Frederick Douglass

How did Frederick Douglass help slaves escape?

                Douglass escaped from slavery by saving up money, disguising himself as a sailor, and boarding a ship to go north with fake papers.  However, he was not satisfied with just gaining his own freedom and wanted to help other people too. He gave a couple of speeches and was recognized by William Lloyd Garrison, an abolitionist, and they traveled from town to town together while Douglass gave speeches about his life as a slave. He gave other slaves hope that they too could escape and have a new life. Douglass was an inspiring figure (http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/frederick_douglass.htm).

                After his public speaking earned him fame, Frederick Douglass was invited by President Abraham Lincoln to come to the White House and discuss slavery. While he was there, he encouraged Lincoln to enlist black men for the Union army. He also started his own paper called The North Star which discussed freedom for slaves and circulated among 4,000 people (http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/frederick_douglass.htm). He also had a magazine called “Douglass’s Monthly” (http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/douglass.html).

                Frederick Douglass was also a conductor on the Underground Railroad in Rochester, New York. He hid slaves in his house as they went north from house to house. At one point in time, he had eleven fugitive slaves hiding in his house that he fed, clothed, and saved up money to get them to free territory in Canada. The penalty for harboring a slave could be imprisonment, fining, or even death. Douglass once wrote about helping slaves, “true as a means of destroying slavery, it was like an attempt to bail out the ocean with a teaspoon, but the thought that there was one less slave, and one more freeman, brought to my heart unspeakable joy” (http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASunderground.htm).

For more information on the Underground Railroad, see this video:

                His abolitionist duties did not stop there. At first, he supported another abolitionist named John Brown and helped raise money for him. But, when Brown told him that he was planning a raid on Harper’s Ferry, he disapproved and called it a suicide mission.  Douglass stopped helping but eventually had to flee to Canada because people thought he was an instigator of the raid (http://www.winningthevote.org/f-fdouglass.html).

                He also fought for women’s rights, saying that God saw no meaningful difference in race or gender (http://www.pbs.org/blackpress/news_bios/douglass.html). However, the majority of Douglass’s influence was in writing and giving speeches. He is definitely one of the main reasons that slaves received their freedom. Douglass risked a lot by speaking publicly and working the Underground Railroad because he could have been killed for his outspokenness.