A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave

Frederick Douglas

ISBN 10: 1516935802 / ISBN 13: 9781516935802

Published by CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2015

Readable copy. Pages may have considerable notes/highlighting. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less. Seller Inventory # G1516935802I5N00

Synopsis:

A Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is the memoir of one of the first nationally-known and respected African-American activists, writers, and thinkers, Frederick Douglass. Douglass was born into slavery and bought his freedom as an adult. He had learned to read and write, and appeared to be so cultured and educated that many people were skeptical that he had ever been a slave. He wrote his memoir in part to disabuse these doubters. Large portions of the memoir were intended to aid the abolitionist movement. Douglass gave first-hand evidence of the evils of slavery, and devastated the then-popular notion that slaves were better off in the hands of their owners than they would be as free men and women. This book played an important role in the gradual rise of the anti-slavery movement, culminating in the Civil War and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Douglass met with Lincoln in the White House during the War, and his voice was an important one for decades in the mid-Nineteenth Century.

About the Author: Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. He was not sure of the exact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore, to be a house servant, where he learned to read and write, with the assistance of his master’s wife. In 1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New York City, where he married Anna Murray, a free colored woman whom he had met in Baltimore. Soon thereafter he changed his name to Frederick Douglass. In 1841 he addressed a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket and so greatly impressed the group that they immediately employed him as an agent. He was such an impressive orator that numerous persons doubted if he had ever been a slave, so he wrote Narrative Of The Life Of Frederick Douglass. During the Civil War he assisted in the recruiting of colored men for the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments and consistently argued for the emancipation of slaves. After the war he was active in securing and protecting the rights of the freemen. In his later years, at different times, he was secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission, marshall and recorder of deeds of the District of Columbia, and United States Minister to Haiti. His other autobiographical works are My Bondage And My Freedom and Life And Times Of Frederick Douglass, published in 1855 and 1881 respectively. He died in 1895.

Bibliographic Details

Title: A Narrative of the Life of Frederick ...
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Publication Date: 2015
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Fair
Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket