Frederick Douglass

He married Anna Murray in 1838. They had five children. Anna was a devoted wife who supported her husband through thick and thin. He became depressed for a while after her death in 1882.

In 1884, he married Helen Pitts - a white feminist 20 years his junior. Their marriage caused considerable controversy as inter-racial marriages were very rare during those days.

He died on February 20, 1895 of natural causes.

He was born to a slave woman, Harriet Bailey, as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey in Maryland. The exact identity of his father or date of his birth is not known. It is assumed that his father was one of his white masters, but there is no verification of this claim.

He was separated from his mother at an early age and was brought up by his maternal grandmother. His mother died when he was ten.

He became the property of Aaron Anthony, the overseer at the Wye House plantation. After the death of Anthony in 1826, he was given to Lucretia Auld.

Lucretia sent him to her brother-in-law, Hugh Auld. His wife Sophia was a kind woman who taught Frederick to read even though it was illegal in those times to teach a slave to read. However, her husband discovered this and stopped her from doing this.

He continued learning from white children in the neighbourhood, and by reading newspapers.

Tired of being ill-treated as a slave, he made an escape attempt in 1836 but was caught and jailed briefly. Thereafter, he was sent back to Hugh and Sophia Auld who, in turn, rented him out to work in a shipyard.

He met various free blacks through his involvement with the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, a debating club for free blacks. One of them was Anna Murray, a housekeeper who would later become his wife.

With help from Anna who provided him a sailor’s uniform and some money, he boarded a train to Havre de Grace on September 3, 1838. From there he traveled to the safe house of abolitionist David Ruggles in New York via Pennsylvania.

On September 15, 1838, he married Anna and settled in Massachusetts adopting the last name of Douglass. He became an active participant in church and abolitionist meetings.

He attended a meeting of the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society in 1841 where he was invited to speak about his experiences. After this, he was motivated by other abolitionists to become an anti-slavery lecturer.

He is mainly known for his work as an abolitionist. He was a social reformer who also campaigned for causes like women and black suffrage.

Despite any formal education, he wrote three in-depth autobiographies that describe his experiences as an escaped slave turned social activist. His books have been translated into several languages.