Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass | |
|---|---|
_(cropped).jpg) Douglass, c. 1879 | |
| United States Minister Resident to Haiti | |
| In office November 14, 1889 – July 30, 1891 | |
| Appointed by | Benjamin Harrison |
| Preceded by | John E. W. Thompson |
| Succeeded by | John S. Durham |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey c. February 14, 1818 Cordova, Maryland, U.S. |
| Died | February 20, 1895 (aged 76–77) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Resting place | Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York, U.S. |
| Political party | Republican |
| Spouse(s) | |
| Relatives | Douglass family |
| Occupation |
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| Signature |  |
Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 14, 1818[a] – February 20, 1895) was an American abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. He escaped from slavery in Maryland in 1838. He became a famous leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York.[5]
Douglass wrote three autobiographies about his time as an enslaved person. They are Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845), My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
Douglass spent several years in England and Ireland. During the Civil War, Douglass was the most famous black man in the country. He met Abraham Lincoln. From 1889 to 1891, he was United States minister resident (ambassador) to Haiti under President Benjamin Harris. He was an advocate for equal rights for African Americans.
Notes
[change | change source]- ↑ Douglass estimated that he was born in February 1817.[1] In Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom, p. 9, David W. Blight writes that "a handwritten inventory of slaves, kept by his owner at birth, Aaron Anthony, recorded 'Frederick Augustus, son of Harriet, Feby. 1818.'"[2] This fact was originally revealed in 1980 by Dickson J. Preston in Young Frederick Douglass, p. 36.[3] Douglass celebrated his birthday on February 14, a date now observed as Douglass Day.[4]
References
[change | change source]- ↑ Douglass, Frederick (1881). Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time. London: Christian Age Office. p. 2.
- ↑ The commas after "Augustus" and "Harriet" are not in Dickson J. Prescott's quotation of the document.
- ↑ McFeely, William S. (1991). Frederick Douglass. New York: W.W. Norton & Company. p. 8. ISBN 978-0-393-02823-2.
- ↑ Chambers, Veronica; Jamiel Law (ill.) (February 25, 2021). "How Negro History Week Became Black History Month and Why It Matters Now". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved February 14, 2022.
- ↑ Gatewood, Willard B. Jr. 1981. "Frederick Douglass and the Building of a 'Wall of Anti-Slavery Fire,' 1845–1846. An Essay Review." The Florida Historical Quarterly 59(3):340–344. JSTOR 30147499.