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Frederick Douglass 's Influence On American Society

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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. Frederick Douglass passion for the abolition of slavery may be seen as arising from his early childhood experiences from his brief stay with his first slave master, Aaron Anthony. Before Living with Anthony, Douglass lived with his grandmother Betsey Bailey. Douglas did not know his maternal mother, Harriet Bailey, because due to her work with Anthony, she was not permitted to care for her own children. So his only motherly figure, his grandma, who took

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