II.

Early Life

Douglass, whose original name was Frederick Augustus Bailey, was born in 1817 in Talbot County, Maryland. The child of a slave, Harriet Bailey, and an unknown white man, Frederick also became a slave because by law children followed the status of their mothers. He was separated from his mother at a very early age and never knew her well. He initially lived with his grandparents and then was placed under the care of a woman called Aunt Katy, who raised slave children on the plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd.

At the age of seven or eight, Frederick was sent to Baltimore to the home of Hugh and Sophia Auld, who were relatives of his master, Thomas Auld. Sophia Auld began to teach Frederick to read from the Bible until her husband forbade such instruction. Frederick had already learned basic literacy skills and secretly used books belonging to Sophia Auld's son to teach himself. When he was about 13, he bought his first book, The Columbian Orator. By studying this work, Frederick became convinced of the injustice of slavery and the right of all people to be free. From the book he also learned public speaking techniques that would later make him one of the greatest orators of his age.

The Aulds found Frederick too independent, so they sent him back to Thomas Auld. His master tried to force him to submit more readily to slavery. When Frederick was about 17, Auld sent him to work for Edward Covey, a 'slave breaker' who specialized in shattering the spirit of rebellious slaves. Covey had Frederick beaten daily for the slightest violation of impossibly strict rules. After nearly six months Frederick resisted Covey, wrestling him to a draw in a fight. After that Covey never attempted to beat him again. Frederick later described his conflict with Covey as “the turning point of my 'life as a slave.'” Before the battle Frederick believed he was 'nothing,' but after it, he emphatically wrote: 'I was a man now.'

Covey returned Frederick to Auld, who then sent him back to Baltimore as an apprentice in a shipyard. He not only learned the caulker’s trade, which involved making ships watertight, but he also learned to write by tracing letters on the prows of these ships. In September 1838 Frederick obtained papers supplied by a free black seaman and, dressed as a sailor just back from sea duty, took a train from Baltimore to New York.

Once in New York, Frederick made his way to the home of David Ruggles, one of the leading black abolitionists in the nation. Ruggles helped him decide on a new name—Frederick Johnson—and also helped him contact his fiancée, Anna Murray, a free black from Baltimore. She arrived a few days later and married Frederick. The couple went to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where Frederick hoped to find work as ship's caulker. However, because of racial discrimination, he was forced to work as common laborer. Frederick struggled to provide for his wife, and nine months later, his first child. The couple eventually had five children, including two sons who served in the United States Army during the Civil War. While in New Bedford, Frederick also decided that his surname, Johnson, was too common. He changed it to Douglass, the name of a character in the poem The Lady of the Lake (1810) by Scottish writer Sir Walter Scott.