Editing Frederick Douglass (section)

==Early life and slavery==

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born into [[Slavery in the United States|slavery]] on the [[Eastern Shore of Maryland|Eastern Shore]] of the [[Chesapeake Bay]] in [[Talbot County, Maryland]]. The [[plantation]] was between [[Hillsboro, Maryland|Hillsboro]] and [[Cordova, Maryland|Cordova]];<ref name="narrative">{{Cite book |last=Frederick Douglass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass&pg=PA16 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself |year=1845 | publisher=Forgotten Books |archive-date=December 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217035243/https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&pg=PA16&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass |url-status=live }}<br />"I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." (Tuckahoe refers to the area west of [[Tuckahoe Creek]] in Talbot County.)</ref> his birthplace was likely his grandmother's cabin{{efn|"The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads up stairs, and its clay floor down stairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides ... was MY HOME – the only home I ever had; and I loved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old well...." {{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/douglass55/douglass55.html#p44 |title=My Bondage and My Freedom |year=1855 |access-date=November 3, 2017}}|name=|}} east of Tappers Corner and west of [[Tuckahoe Creek]].<ref>Barker, Amanda. [1996]. "[http://www.choptankriverheritage.org/douglass/ The Search for Frederick Douglass' Birthplace] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141207140622/http://www.choptankriverheritage.org/douglass/|date=December 7, 2014}}. ''Choptank River Heritage''. Retrieved June 14, 2020.

Although Barker's website devoted to the Douglass birthplace states that it could not be found with tour books and guides, that is no longer the case.</ref><ref>Barker, Don. February 4, 2014. "[https://choptankriverheritage.org/wp3/the-search-for-frederick-douglasss-birthplace/ The Search for Frederick Douglass's Birthplace] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200731214753/https://choptankriverheritage.org/wp3/the-search-for-frederick-douglasss-birthplace/ |date=July 31, 2020 }}." ''Choptank River Heritage''. Retrieved June 14, 2020.</ref><ref name=":1">"[https://web.archive.org/web/20161222223221/http://www.hstc.org/museum-gardens/frederick-douglass Frederick Douglass | Museums and Gardens]." ''Talbot Historic Society''. 2016. Archived from the [http://www.hstc.org/museum-gardens/frederick-douglass original] on December 22, 2016. Retrieved December 22, 2016.</ref> In his first autobiography, Douglass stated: "I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it."<ref name="Narrative">{{Cite book |last=Frederick Douglass |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass&pg=PA16 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself |year=1845 | publisher=Forgotten Books |archive-date=December 17, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191217035243/https://books.google.com/books?id=k5c1THo4xpUC&pg=PA16&q=autobiography%20frederick%20douglass |url-status=live }}<br />Frederick Douglass began his own story thusly: "I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland." (Tuckahoe is not a town; it refers to the area west of [[Tuckahoe Creek]] in Talbot County.) In successive autobiographies, Douglass gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817.</ref> In successive autobiographies, he gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817.<ref name="narrative" /> However, based on the extant records of Douglass's former owner, Aaron Anthony, historian Dickson J. Preston determined that Douglass was born in February 1818.<ref name="Preston" /> Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her "Little [[Valentine's Day|Valentine]]".<ref name="Life1882p2" /><ref>[https://fcit.usf.edu/project/fd/#:~:text=Although%20Douglass'%20actual%20birthdate%20is,orator%2C%20writer%2C%20and%20statesman. February 14: Frederick Douglass] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615000948/https://fcit.usf.edu/project/fd/#:~:text=Although%20Douglass'%20actual%20birthdate%20is,orator%2C%20writer%2C%20and%20statesman|date=June 15, 2020}}. ''The Florida Center for Instructional Technology''. US: [[University of South Florida]]. 2020.</ref>

=== Birth family ===

Douglass's enslaved mother was of [[African diaspora|African]] descent and his father, who may have been her master, was apparently of European descent;<ref>{{Cite book |last=Davis|first= F. James |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9d9FC-gcWaAC&q=Who+is+Black |title=Who is Black? One Nation's Definition |year= 2010 |publisher=Penn State Press |isbn=978-0-271-04463-7 |page=5 |access-date=October 9, 2020 |archive-date=December 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201221122638/https://books.google.com/books?id=9d9FC-gcWaAC&q=Who+is+Black |url-status=live }}</ref> in his ''Narrative'' (1845), Douglass wrote: "My father was a white man."<ref name="narrative"/> According to [[David W. Blight]]'s 2018 biography of Douglass, "For the rest of his life he searched in vain for the name of his true father."<ref>{{cite book|author=David W. Blight|title=Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom|year=2018|publisher=Simon & Schuster|page=13}}</ref> Douglass's genetic heritage likely also included Native American.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Dickson J. Preston |title=Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years |date=1980 |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |page=10}}</ref> Douglass said his mother Harriet Bailey gave him his name Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey and, after he escaped to the North in September 1838, he took the surname [[Douglass family|Douglass]], having already dropped his two middle names.<ref>''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', ch. XI.</ref>

He later wrote of his earliest times with his mother:<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6th |location=London |page=10 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

<blockquote>The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing. ... My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant. ... It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. ... I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone.</blockquote>

After separation from his mother during infancy, young Frederick lived with his [[maternal grandmother]] Betsy Bailey, who was also enslaved, and his maternal grandfather Isaac, who was [[Free people of color|free]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |author-link=William S. McFeely |url=https://archive.org/details/frederickdouglas00will_0 |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Co.|isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York |pages=3–5 |url-access=registration}}</ref> Betsy would live until 1849.<ref>Sterngass, Jon. 2009. ''Frederick Douglass'', (''Leaders of the Civil War era''). [[Chelsea House Publishers]]. {{ISBN|1-60413-306-6}}. p. [https://books.google.com/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA16 16] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615040201/https://books.google.ca/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA16|date=June 15, 2020}}, [https://books.google.com/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA132 132] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200615000946/https://books.google.ca/books?id=QMstpTuOEpkC&pg=PA132|date=June 15, 2020}}</ref> Frederick's mother remained on the plantation about {{Convert|12|miles|km|abbr=}} away, visiting Frederick only a few times before her death when he was 7 years old.

Returning much later, about 1883, to purchase land in Talbot County that was meaningful to him, he was invited to address "a colored school":

{{Poemquote|I once knew a little colored boy whose mother and father died when he was six years old. He was a slave and had no one to care for him. He slept on a dirt floor in a hovel, and in cold weather would crawl into a meal bag head foremost and leave his feet in the ashes to keep them warm. Often he would roast an ear of corn and eat it to satisfy his hunger, and many times has he crawled under the barn or stable and secured eggs, which he would roast in the fire and eat.

That boy did not wear pants like you do, but a tow linen shirt. Schools were unknown to him, and he learned to spell from an old Webster's spelling-book and to read and write from posters on cellar and barn doors, while boys and men would help him. He would then preach and speak, and soon became well known. He became Presidential Elector, United States Marshal, United States Recorder, United States diplomat, and accumulated some wealth. He wore broadcloth and didn't have to divide crumbs with the dogs under the table. That boy was Frederick Douglass.<ref>{{cite journal
|title=Fred. Douglass dead
|first=Kate
|last=Field
|author-link=Kate Field
|journal=Kate Field's Washington
|volume=11
|number=8
|date=February 23, 1895
|page=119
|url=https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=155
|access-date=March 21, 2022
|archive-date=March 21, 2022
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220321013118/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.c2605441&view=1up&seq=155
|url-status=live
}}</ref>}}

===Early learning and experience===

==== The Auld family ====
{{Slavery}}At the age of 6, Douglass was separated from his grandparents and moved to the [[Wye House]] [[Plantations in the American South|plantation]], where Aaron Anthony worked as overseer<ref name=":1" /> and [[Edward Lloyd (Governor of Maryland)|Edward Lloyd]] was his unofficial master.<ref>{{Cite book |last=McFeely |first=William S. |title=Frederick Douglass |date=1991 |publisher=W. W. Norton & Co.|isbn=978-0-393-02823-2 |location=New York & London |pages=12}}</ref> After Anthony died in 1826, Douglass was given to Lucretia Auld, wife of Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve Thomas's brother Hugh Auld and his wife Sophia Auld in [[Baltimore]]. From the day he arrived, Sophia saw to it that Douglass was properly fed and clothed, and that he slept in a bed with sheets and a blanket.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in Crisis: The Making of Five Courageous Leaders |publisher=Scribner |year=2017 |isbn=978-1-5011-7444-5 |location=New York}}</ref> Douglass described her as a kind and tender-hearted woman, who treated him "as she supposed one human being ought to treat another."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. 1845. "[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave#Chapters 5–7|Chapter VII]]."</ref> Douglass felt that he was lucky to be in the city, where he said enslaved people were almost [[Freedman|freemen]], compared to those on plantations.

When Douglass was about 12, Sophia Auld began teaching him the [[alphabet]]. Hugh Auld disapproved of the tutoring, feeling that [[literacy]] would encourage enslaved people to desire freedom. Douglass later referred to this as the "first decidedly [[Abolitionism|antislavery]] lecture" he had ever heard. "'Very well, thought I,'" wrote Douglass. "'Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave.' I instinctively assented to the proposition, and from that moment I understood the direct pathway from slavery to freedom."<ref>Douglass, Frederick. [1881–82] 2003. ''[[Life and Times of Frederick Douglass|Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time]]'' (''Dover Value Editions''). p. 50. [[Courier Dover Publications]]. {{ISBN|0-486-43170-3}}.</ref>

Under her husband's influence, Sophia came to believe that education and slavery were incompatible and one day snatched a newspaper away from Douglass.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6th |location=London |page=39 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref> She stopped teaching him altogether and hid all potential reading materials, including her Bible, from him.<ref name=":0" /> In his autobiography, Douglass related how he learned to read from white children in the neighborhood and by observing the writings of the men with whom he worked.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself. |publisher=H.G. Collins |year=1851 |edition=6th |location=London |pages=43–44 |access-date=October 26, 2015 |archive-date=May 10, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160510025244/https://books.google.com/books?id=U69bAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA10 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Douglass continued, secretly, to teach himself to read and write. He later often said, "knowledge is the pathway from slavery to freedom."<ref>[[Kwame Anthony Appiah|Appiah, Kwame Anthony]]. [2000] 2004. "Introduction." In ''[[Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave|<nowiki/>'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave']] & [[Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl|'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'<nowiki/>]]''. New York: [[Modern Library]]. pp. xiii, 4.</ref> As Douglass began to read newspapers, pamphlets, political materials, and books of every description, this new realm of thought led him to question and condemn the institution of slavery. In later years, Douglass credited ''[[The Columbian Orator]]'', an anthology that he discovered at about age 12, with clarifying and defining his views on freedom and human rights. First published in 1797, the book is a classroom reader, containing essays, speeches, and dialogues, to assist students in learning reading and grammar. He later learned that his mother had also been literate, about which he would later declare:

<blockquote>I am quite willing, and even happy, to attribute any love of letters I possess, and for which I have got—despite of prejudices—only too much credit, ''not'' to my admitted Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable, unprotected, and uncultivated ''mother''—a woman, who belonged to a race whose mental endowments it is, at present, fashionable to hold in disparagement and contempt.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=My Bondage and My Freedom |date=1855 |publisher=Miller, Orton & Mulligan |edition=1st |location=New York and Auburn |page=[https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:My_Bondage_and_My_Freedom_(1855).djvu/68 58]}}</ref></blockquote>

====William Freeland====
When Douglass was hired out to William Freeland, he "gathered eventually more than thirty male slaves on Sundays, and sometimes even on weeknights, in a Sabbath literacy school."<ref>[[David W. Blight|Blight, David W.]], ''Frederick Douglass: Prophet of Freedom'', p.&nbsp;68.</ref>

====Edward Covey====
In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass back from Hugh ("[a]s a means of punishing Hugh," Douglass later wrote). Thomas sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a poor farmer who had a reputation as a "slave-breaker". He [[Flagellation|whipped]] Douglass so frequently that his wounds had little time to heal. Douglass later said the frequent whippings broke his body, soul, and spirit.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Koehn |first=Nancy |title=Forged in crisis: the power of courageous leadership in turbulent times |date=2018 |isbn=978-1-5011-7445-2 |page=222|publisher=Scribner }}</ref> The 16-year-old Douglass finally rebelled against the beatings, however, and fought back. After Douglass won a physical confrontation, Covey never tried to beat him again.<ref>Bowers, Jerome. "[http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495 Frederick Douglass] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110830143151/http://teachinghistory.org/best-practices/examples-of-historical-thinking/23495|date=August 30, 2011}}." ''[[Teachinghistory.org]]''. US: [[Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media]]. 2018. Retrieved June 14, 2020.</ref><ref>{{cite web |date=February 21, 2018 |title=Frederick Douglass's Vision of Manhood The Objective Standard |url=https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/frederick-douglasss-vision-manhood/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210709191335/https://theobjectivestandard.com/2018/02/frederick-douglasss-vision-manhood/ |archive-date=July 9, 2021 |access-date=July 8, 2021 |website=theobjectivestandard.com |last1=Sandefur |first1=Timothy }}</ref>

Recounting his beatings at Covey's farm in ''Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave'', Douglass described himself as "a man transformed into a brute!"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |publisher=Anti-Slavery Office |year=1845 |location=Boston |page=63}}</ref> Still, Douglass came to see his physical fight with Covey as life-transforming, and introduced the story in his autobiography as such: "You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Douglass |first=Frederick |title=Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave |publisher=Anti-Slavery Office |year=1845 |location=Boston |pages=65–66}}</ref>