naTTIE BUNKAR
Born a slave named Frederick Bailey in 1817 or 1818 (the exact date is unknown), Douglass was thought to be the son of Captain Aaron Anthony, his owner. His mother, a slave on his father's plantation, was separated from him at an early age, and he saw her only a few times before she died. The law of slavery dictated that the child followed the condition of the mother, meaning that the children of a woman who was a slave were also slaves, even if their father was a free man. In his early childhood, he lived on a plantation in Maryland, and witnessed much of the brutality that characterized the life of a plantation slave. At the age of seven or eight, he was sent to the house of Hugh Auld, his master's son-in-law's brother, in Baltimore, where he learned to read and write. In addition, he learned about the idea of abolition and about trying to escape to the north. At age 14, he was sent to live on Thomas Auld's plantation, where he experienced very rough treatment and was eventually sent to the slave-breaker Covey. His fight with, and triumph over, Covey represents one of the significant moments of independence in his life. Four years later, at the age of 20, Douglass succeeded in escaping to New York and beginning his life out of slavery. After changing his last name from Bailey to Douglass, he married Anna Murray, a free black whom he had met in Baltimore, and with whom he had two sons (they also had a daughter who did not survive). They moved to Massachusetts, where in 1841 Douglass met the prominent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison and began speaking about his experiences in slavery. Encouraged by his white abolitionist friends to tell his own story, he wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself, which was published by the Anti-Slavery Office in Boston in 1845. It sold 4,500 copies in its first printing, and was translated into French and German as well. Because fugitive slaves could legally be caught and returned to slavery, Douglass was in great danger, and was thus encouraged to travel to Great Britain to lecture on slavery.