On September 3, 1838, abolitionist, journalist, author, and human rights advocate Frederick Douglass made his dramatic escape from slavery—traveling north by train and boat—from Baltimore, through Delaware, to Philadelphia. That same night, he took a train to New York, where he arrived the following morning.
“On Monday, the third day of September, 1838, in accordance with my resolution, I bade farewell to the city of Baltimore, and to that slavery which had been my abhorrence from childhood.”
Life and Times of Frederick Douglass: His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and his Complete History to the Present TimeExternal. Hartford, Conn: Park Publishing Co., 1881.North American Slave NarrativesExternal. Documenting the American SouthExternal. University of North Carolina Libraries
Born into slavery on a plantation in Tuckahoe, Maryland, circa 1817, he was the son of a black mother and an unidentified white father. He never knew the date of his birth, but celebrated his birthday on February 14 in memory of his mother, who had brought him a heart-shaped cake on the night that he last saw her.
Only a small boy when his mother died, Douglass, born Frederick Bailey, lived with his grandmother in the slave quarters until he was eight years old, when he was “hired out” and sent to work in the home of Hugh Auld. While working for the Auld family in Baltimore, Frederick began to acquire a formal education. Mrs. Auld broke Maryland state law in order to teach the young boy to read, and Frederick later tried to learn all he could from schoolboys he met on the streets of Baltimore.
After an earlier unsuccessful attempt, Frederick escaped from slavery in 1838 by posing as a free sailor wearing a red shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and a black scarf tied loosely around his neck. He boarded a train bound for Philadelphia.
On sped the train, and I was well on my way…when the conductor came into the negro car to collect tickets and examine the papers of his black passengers. This was a critical moment in the drama.
Chapter from Frederick Douglass’s Draft Manuscript of His Autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. ca 1880. Frederick Douglass Papers at the Library of Congress. Manuscript Division
Frederick had to be able to sound, as well as look, like a sailor:
My knowledge of ships and sailor’s talk came much to my assistance, for I knew a ship from stem to stern, and from keelson to cross-trees, and could talk sailor like an ‘old salt.’
Life and Times of Frederick DouglassExternal. 1881. Documenting the American SouthExternal. University of North Carolina Libraries
Overjoyed at being free when he reached New York City, Frederick immediately had to face feelings of loneliness and fear as a stranger in a strange land. Fortunately, he was soon given assistance by free black abolitionist and activist David Ruggles.
Two weeks after reaching a free state, Douglass married Anna Murray, a free black woman whom he had met in Baltimore. He settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, where his experience as a ship caulker enabled him to find work on the docks. In New Bedford, Frederick gave a friend the privilege of choosing for him a new name, since he might be sought under the old name as a runaway:
I gave Mr. Johnson the privilege of choosing me a name, but told him he must not take from me the name of “Frederick.” I must hold on to that, to preserve a sense of my identity. Mr. Johnson had just been reading the Lady of the Lake, and at once suggested that my name be “Douglass.”
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveExternal. 1845. Documenting the American SouthExternal. University of North Carolina Libraries
Three years later, Frederick Douglass began to give lectures on behalf of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Douglass wrote Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveExternal in part to refute charges that it was impossible that someone of his accomplishments could have been a slave.
“My Escape from Slavery”External, by Frederick Douglass, was published in November 1881 in The Century Illustrated Magazine. His fully revised autobiography was published as Life and Times of Frederick DouglassExternal, also in 1881. In this section of his revised autobiography, Douglass describes in vivid detail his escape by train from Maryland, where he was legally a slave, north to New York City. Douglass omitted the details of this story from his first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American SlaveExternal out of concern for the safety of those who helped him escape and for others still held in slavery.
With proceeds from the Narrative and the aid of money and a press provided by British philanthropists, Frederick Douglass and Martin Delany began in 1847 to edit and publish a newspaper, The North Star, based in Rochester, New York.
The goals of the newspaper were to:
Abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, advocate universal emancipation, exalt the standard of public morality, and promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the colored people, and hasten the day of freedom to the Three Millions of our enslaved fellow countrymen.
The paper also advanced women’s rights, a cause that Douglass had championed since his participation in the first women’s rights convention of 1848 at Seneca Falls, where he spoke out eloquently in support of the Declaration of Sentiments. Douglass was one of the original signers of this manifesto of women’s rights, drafted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
During the Civil War, Douglass advised President Lincoln, urging him to allow the enlistment of African-American soldiers and to frame the conflict as an assault on slavery. He was responsible for recruiting African Americans to fight for the Union, and his own two sons, Charles and Lewis, enlisted in the 54th Massachusetts Regiment.
After the war, Douglass held several appointed government positions, including U.S. marshal of D.C. He continued to fight for the civil rights of African Americans and women. He was U.S. minister and general consul to Haiti from 1889-91.
After Douglass’ death in 1895, the Frederick Douglass Memorial Association purchased “Cedar Hill,” Douglass’ home for the last eighteen years of his life. The association donated the site to the National Park Service which restored the home in 1971-72 with information obtained from the Historic American Buildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Record/Historic American Landscapes Survey collection in the Prints & Photographs Division.
A sheet music cover illustrated with a romanticized portrait of Frederick Douglass’ escape shows Douglass fleeing barefoot from two mounted pursuers who appear across the river behind him with their pack of dogs. Ahead, to the right, a signpost points toward New England.
The cover’s text states that the song was “composed and respectfully dedicated, in token of confident esteem to Frederick Douglass…for his fearless advocacy, signal ability and wonderful success in behalf of His Brothers in Bonds…and to the Fugitives From Slavery…by their friend Jesse Hutchinson, Jr.”
