Frederick Douglass Contributions

In comparison to John Brown, Douglass wasn’t as violent and his ways of helping the movement were by making lectures and preparing a newspaper titled, the North Star. As a former slave, Douglass had many reasons and background to add fuel to his words, which many took seriously and to heart. Using his words to his advantage, Douglass decided to create the North Star, hopefully to be solely written by the black community who felt the prejudice by others. Douglass hoped that the paper would succeed in planting his ideas, “the purpose of this paper…’will be to attack slavery in all its forms and aspects; advocate Universal Emancipation...promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the colored people; and to hasten the day of freedom to our three million enslaved fellow countrymen,’” (Miller 57-58). The North Star started to grow and become well known, the paper focusing on all kinds of issues, “abolitionism and other reforms were not the sole focus of Douglass’s paper. Just as important were issues of concerns to the free black community apart from antislavery,” (Miller 64). Besides using the newspaper, Douglass made speeches and lectures towards groups of people, many would come and listen to what he had to say about slavery. Douglass focuses on how slaves have suffered and how people should help them, and to not repeat mistakes made in the past, “What, then,

Douglass got his passion to promote freedom for all slaves after he escaped from slavery and ultimately had an end goal to “abolish slavery in all its forms and aspects, and promote the moral and intellectual improvement of the coloured people and hasten the day of freedom to the three million of enslaved fellow countrymen”. He also wrote several autobiographies describing his experiences as a slave. One of the autobiographies in particular, ‘Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave’ published in 1845 was a best-selling and was extremely influential for promoting the cause of abolition. The narrative shows a compelling argument to basic human rights thus making it extremely influential as the narrative clearly possesses features and linguistic skills, which for most white people, negated their common perception of black people being illiterate in the 19th century.

In 1845, Douglass published his first book which was an autobiography called the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. This book became very successful, becoming an American best seller and going international. He wrote many other books and became a famous influential writer. Douglass was a great voice for hope, making many speeches, against slavery and racism. He even traveled to other countries to speak about his story. During the Civil War, he advised President Abraham Lincoln, he worked as a propagandist for the Union’s views and freeing slaves.

In a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave written by himself, the author argues that no one can be enslaved if he or she has the ability to read, write, and think. Douglass supports his claim by first providing details of his attempts to earn an education, and secondly by explaining the conversion of a single slaveholder. The author’s purpose is to reveal the evils of slavery to the wider public in order to gain support for the abolition of his terrifying practice. Based on the purpose of writing the book and the graphic detail of his stories, Douglass is writing to influence people of higher power, such as abolitionists, to abolish the appalling reality of slavery; developing a sympathetic relationship with the

Frederick Douglass, an abolitionist who altered America's views of slavery through his writings and actions. Frederick's life as a slave had the greatest impact on his writings. Through his experience as a slave, he developed emotion and experience for him to become a successful abolitionist writer. He experienced harsh treatment and his hate for slavery and desire to be free caused him to write Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. In his Narrative, he wrote the story of his miserable life as a slave and his fight to be free. His motivation behind the character (himself) was to make it through another day so that maybe one day he might be free. By speaking out, fighting as an abolitionist and finally becoming an author,

Overall, Douglass accomplishing in writing a powerful persuasive and powerful slave narrative by ascertaining profound pathos, ethos and logos to support his claim. He makes up his ideas in order to strongly denounce slavery and gives people more information to know. He generates sympathy and compassion from readers and audiences and also appeals their emotion, Douglass is a great author that should be remembered by people who lives in United

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, or better known, Frederick Douglass was born in February 1818 to Harriet Bailey in Talbot County, Maryland. For a long time, Frederick did not know his birthdate or his family lineage and it haunted him till the day he died. Frederick Douglas family lineage reach as far back into the beginnings of America and maybe even further into American prehistory. Douglass was believed to have Native American blood in him. Just from the description of him, “his broad forehead, heavy cheekbones, and yellow-brown skin” (Preston, pg.9) and his childhood master calling him “little Indian boy” (Preston, pg.9) made a lot of people assume that he was. Douglass once recalled about the time when a stranger on a Hudson River steamer “‘who took me for one of the noble red men of the far West.’…Douglas replied that he was not an Indian but a Negro, he said the man turned away in disgust.” (Preston, pg.9) Frederick Douglass was proud that he was a Negro even though he had no problems with Native Americans.

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer,” (Ralph Waldo Emerson). A hero is just like an ordinary person, but they make a choice to rescue someone, and put their life on the line. For instance, a hero is valiant when they need to be, sacrifices themself for another, and they don't put another in harm’s way.

Frederick Douglass is from the autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, Maryland, in February 1818 as a slave. His mother was Harriet Bailey and his father was rumored to be Aaron Anthony, a white plantation manager. He learns how to read and write when at Master Hugh Auld’s plantation. Frederick Douglass learned how to read not knowing that slavery was bad, but he started to read newspapers and would see all the effects slavery has on everyone. Douglass quickly regretted learning how to read and write and would wish death upon himself, all he wanted was to be free.

Who is Frederick Douglass and why was he important to African American History? Frederick Douglass born February 1817 the exact date of his birth was unknown. His mother who was a field slave was separated from her son at birth. Never knew his father it could have been possible of his mother’s master of being his father. Fredrick Douglass was born into slavery and didn’t have much of a childhood and was forced to work hard and to be treated cruel. Then he moved into the Auld home a northern family where slaves weren’t treated as badly. It was then he learned the basic reading writing abilities which turned out to be his gateway to freedom. Douglass was then relocated but eventually after all the beatings at the age twenty he used the knowledge he had gotten while living with the Auld family and planned an escape and was successful. Then advanced and become an anti-slavery activist. Then proceed even more being a writer of anti-slavery. Who would have thought a former slave could be so brilliant and clever? Well no one did know he used all resources around him which then became his key element to freedom. Then Douglass went on a spent a mass amount of time and effort on achieving freedom for other slaves. Douglass dedicated much of his life into accomplishing justice for all Americans more precisely African American, women, and minority groups. Believing in equality of all people no matter the skin color nor gender. Fredrick Douglass then became the prominent voice of

“It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” This is a quote from Frederick Douglass, a famous abolitionist. This quote was an example on what Frederick Douglass believes in. Frederick Douglass was an important and influential figure in history that had a positive impact on the world because he showed the northern states the cruelty of slavery.

He was able to use his past as a slave for inspiration and knowledge and published his own anti-slavery newspaper called The North Star. 10 Throughout his life, Douglass was also able to write three autobiographies, his most famous being Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written By Himself. 11 All of this success proved Frederick Douglass as a good example of what a freed slave could become. It also caused his critics to question if he was actually born a slave as he too exceptional of a speaker and writer to have been a slave, something Douglass continuously denied. 12

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave is an account of Frederick Douglass’ life written in a very detached and objective tone. You might find this tone normal for a historical account of the events of someone’s life if not for the fact that the narrative was written by Frederick Douglass himself. In light of the fact that Douglass wrote his autobiography as a treatise in support of the abolishment of slavery, the removed tone was an effective tone. It gave force to his argument that slavery should be done away with.

Another important paper was the “The North Star”. The most famous African American in antebellum America was Frederick Douglass, and escaped slave from Maryland who achieved renown in the North as antislavery lecturer and writer. Douglass began his abolitionist career with Garrison, but he broke with Garrison in the late 1840s over the efficacy of politics. Douglass believed that black people themselves must led in the movement for their own liberation, which is one reason why he founded a new abolitionist newspaper, the “The North Star”, in Rochester, New York, in 1847. The paper also carried a good deal of material designed to support the scattered community of free black in the North (December 22, 1848).

Frederick Douglass, a famous abolitionist leader and writer, was born into slavery in the early 1800’s. Douglass published many books and papers illustrating the time in which he lived, all of them portraying his perspective of growing up as a slave in Talbot County, Maryland. During this time slaves had no rights. They were bought and sold constantly, and were consider property the slave owners. Slaves mainly worked in the fields, but Douglass on the other hand, was lucky enough to live as a servant to the Master and his family. In his essay, “Learning to Read and Write”, Frederick Douglass described the events that took place in his early childhood and adolescence years that helped him acquire the skills to learn to read and write. These skills are ultimately what enabled Douglass to free himself from slavery and pursue his own passions to fight slavery with his words. In Contrasts, Peter Elbow is a modern day English professor who has published numerous essays regarding methods on how to improve People’s writing skills. One of his methods is known as “Freewriting.” Although these two essays were published nearly two centuries apart, they contain similar methods of organization and purposes within their writing. The authors used a step-by-step method of writing where each supporting detail adds the previous one and guides the reader closer to the main principle of the paper.