The Oxford Companion to American Literature | Douglass, Frederick
Douglass, Frederick( 1817–95), born into slavery in Maryland, escaped to Massachusetts (1838), where he was employed as a lecturer by antislavery societies. He published a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845, revised 1892). Fearing capture as a fugitive slave, he spent several years in England and Ireland, returning to purchase his freedom and establish the antislavery newspaper North Star. Since he favored political methods for freeing the slaves, he became a follower of J.G. Birney rather than of Garrison. He organized two regiments of blacks in Massachusetts during the Civil War, and continued to labor for his people during the Reconstruction, later serving as secretary of the Santo Domingo Commission (1871), marshal of the District of Columbia (1877–81), recorder of deeds for the District (1881–86), and minister to Haiti (1889–91). Although his first book is his most famous, he wrote two other autobiographies:...
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