Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass was an American abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland. Taught the rudiments of reading while enslaved in Baltimore, he later spent roughly three years back on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where in 1834 he resisted the "slave-breaker" Edward Covey. He escaped to the North in 1838 and settled in Massachusetts, where he became a lecturer for the anti-slavery movement. His 1845 autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, brought him international attention and prompted a lengthy lecture tour of the British Isles (1845-1847), during which British abolitionists purchased his legal freedom in 1846. He founded the newspaper The North Star in Rochester, New York, advised on emancipation and civil rights, and held federal appointments including U.S. Marshal for the District of Columbia and Minister to Haiti. He died in Washington, D.C., in 1895.