WEBVTT - Frederick Douglass 0:00:01.160 --> 0:00:04.120 Welcome to steph you missed in history class from how 0:00:04.160 --> 0:00:13.440 Stuff Works dot Com. Hello and welcome to the podcast. 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:17.680 I'm Tracy B. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. We are 0:00:18.280 --> 0:00:22.599 just back from Seneca Falls. Yeah, they were so kind 0:00:22.680 --> 0:00:26.680 to invite us to Convention Days. Yes, at the Women's 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:29.840 Rights National Historical Park. We had a live show there 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:33.720 on Sunday this past Sunday it is now Tuesday. We 0:00:33.840 --> 0:00:38.479 did Unfortunately, though we had a little bit of an 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:41.599 issue with the recording. Yeah, well, it's like there's a 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:45.400 combination of factors. We had the just immense honor of 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:49.839 doing our live show in Wesleyan Chapel, which is where 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:54.120 the Seneca Falls convention was held. As you might imagine 0:00:55.080 --> 0:00:57.840 from a chapel dating back to that area, it is 0:00:57.920 --> 0:01:03.040 essentially a big empty space. It's a big box adjacent 0:01:03.080 --> 0:01:06.880 to the road. Um. So, like for a number of reasons, 0:01:06.920 --> 0:01:09.520 it just we were not able to get clear audio 0:01:09.920 --> 0:01:13.080 of the live show that we did that day. So 0:01:13.200 --> 0:01:15.839 we are still going to talk about Frederick Douglas. Yeah, 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.160 we'll just do, yes, a studio version of that show. 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:23.240 We do. Definitely they'll want to thank the folks of 0:01:23.280 --> 0:01:27.200 the National Park service um and Ashley Nottingham, who was 0:01:27.240 --> 0:01:29.959 a person who did all of the arranging or a 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:32.280 lot of the arranging with us specifically for this, like, 0:01:32.319 --> 0:01:35.480 thank everyone for having us out because we had a 0:01:35.520 --> 0:01:39.920 wonderful time. Yeah, we had. I was so delighted by 0:01:40.000 --> 0:01:43.280 just how fun and kind and welcoming and warm everyone was. 0:01:43.360 --> 0:01:46.560 It was really lovely. Yes. Uh. And it is also 0:01:46.720 --> 0:01:50.800 a better service to Frederick Douglas to to have a nice, 0:01:50.800 --> 0:01:54.400 clean recording of him rather than uh, the somewhat noisier 0:01:54.440 --> 0:01:59.080 one from on the day. So today, as we just said, 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:00.840 we are going to talk about the life and work 0:02:00.840 --> 0:02:04.800 of orator, writer, states of an and social reformer Frederick Douglas. 0:02:05.080 --> 0:02:08.280 Frederick Douglas's work was just tireless and prolific, and we 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:10.640 could literally fill a whole episode of our show just 0:02:10.800 --> 0:02:13.560 listing off the titles of all his writings and all 0:02:13.560 --> 0:02:15.520 the positions that he held, and all the laws that 0:02:15.560 --> 0:02:18.560 he influenced, and all the speeches that he made, and 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:22.320 all the people's whose rights he championed during his lifetime. 0:02:22.520 --> 0:02:25.520 He was even nominated for Vice President of the United 0:02:25.520 --> 0:02:28.840 States on the ticket with Victoria Woodhall in eighteen seventy two. 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:32.160 Just as an example of a thing that happened that 0:02:32.200 --> 0:02:34.280 we're not even going to talk about in detail today. 0:02:35.080 --> 0:02:37.840 So our focus is really going to be on how 0:02:37.960 --> 0:02:42.400 his early life shaped the truly remarkable advocate that he became, 0:02:43.040 --> 0:02:46.240 and that his work with the two primary causes that 0:02:46.280 --> 0:02:49.240 he campaigned the most for. He campaigned for a lot 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:51.840 of stuff that would all fall under the umbrella of 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.320 like humanitarianism and human rights in some way, but the 0:02:55.360 --> 0:02:59.840 two biggest parts where the abolition of slavery and women's suffrage. 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:05.200 Frederick Douglas was born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey around February 0:03:05.280 --> 0:03:08.480 of eighteen eighteen in a region of Maryland's eastern shore 0:03:08.520 --> 0:03:12.160 known as Tuckahoe. He was enslaved from birth, and his 0:03:12.240 --> 0:03:14.840 exact birth date and place of birth are not known. 0:03:15.600 --> 0:03:18.520 His father was white, and although there was speculation that 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:22.239 he may have been the owner or overseer of Douglas's mother, Harriet, 0:03:22.639 --> 0:03:27.000 his identity remains unknown as well. Douglas was separated from 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:29.359 his mother while still a baby and sent to live 0:03:29.400 --> 0:03:33.800 with her parents, Betsy and Isaac Bailey. Betsy was enslaved 0:03:33.840 --> 0:03:36.600 and Isaac was free, and Betsy was known for her 0:03:36.640 --> 0:03:39.200 skills as a nurse and her knack for making and 0:03:39.320 --> 0:03:43.160 using fishing nets, along with being particularly good at growing 0:03:43.200 --> 0:03:46.440 sweet potatoes. People from all around would come to Frederick 0:03:46.480 --> 0:03:48.880 Douglas's grandmother to be like, can you help me out 0:03:48.880 --> 0:03:50.800 with my sweet potatoes because you are the best at 0:03:50.840 --> 0:03:54.040 growing them. That's a good life skill to have, ma'am. 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.560 But Betsy's primary duty was actually caring for children, in 0:03:57.600 --> 0:04:02.360 particular her five daughter's children. Enslaved women were typically sent 0:04:02.520 --> 0:04:05.000 right back to work as soon as possible after giving birth, 0:04:05.040 --> 0:04:07.080 and they were not allowed to raise their own children, 0:04:07.520 --> 0:04:10.400 so Frederick had very little memory of his mother until 0:04:10.480 --> 0:04:13.880 the age of about seven. Those years with his grandmother 0:04:13.960 --> 0:04:17.520 were an odd mix of relative freedom and a growing 0:04:17.640 --> 0:04:21.760 comprehension that he was not free. The children had few 0:04:21.800 --> 0:04:25.080 physical comforts they just they didn't have really playthings or 0:04:25.160 --> 0:04:30.080 much to eat, but they also had few worries or constraints. 0:04:30.120 --> 0:04:32.320 In My Bondage and My Freedom, which was one of 0:04:32.360 --> 0:04:36.560 Douglas's autobiographies, he described the early years of a young 0:04:36.760 --> 0:04:39.719 enslaved boy as quote in a word, he is, for 0:04:39.760 --> 0:04:42.040 the most part of his first eight years of life, 0:04:42.360 --> 0:04:47.640 a spirited, joyous, uproarious, and happy boy upon whom troubles 0:04:47.680 --> 0:04:51.440 fall only like water on a duck's back. But as 0:04:51.440 --> 0:04:54.840 he got older, Douglas gradually came to perceive that the 0:04:54.880 --> 0:04:58.000 cabin that they were living in was not his grandmother's 0:04:58.160 --> 0:05:01.320 It and his grandmother, all of the other children, and 0:05:01.400 --> 0:05:04.400 he himself were in fact the property of someone they 0:05:04.480 --> 0:05:08.159 knew as old Master, and that was Captain Aaron Anthony, 0:05:08.560 --> 0:05:11.720 and Douglas faced a dawning understanding that he would at 0:05:11.800 --> 0:05:14.719 some point be forced to leave his grandmother to begin 0:05:14.839 --> 0:05:18.200 a life of enslaved labor. That happened when Douglas was 0:05:18.279 --> 0:05:20.359 seven or eight, and he was sent to the plantation 0:05:20.400 --> 0:05:23.680 of Colonel Edward Lloyd, who had previously been governor of 0:05:23.720 --> 0:05:27.119 Maryland and a United States Senator. And they're a woman 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.400 known as Aunt Katie was the one responsible for the children, 0:05:30.640 --> 0:05:32.760 including some of her own, so she was sort of 0:05:32.800 --> 0:05:35.800 an exception to the typical behavior that women were not 0:05:35.839 --> 0:05:39.520 allowed to raise their own children. Aunt Katie's treatment of 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:43.800 the children was incredibly cruel, and Douglas often went hungry 0:05:43.920 --> 0:05:46.200 when she would give his share of food to her 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:50.080 own children instead. And it was on Lloyd's plantation that 0:05:50.160 --> 0:05:52.720 Douglas got to see just a little more of his mother, 0:05:52.839 --> 0:05:56.960 who was a field hand on another plantation. Even then, however, 0:05:57.000 --> 0:05:59.120 he didn't see her very often at all, and she 0:05:59.240 --> 0:06:02.640 died when he was not yet ten years old. After 0:06:02.680 --> 0:06:06.200 her death, Douglas learned that, quite unusually for a field hand, 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:09.400 she had actually known how to read, and in later years, 0:06:09.480 --> 0:06:13.479 when racist commentators suggested that his skill with language probably 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.120 came from his white father, he would insist that the 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.080 credit should instead go to his mother. He still wasn't 0:06:20.120 --> 0:06:22.320 at this point in his life big enough to do 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:26.360 field work, so while on Lloyd's plantation, Douglas did chores 0:06:26.400 --> 0:06:30.400 and errands, mainly for Lucretia Auld, who was Captain Anthony's 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.800 married daughter. When Douglas was about eight, he was then 0:06:33.880 --> 0:06:36.799 hired out to another one of the Alds, Hugh Auld, 0:06:36.960 --> 0:06:40.120 Lucretia's brother in law, who worked as a ship carpenter 0:06:40.160 --> 0:06:44.200 in Baltimore. Douglas would later describe this as quote one 0:06:44.200 --> 0:06:47.240 of the most interesting and fortunate events of my life. 0:06:47.960 --> 0:06:50.919 Not only was he removed from the cruelty and brutality 0:06:50.920 --> 0:06:54.960 of the plantation, but he was also introduced to Hugh's wife, Sophia. 0:06:55.600 --> 0:06:59.279 Apparently unaware that it was illegal, or that it's illegality 0:06:59.400 --> 0:07:03.680 was a techno for controlling enslaved people. Sophia taught Frederick 0:07:03.760 --> 0:07:07.320 to read. Hugh All put a stop to these reading 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.960 lessons as soon as he found out about them, but 0:07:11.040 --> 0:07:13.560 it was at this point too late to stop Douglas 0:07:13.600 --> 0:07:16.920 from learning how to read. And Frederick Douglas had already 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.360 realized that literacy would be a key to finding his 0:07:20.520 --> 0:07:25.240 way to freedom. So when Sophia's reading lessons stopped, Douglas 0:07:25.240 --> 0:07:28.240 started trading his bread to white children that he would 0:07:28.320 --> 0:07:31.000 run into when he was out on the old Errands. 0:07:31.080 --> 0:07:33.560 And he would do this in exchange for their teaching 0:07:33.640 --> 0:07:36.680 him a few words out of a Webster's spelling book. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.480 He also gradually saved enough money to buy another book, 0:07:40.560 --> 0:07:43.640 The Columbian Orator, and this was a collection of speeches 0:07:43.680 --> 0:07:46.360 and essays and poems that had come into use as 0:07:46.360 --> 0:07:50.040 a school book. It began with general instructions for speaking, 0:07:50.200 --> 0:07:52.800 and it included the work of men like George Washington, 0:07:53.040 --> 0:07:57.840 John Milton, Socrates, and Cistero. And this he read and reread, 0:07:58.160 --> 0:08:01.320 finding a piece called Dialogue between a Master and Slave 0:08:01.560 --> 0:08:05.080 particularly compelling, and in that piece of writing, a master 0:08:05.240 --> 0:08:09.440 chastises his recaptured slave for having run away, and the slave, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:14.280 eloquently dissecting the inhumanity and injustice of slavery, convinces the 0:08:14.360 --> 0:08:17.000 master to free him. This is to me one of 0:08:17.000 --> 0:08:19.880 the most amazing things about Frederick Douglas. He was not 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:24.440 just teaching himself to read by practicing. He was teaching 0:08:24.520 --> 0:08:28.040 himself rhetoric and how to make an argument and eloquence 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:31.400 by studying this work, and the whole time that he 0:08:31.480 --> 0:08:35.720 was living in Baltimore, he continued teaching himself, eventually also 0:08:35.880 --> 0:08:39.160 using old copybooks and school books belonging to the auld 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:42.160 Son in order to teach himself how to write, and 0:08:42.200 --> 0:08:45.720 as he got older, he started teaching other enslaved children 0:08:45.760 --> 0:08:49.760 he met to read as well. Baltimore was formative in 0:08:49.800 --> 0:08:53.560 other ways to Douglas. First heard the word abolition while 0:08:53.559 --> 0:08:55.920 he was there, and he began to piece together that 0:08:55.960 --> 0:08:59.880 there was an ambolitionist movement working to end slavery. He 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:04.120 also became religious, worshiping in an African Methodist Episcopal church, 0:09:04.160 --> 0:09:07.959 while simultaneously coming to understand that the scriptures were being 0:09:08.040 --> 0:09:12.000 used to both justify slavery and to convince enslaved people 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.840 that they should submit to it. He became increasingly aware 0:09:15.840 --> 0:09:19.720 of the hypocrisy of Christian slave owners who applied Christ's 0:09:19.760 --> 0:09:23.199 teachings only to white men while treating their enslaved workforce 0:09:23.280 --> 0:09:27.480 with severe cruelty. Frederick Douglas remained in Baltimore for about 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:31.760 seven years. At this point, there was a series of 0:09:32.000 --> 0:09:36.040 deaths within his owner's family, as well as some inner 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.400 family drama, and Thomas all demanded that he be returned 0:09:40.440 --> 0:09:45.160 to the plantation. Douglas only worked directly for Thomas Auld 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:48.200 for about nine months, though he had become, in the 0:09:48.200 --> 0:09:52.000 eyes of his enslavers, a troublemaker. He tried to start 0:09:52.000 --> 0:09:55.040 a Sabbath school to teach other enslaved people, and he 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:58.320 started standing up for himself and other people. So from 0:09:58.360 --> 0:10:02.920 Thomas Auld's point of view, Douglas had been ruined. So 0:10:03.080 --> 0:10:06.360 Thomas Ald hired Douglas out to a man named Edward Covey, 0:10:06.400 --> 0:10:09.760 who was a notorious slave breaker. So this is a 0:10:09.800 --> 0:10:12.720 man to whom slave owners would hire out their troublesome 0:10:12.960 --> 0:10:17.080 enslaved people for free so that he could train them. And, 0:10:17.120 --> 0:10:20.199 in Douglas's words quote, Mr. Covey could have under him 0:10:20.200 --> 0:10:23.160 the most fiery bloods of the neighborhood for the simple 0:10:23.240 --> 0:10:27.280 reward of returning them to their owners well broken. For 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:29.760 the next six months, Covey beat Douglas on a nearly 0:10:29.840 --> 0:10:32.520 daily basis, and he also engaged in a sort of 0:10:32.520 --> 0:10:35.679 psychological warfare which was meant to make him feel as 0:10:35.679 --> 0:10:39.560 though he was constantly watched and constantly threatened. In eighteen 0:10:39.600 --> 0:10:42.520 thirty five, after his time with Covey was up, Douglas 0:10:42.559 --> 0:10:45.439 was hired out as a field hand to William Freeland, 0:10:45.440 --> 0:10:48.840 who was not nearly as cruel as Thomas Auld or 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:52.640 Edward Covey had been. Douglas once again tried to start 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:56.120 a Sabbath school to teach and educate other enslaved people. 0:10:56.960 --> 0:11:01.080 On January one, eighteen thirty six, Douglas resolved that he 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:03.480 would be free by the end of the year, and 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:06.320 he planned to liberate several of the other men enslaved 0:11:06.400 --> 0:11:09.600 with him as well. He forged passes for the group 0:11:09.640 --> 0:11:12.600 which said they had permission to go to Baltimore, but 0:11:12.679 --> 0:11:15.319 unfortunately their plan was discovered and all of the men 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:19.440 were captured and taken to jail. After this escape attempt, 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.319 Thomas all decided it would be best to send Frederick 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.200 Douglas away, especially because of the Sabbath School and the 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:29.040 influence that he was having among the enslaved people in 0:11:29.080 --> 0:11:33.040 the neighborhood. It wasn't just that Thomas Auld was finding 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:36.800 Douglas's behavior to be unacceptable, it was also that he 0:11:36.920 --> 0:11:40.640 was drawing the ire of other slave owners in the area. 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:44.240 Thomas Auld was afraid that some harm was going to 0:11:44.280 --> 0:11:48.440 come to his property. So Douglas was sent back to Baltimore, 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:51.560 and it was from there that he ultimately would escape. 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:55.080 And we will get to that after a quick sponsor break. 0:11:59.640 --> 0:12:03.319 So back in Baltimore with Hugh and Sophie Auld, Frederick 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:07.120 Douglas was first hired out to a shipyard, but after 0:12:07.160 --> 0:12:10.200 being attacked by a group of white laborers, which is 0:12:10.240 --> 0:12:14.120 something the authorities refused to investigate because no white witness 0:12:14.160 --> 0:12:16.920 would attest to it, he was allowed to seek out 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.040 his own work. He would basically go and solicit work 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:24.160 in places that he felt more safe working, and then 0:12:24.200 --> 0:12:26.400 he would turn over all of the pay that he 0:12:26.520 --> 0:12:28.880 earned to Hugh Auld at the end of each week. 0:12:29.559 --> 0:12:33.240 And eventually Douglas asked for permission to hire himself out 0:12:33.320 --> 0:12:36.200 during his off hours, and this would allow him to 0:12:36.320 --> 0:12:38.600 keep the pay above and beyond what was due back 0:12:38.600 --> 0:12:41.479 to the Alds, and it was viewed as a huge privilege. 0:12:42.200 --> 0:12:44.840 He secretly planned to save this pay in order to 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.400 fund his escape, but his permission to hire his time 0:12:48.480 --> 0:12:51.560 was revoked after he attended a camp meeting one Saturday 0:12:51.640 --> 0:12:55.160 night instead of delivering his pay to Hugh Auld on schedule. 0:12:55.640 --> 0:12:59.400 This pushed Douglas's plans to escape into high gear. He 0:12:59.520 --> 0:13:01.520 was basicly afraid that if he made any kind of 0:13:01.559 --> 0:13:04.680 wrong move, it was going to become even harder for 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.240 him to escape. They would be keeping an even closer 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:10.120 eye on him. At this point, he had met and 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.880 fallen in love with a free black woman named Anna Murray. 0:13:14.120 --> 0:13:17.400 She secured a sailor's uniform for him and gave him 0:13:17.400 --> 0:13:19.920 some of her savings to fund the way, and then 0:13:19.920 --> 0:13:23.400 he traveled using identification papers that had been borrowed from 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:26.480 a free black man. He traveled by train and then 0:13:26.600 --> 0:13:29.840 steamboat and left Baltimore and traveled to New York City 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:33.800 on September three, thirty eight. For a long time, he 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.480 would not tell anyone exactly how he had done this, 0:13:36.679 --> 0:13:40.480 because he was afraid that if he did that escape 0:13:40.679 --> 0:13:44.760 route from Baltimore would get shut down, and once he 0:13:44.920 --> 0:13:48.520 arrived at a safe house belonging to abolitionist David Ruggles, 0:13:48.559 --> 0:13:51.000 he sent for Anna and they were married on September 0:13:51.120 --> 0:13:57.080 fift The pair would eventually have five children together, Rosetta, Lewis, Frederick, Charles, 0:13:57.120 --> 0:14:01.839 and Annie. Knowing that Douglas had were calking ships in Baltimore, 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:06.000 Ruggles suggested that he go to New Bedford, Massachusetts, which 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:09.680 had a large whaling and shipping industry, as well as 0:14:09.679 --> 0:14:14.240 a sizeable free black community. Douglas had traveled under several 0:14:14.360 --> 0:14:17.920 names while making his way to New Bedford, eventually landing 0:14:17.960 --> 0:14:20.440 on Johnson, but once he got there, there were so 0:14:20.480 --> 0:14:23.360 many other Johnson's in New Bedford that he thought it 0:14:23.360 --> 0:14:26.200 would be confusing to have yet another one, so he 0:14:26.280 --> 0:14:30.080 and Anna took the last name of Douglas. At first, 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.160 the Douglas's life in New Bedford was dedicated to just 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:35.240 trying to make ends meet and to find a home 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:39.080 in their new community, and Douglas also resumed going to church. 0:14:39.720 --> 0:14:43.880 After encountering segregation and racism at New Bedford's Methodist church, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:47.960 he joined the African Methodist Episcopal Zionist Church and Eventually 0:14:47.960 --> 0:14:51.280 he became a lay minister there. A few months after 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:54.240 settling in New Bedford, Douglas got a copy of William 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:59.160 Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. This was his entry 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:02.320 into the thti slavery movement that he had first heard 0:15:02.360 --> 0:15:06.800 about back in Baltimore. Soon he was attending abolitionist meetings 0:15:06.800 --> 0:15:09.880 in In eighteen forty one, he attended and spoke at 0:15:09.880 --> 0:15:13.560 an anti slavery convention in Nantucket. This is his first 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.920 time really speaking in public, and he didn't think he 0:15:17.200 --> 0:15:21.160 did a particularly great job. But afterward John A. Collins 0:15:21.200 --> 0:15:24.760 of the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society asked Frederick Douglas to 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:27.840 come and work for them as a speaker. He began 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:32.200 to travel around the North and Midwest speaking against slavery. 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:35.520 And although Douglas had a remarkable ability to draw from 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:39.440 his own experience to change hearts and minds, his opposition 0:15:39.480 --> 0:15:43.360 to slavery was not about his own enslavement. His focus 0:15:43.400 --> 0:15:46.880 was on humanity as a whole in the inherent brutality 0:15:46.920 --> 0:15:50.840 and destructiveness of the institution of slavery. But by writing 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:54.720 about his own experience, he was giving potential abolitionists particularly 0:15:54.760 --> 0:15:57.560 in the North, something many had lacked, and that was 0:15:57.600 --> 0:16:01.000 a window into the reality so the institution of slavery. 0:16:01.240 --> 0:16:04.920 This was incredibly important to the success of the movement 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:10.160 for abolition, especially in the North. Slavery affected people's lives, 0:16:10.280 --> 0:16:13.560 particularly white people's lives, in really dramatic ways that they 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:18.480 weren't necessarily even consciously aware of. Many wealthy and prominent 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.160 families had earned their fortunes either directly through the slave 0:16:22.200 --> 0:16:26.360 trade or through industries that relied on enslaved labor. So 0:16:26.440 --> 0:16:30.640 even if no one in a community was currently enslaving anyone, 0:16:30.880 --> 0:16:35.000 it was incredibly likely that its wealthiest and most influential 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:39.880 families were living on inherited wealth that came at least 0:16:39.960 --> 0:16:43.680 in part from slavery. And people were also traveling on 0:16:43.800 --> 0:16:47.240 roads and railroads, and attending schools and working in buildings 0:16:47.240 --> 0:16:50.760 that had been built by enslaved people, including the US 0:16:50.840 --> 0:16:54.040 Capital Building. So people were living in a nation that 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:57.040 had been built on and financed through slavery, but they 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.800 often didn't have a conscious connection to what any of 0:16:59.800 --> 0:17:04.439 that actually meant. That changed as Douglas spoke and wrote 0:17:04.480 --> 0:17:08.320 about fighting off dogs for crumbs of food, sleeping on 0:17:08.440 --> 0:17:12.480 bare floors with little protection from the cold, brutal beatings, 0:17:13.000 --> 0:17:15.800 the murder of an enslaved man named Denby at the 0:17:15.840 --> 0:17:20.359 hands of an overseer, the wilful destruction and separation of 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:25.480 enslaved families, and the constant exhausting work that continued well 0:17:25.520 --> 0:17:28.640 after the work day was over, as enslaved people then 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:32.119 had to care for their own food, care for their quarters, 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.280 mend their clothes, and on and on. But it wasn't 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:40.480 simply Douglas's documentation of the daily conditions and degradations of 0:17:40.560 --> 0:17:45.120 enslavement that influenced the abolition movement. He also wrote extensively 0:17:45.200 --> 0:17:48.720 on how the institution of slavery impacted the enslavers as 0:17:48.720 --> 0:17:52.280 well as the enslaved. By making enslaved people into a 0:17:52.320 --> 0:17:56.560 class that was supposedly less than human, enslavers were also 0:17:56.640 --> 0:18:00.760 corrupting their own humanity. These were all things that Douglas 0:18:00.800 --> 0:18:04.359 had experienced and learned and thought about during his years 0:18:04.400 --> 0:18:07.720 of enslavement, and he was particularly adept at putting them 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:10.960 into words in a way that motivated readers and listeners 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:13.959 to act. We should make clear he wasn't the only 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:17.560 previously enslaved person that was writing and speaking about their 0:18:17.600 --> 0:18:22.240 own experience, but he did become particularly famous. In eighteen 0:18:22.280 --> 0:18:26.440 forty five, he published the first of three autobiographies, Narrative 0:18:26.480 --> 0:18:29.680 of the Life of Frederick Douglas, an American Slave, in 0:18:29.840 --> 0:18:33.440 part to debunk critics claims that he was too eloquent 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:36.719 who have ever really been a slave? And in it 0:18:36.800 --> 0:18:39.720 he detailed the experiences that we talked about in the 0:18:39.760 --> 0:18:43.600 first part of our episode today, including naming who his 0:18:43.680 --> 0:18:47.960 owners had been, and that was a colossal risk under 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.520 fugitive slave laws. He could be captured and returned to Maryland, 0:18:52.080 --> 0:18:55.280 and as his book became a bestseller, he left the country, 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.000 sailing for Liverpool on August sixteenth of eighteen forty five. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.000 He arrived Fived in Britain, just before the start of 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.560 the Great Famine in Ireland. As a side note, this 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:08.399 was not the only time that Frederick Douglas would have 0:19:08.440 --> 0:19:11.200 to flee the country. He did again in eighteen fifty 0:19:11.240 --> 0:19:15.440 nine after John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, after investigators 0:19:15.520 --> 0:19:18.359 found a letter that Douglas had written that could have 0:19:18.520 --> 0:19:21.800 led to his being named as a co conspirator. Douglas 0:19:21.840 --> 0:19:24.639 at that point didn't return home until eighteen sixty as 0:19:24.680 --> 0:19:28.000 the nation was careening towards Civil war. After learning that 0:19:28.119 --> 0:19:30.920 his daughter Annie had died at the age of eleven, 0:19:31.440 --> 0:19:35.520 so jumping back to eighteen forty five. For nearly two years, 0:19:35.880 --> 0:19:39.320 Douglas traveled around the British Isles and spoke against slavery 0:19:39.440 --> 0:19:42.439 and four civil rights, and while he was there, British 0:19:42.480 --> 0:19:46.480 supporters raised the funds to purchase his freedom. Thomas all 0:19:46.640 --> 0:19:48.679 First sold him to Hugh Auld for the sum of 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.080 one hundred dollars, and Hugh released him from slavery on 0:19:52.119 --> 0:19:56.560 December five, eighty six. Douglas returned to the United States 0:19:56.560 --> 0:19:59.600 the following year, and he and his family moved to Rochester, 0:19:59.680 --> 0:20:04.080 New York work. Douglas received some criticism for allowing himself 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:08.080 to be purchased, since to some it legitimized the institution 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.720 that he was fighting against. They basically thought he was 0:20:10.760 --> 0:20:13.960 being complicit in the very thing that he was advocating 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:17.439 to have abolished. But from Douglas's point of view, he 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:20.240 had a calling and a duty to return to the 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.000 United States and continue to fight slavery, something he would 0:20:24.000 --> 0:20:27.320 best be able to do if he was not simultaneously 0:20:27.400 --> 0:20:32.040 trying to evade capture or captured and returned South. Of course, 0:20:32.040 --> 0:20:35.040 the Civil War started in eighteen sixty one, and by 0:20:35.040 --> 0:20:37.680 that point Frederick Douglas was one of the most famous 0:20:37.720 --> 0:20:41.000 black men in the United States. Although the South was 0:20:41.040 --> 0:20:43.800 fighting the war in large part to protect and expand 0:20:43.880 --> 0:20:47.479 the institution of slavery, at first, the North was fighting 0:20:47.480 --> 0:20:52.080 primarily to preserve the Union. Douglas became an outspoken advocate 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:54.760 for making the abolition of slavery one of the Union's 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:58.240 goals as well, and he also recruited for the Union Army, 0:20:58.480 --> 0:21:00.600 and two of his sons served in the fifty fourth 0:21:00.680 --> 0:21:05.560 Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry. In eighteen sixty three, Douglas met with 0:21:05.600 --> 0:21:08.879 Abraham Lincoln about the treatment of black soldiers fighting for 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:13.240 the Union and advocated for their receiving equal pay. Of course, 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.960 the abolition of slavery did ultimately get folded into the 0:21:17.000 --> 0:21:19.600 Union schools in the Civil War, and when the war 0:21:19.720 --> 0:21:24.040 was over, slavery was indeed abolished. Douglas then turned his 0:21:24.080 --> 0:21:27.840 attention to protecting the lives and civil rights of African Americans, 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:32.360 including campaigning for the right to vote. He also encouraged 0:21:32.400 --> 0:21:37.119 abolitionist organizations to turn their attention to Native Americans, whose 0:21:37.160 --> 0:21:40.760 condition he called, quote the saddest chapter in our history. 0:21:41.119 --> 0:21:47.600 Frederick Douglas never like looked at an accomplishment and then said, okay, 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:51.360 we're done now. If the if the thing he had 0:21:51.400 --> 0:21:55.479 been campaigning for, was successful, he would then find the 0:21:55.520 --> 0:21:59.280 next thing. And after the war he also held a 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:02.720 number of so shill in political positions, including Charge da 0:22:02.840 --> 0:22:06.840 Fair for the Dominican Republic, Minister Resident and Consul General 0:22:06.880 --> 0:22:09.680 to Haiti, and the Recorder of Deeds of the District 0:22:09.680 --> 0:22:13.680 of Columbia. He served as president of the Freedman Savings Bank, 0:22:13.720 --> 0:22:16.199 and he was on the board at Howard University. The 0:22:16.320 --> 0:22:19.800 list of accomplishments and appointments that he had goes on 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:22.199 and on and on. It is quite lengthy. Um. And 0:22:22.280 --> 0:22:25.560 even before the Civil War, Frederick Douglas had become a 0:22:25.600 --> 0:22:29.480 supporter of women's rights. And especially because we were originally 0:22:29.520 --> 0:22:34.159 giving this episode as a live show at Convention Days 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:38.840 in celebration of the anniversary of the Seneca Falls Convention, 0:22:39.280 --> 0:22:40.840 made a lot of sense to spend a little more 0:22:40.840 --> 0:22:42.920 time on that which we are going to do. After 0:22:42.960 --> 0:22:52.040 another quick sponsor break, Frederick Douglas first met Susan B. 0:22:52.200 --> 0:22:55.800 Anthony in eighteen forty five, but his direct involvement with 0:22:55.880 --> 0:22:59.160 the movement for women's suffrage really started after he moved 0:22:59.160 --> 0:23:03.439 to Rochester with this family in eighteen forty seven. That December, 0:23:03.480 --> 0:23:06.879 he published his first issue of his newspaper, The North Star, 0:23:07.000 --> 0:23:10.359 which was one of several newspapers he would create and 0:23:10.440 --> 0:23:13.800 run during his lifetime. The North Star was printed with 0:23:13.840 --> 0:23:17.480 the motto right is of no sex, Truth is of 0:23:17.520 --> 0:23:20.920 no color. God is the father of us all, and 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:25.240 we are all brethren and The Seneca Falls Convention began 0:23:25.240 --> 0:23:28.560 on July nineteenth of eighteen forty eight, and Douglas was 0:23:28.640 --> 0:23:30.800 one of only thirty two men out of about three 0:23:30.880 --> 0:23:34.480 hundred attendees. Of these men, he was the only one 0:23:34.520 --> 0:23:38.159 who supported Elizabeth Katie Stanton's resolution that women be allowed 0:23:38.160 --> 0:23:40.960 to vote, and he seconded her motion that the right 0:23:40.960 --> 0:23:44.000 to vote be one of their resolutions. He was one 0:23:44.040 --> 0:23:48.240 of the signers of the Declaration of Sentiments. Another woman's 0:23:48.320 --> 0:23:52.560 rights convention was held almost immediately in Rochester on August 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.400 two of eighteen forty eight, and Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth 0:23:55.480 --> 0:23:59.200 Katie Stanton recommended that Douglas be made its chair, although 0:23:59.240 --> 0:24:02.199