more ex post facto bitterness than reality".

Almost all that is known about this incident comes from Douglass. It is clear that it was of immense importance to him, both as a frederick douglas biography for kids point in his life—not accompanying John Brown—and its importance in his public image. The meeting was not revealed by Douglass for 20 years. He first disclosed it in his speech on John Brown at Storer College intrying unsuccessfully to raise money to support a John Brown professorship at Storer, to be held by a black man.

He again referred to it stunningly in his last Autobiography. After the raid, which took place between October 16 and 18,Douglass was accused both of supporting Brown and of not supporting him enough. He was nearly arrested on a Virginia warrant, and fled for a brief time to Canada before proceeding onward to England on a previously planned lecture tour, arriving near the end of November.

Frederick Douglass was luckily sent to a home to live where the white woman in the household began to teach him to read. Later, he learned from other white students and neighbors and this started his journey into being a self-taught individual. Reading newspapers of the day helped Douglass to come to realize how wrong slavery was and he became more familiar with the abolitionists people who wanted to free the slaves views.

He tried to escape slavery twice and finally succeeded with the help of a free black woman who gave him papers to show he was free. He ended up in Maryland and then sent for the woman that had helped him, as he had fallen in love with her and they were married and moved to Massachusetts. They settled in a community that had a lot of free African Americans and he continued to follow the writings of many of the abolitionists, including William Lloyd Garrison, publisher of the newspaper The Liberator.