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• February 1818 February 20, 1895

Frederick Douglass
Click on the picture to view a short video clip!
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Table of Contents

• Who is Frederick Douglass?
• Early Life
• Middle Years
• Later Years
• Important Dates
• Slavery
• Civil War
• Quotes
• Clothing and Food
• Music
• Vocabulary

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Who is Frederick Douglass?

• The most important thing about Frederick Douglass
  is he worked for the abolition of slavery and for
  racial equality.He believed in civil rights and
  freedom for African-Americans.
• Frederick Douglass was born in a slave cabin, in
  February, 1818, near the town of Easton, on the
  Eastern Shore of Maryland.

• Which state is to the north of Maryland?

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Frederick Douglass Early Life

• These pictures show slave cabins. Douglass was
  born in a cabin much like these.
• Slavery meant that someone owned another person.
  When Frederick Douglass was born, the man who
  owned the farm, called a plantation, owned the
  African American people that were born there.
• Being a slave meant you had no freedoms. You had
  to do exactly what your master, the person who
  owned you, told you to do.

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Frederick Douglass Early Life

• He was raised by his grandparents because his
  mother worked in the fields and rarely saw him.
  His mother died when he was 7.
• When he was about eight he was sent to Baltimore
  to live as a houseboy with relatives of his
  master. His new mistress taught him the alphabet.
  When her husband forbade her to continue her
  instruction, because it was unlawful to teach
  slaves how to read, Frederick learned to read and
  write on his own. He made the neighborhood boys
  his teachers, by giving away his food in exchange
  for lessons in reading and writing.

• How would you feel if you had no family and you
  were sent to live with someone you didnt know?
• Forbade/forbid means to not let someone do
  something. Why was Frederick Douglass forbidden
  to learn to read?
• Why do you think it was unlawful, or against the
  law, to teach a slave to read?

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Frederick Douglass Early Life

• When his master died in Baltimore, Douglass was
  returned to the plantation to work on the farm.
  He was 15.
• He dreamed of freedom and knew that reading and
  writing were important to be able to persuade
  people that slavery was wrong.
• In 1838, at the age of twenty, Douglass succeeded
  in escaping from slavery by pretending to be a
  sailor.
• He went to New York City and later moved to the
  state of Massachusetts.

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Middle Years

• Douglass began to give persuasive speeches
  against slavery. A person who is against slavery
  is called an abolitionist.
• He was a good public speaker and people came to
  hear him speak against slavery.
• He traveled across the Atlantic Ocean to England
  as well as traveling to many places in the
  Northern United States. He told about his life as
  a slave. Thousands of people came to see him and
  hear his words.
• This paper shows an advertisement for an
  anti-slavery rally. This is where people who gave
  speeches would go and other people would listen
  to them.

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Middle Years

• He started a newspaper called the North Star, in
  Rochester, New York. The newspaper was named
  after the north star in the sky that many runaway
  slaves used to guide them to freedom.

Hudson River
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Middle Years

• When Frederick Douglass started a newspaper, he
  used an example of the right of freedom of
  expression. This freedom to be able to speak out
  either for or against something is a freedom
  given to citizens of the United States by the
  United States Constitution.

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Later Years

• The war ended 4 years later, in 1865. Thousands
  of men had died in the war.
• After the war ended in 1865, a new law was passed
  that ended slavery.

• Douglas was thrilled to have slavery ended at
  last. Unfortunately, the end of slavery did not
  mean that African Americans were treated fairly.
  They were not treated fairly.
• Douglass continued to write and travel and speak
  out for fair treatment, equal rights, and justice
  for African Americans. He also believed that
  women should be able to vote, because during his
  lifetime, women could NOT vote.

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Later Years

• In 1872 he moved to Washington DC, the capitol of
  the United States, after his house burned down in
  Rochester, New York.
• This house is now a National Historic Site
• www.nps.gov/frdo/freddoug.html

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Important Dates
Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass
1818 Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a slave, in Tuckahoe, Talbot County, Maryland.
1838 Escapes Slavery to New York and changes his last name to Johnson.
1845 Publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In it, he reveals details that could lead to his arrest as a fugitive slave.
1847 With money raised by English and Irish friends, buys printing press and begins publishing the abolitionist weekly North Star. He continues publishing it until 1851.
1855 Publication of his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom.
1872 The Equal Rights Party nominates Douglass for vice-president of the United States on a ticket headed by Victoria C. Woodhull.
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Process of his Escape
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Slavery

• People who owned ships went to Africa and
  bought slaves from the African people. They put
  the slaves back on the ship and sailed to the
  Colonies where they were sold.

• Slavery has been around for thousands of years.
• It began in the Colonies of American when people
  who owned large farms, called plantations, needed
  people to work on the farms.

This map shows how slaves were taken from
Africa and shipped to many different parts of
the world.
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Slavery

• Some slave owners were kind, but many were cruel.
  
• Most slaves were people who were considered
  "colored." White people saw themselves as being
  superior African American people. Some slaves
  were treated terribly. They would sleep outdoors
  or in small, crowded slave cabins. Some house
  slaves were treated better. They worked hard and
  for long hours or else got beaten, and they
  received no money at all.

This picture was taken in 1861 on a plantation
in Virginia.
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African American/White Population from the 1850
U.S. Consensus
Explain how these population figures affected
each regions stand on the slavery debate issue.
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African American/White Population from the 1850
U.S. Consensus
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Civil War

• The President at that time was Abraham Lincoln.
• Frederick Douglass spoke with President Lincoln
  and asked Lincoln to help free the slaves.

• In 1861 the Northern States in America went to
  war with the Southern States. This war was called
  the Civil War.

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Quotes

• If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
• It is easier to build strong children than to
  repair broken men.
• No man can put a chain about the ankle of his
  fellow man without at last finding the other end
  fastened about his own neck.
• The soul that is within me no man can degrade.

• I didn't know I was a slave until I found out I
  couldn't do the things I wanted.
• I prefer to be true to myself, even at the
  hazard of incurring the ridicule of others,
  rather than to be false, and to incur my own
  abhorrence.

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Clothing and Food

• Clothing

• Food

• Cornmeal
• Salt Pork or Bacon
• Watermelon
• Wild Game Trout
• Occasionally Fruits and Vegetables
• Grits
• Corn

• Cotton Shirts
• Wool and Cotton Pants
• Wool Jacket
• Wool Hat
• Stockings
• Large Leather Shoes

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Music
Click the pictures to listen to some samples of
the music!

• Wade in the Water
• Shortenin' Bread
• Bile Them Cabbage Down
• Rosey
• Soliders Joy
• Run Old Jeremiah
• Aint Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round
• Certainly Lord
• Freedom
• Hold On
• Follow the Drinking Gourd
• I'm Gonna Sit At The Welcome Table

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Vocabulary

• Civil war
• Abraham Lincoln
• Justice
• Equal rights
• Constitution
• Forbid
• Persuade
• Pretend

• Abolitionist
• Freedom
• Slave/slavery
• Master
• Plantation
• Racial equality
• Civil rights
• Succeed

Vocabulary are highlighted in red throughout the
power point.