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Frederick Douglas was born
Frederick Douglass was born February 17, 1818. His real name was Frederick Washington Bailey and he was born near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. -
Frederick Douglass was sent to Baltimore.
He was sent to Baltimore to be a servent where he learned to read and write with the assistance of his master's wife. -
Frederick Douglass works in shypyard as general assitance, and practiced writing and ready in secret.
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Frederick Douglass reads an article on John Quincy Adam's anti-slavery prepositions in congress
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Frederick Douglass was sent to Maryland to work for Thomas Auld
He tries to teach other slaves to read and write till Auld catches him and makes him stop. -
Frederick Douglass' master, Auld, rents him out to farmer Edward Covey, known as a "slavebreaker".
He is beaten several times and finally fights back. Covey never tries to beat him again -
Frederick Douglass was hired out of work by a farmer in Maryland.
There he taught sunday school secretly, so slaves could learn how to read and write. -
Frederick Douglass plans an escape but his master discovered it and Frederick Douglass was sent to jail then he got out.
He returned to work for Thomas Auld and Sophia Auld. -
Douglass made a plan to escape but his master discovers it and Douglass is sent to jail and then release.
He returns for work in Baltimore for Thomas Auld and Sophia Auld. He is hireed out to work as a caulker at a shipyard. There he learns and what he learned helped him escape two years later. -
Frederick Douglass joins the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society.
The East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society is a debate team for black men. Through the society he meets a free African American house made named Anna Murray. -
Frederick borrows papers from a black sailor.
He takes the identification papers of a free black sailor . With the papers he is able to escape to New York to get out of slavery. -
Frederick Douglass and Anna Murray gets married.
The ceremony is performed by minister James W. C. Pennington, who is also an escaped Maryland slave. After they went to live in New Bedford, Massachusetts. They stayed with caterers Mary and Nathan Johnson. Nathan told Frederick to change his last name to Douglass. He then tries to get a job as a caulker but the white employees threaten to quit if Frederick was hired. -
Frederick Douglass' daughter Rosetta was born.
Frederick Douglass subscribes to William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist weekly The Liberator. Douglass hears Garrison's speech in april. Soon after, Frederick Douglass becomes a licensed preacher to a African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church. -
Frederick Douglass' son Lewis Henry is born.
Frederick Douglass' son Lewis Henery is born. Lewis Henry is Frederick Douglass' first son. Frederick Douglass also have a daughter named Rosetta. -
Frederick Douglass speaks at an anti-slavery meeting.
Frederick Douglass speaks at an anti-slavery meeting at New Bedford, Massachusetts.Abolitionist William C. Coffin talks him into speaking about his life as a slave at a Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society convention. The Society is impressed and he is hired as a speaker. Douglass and Garrison become allies. -
Frederick Douglass' son Frederick is born.
Frederick Douglass' son, Frederick, is born. Frederick has two other children. His children are Rosetta, Lewis Henry, and Frederick Jr. -
Frederick Douglass gets beaten by a mob at a anti-slavery meeting.
At an antislavery meeting in Pendleton, Indiana, he is beaten by a mob. His right hand is broken in the scuffle and he never fully recovers the use of his hand. -
Frederick Douglass' son Charles Remond is born.
Now Frederick Douglass has four children. His first born Rosetta, first son Lewis Henry, his third son Frederick Jr., and his last son Charles Remond. -
Frederick Douglass publishes Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass.
In it, he reveals details that could lead to his arrest as a fugitive slave. He meets Susan B. Anthony while on a speaking tour. Later he becomes a champion of women's rights. Begins tour of Great Britain and Ireland, lecturing on slavery with abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. English friends raise money to "purchase" his freedom; Douglass is manumitted after Hugh Auld receives $711.66 in payment. -
Frederick Douglass returns from overseas tour and moves to Rochester, New York.
With money raised by English and Irish friends, buys printing press and begins publishing the abolitionist weekly North Star. He continues publishing it until 1851. -
Frederick Douglass is a participant in the first women's rights convention, Seneca Falls, New York.
Meets and becomes acquaintance of abolitionist John Brown. Begins sheltering escaped slaves fleeing north on the "underground railroad."Daughter Rosetta is asked to leave school in Rochester because she is African-American; Douglass begins struggle to end segregation in Rochester public schools. -
Frederick Douglass' daughter Annie is born.
Frederick has six children. His daughter Rosetta, Lewis Henry, Frederick Jr., Charles Remond, and Annie. He hires a tutor to teach his wife, Anna, to read, but it doesn't go too well, there was no progress. -
Frederick Douglass merges North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper.
(printed until 1860). Agrees with Smith that the Constitution is an antislavery document, reversing his earlier statements that it was proslavery, an opinion he had shared with William Lloyd Garrison. This change of opinion, as well as some political differences, create a rift between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass begins to assert his independence in the antislavery movement -
Harriet Beecher Stowe publishes Uncle Tom's Cabin, an antislavery novel.
It sells three hundred thousand copies its first year in print and helps galvanize opinions on both sides of the slavery issue. -
Publication of his second autobiography, My Bondage and My Freedom
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Frederick Douglass becomes friends with Ottilia Assing.
Becomes friends with Ottilia Assing, a German journalist living in New Jersey. She eventually translates My Bondage and My Freedom into German. -
In the Dred Scott case, the U.S. Supreme Court.
In the Dred Scott case, the U.S. Supreme Court rules that African Americans are not U.S. citizens and that Congress has no authority to restrict slavery in U.S. territories. -
Begins publishing Douglass' Monthly
Begins publishing Douglass' Monthly, first as a supplement to Frederick Douglass' Paper. It becomes an independent publication the following year and is distributed until 1863. -
John Brown and other abolitionist followers raid the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, then in Virginia
He plans to start a slave insurrection and provide refuge for fleeing slaves. Federal troops capture him, and he is eventually tried and hanged. Authorities find a letter from Douglass to Brown. Douglass flees to Canada and then to a planned lecture tour of England to escape arrest on charges of being an accomplice in Brown's raid. -
Daughter Annie dies in Rochester.
Daughter Annie dies in Rochester.
April
Returns to the United States and is not charged in the John Brown raid.
November
Abraham Lincoln is elected president.
December
South Carolina secedes from the Union. -
Civil War begins.
The Civil War begins. -
Congress abolishes slavery in Washington, D.C.
Congress abolishes slavery in Washington, D.C. -
Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation takes effect, abolishing slavery in the states that are "in rebellion
February
Douglass becomes a recruiter for the 54th Massachusetts Infantry, the first regiment of African-American soldiers; his sons Lewis and Charles join the regiment. Eventually his son Frederick Douglass Jr. becomes an army recruiter also. About 180,000 African Americans serve in the Civil War on the Union side.
August 10
Meets with President Lincoln to discuss the unequal pay and poor treatment to black soldiers recieve. -
Meets with Lincoln again.
Meets with Lincoln again. In case the war is not a total Union victory, Lincoln asks Douglass to prepare an effort to assist slaves escaping to the North. -
Lincoln is asssassinated
December 18
The Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, outlawing slavery, is ratified. -
Douglass edits and the owns the New National Era, a weekly newspaper for African Americans.
He loses ten thousand dollars when the paper folds in 1874.
Fifteenth Amendment to the Constitution adopted. This amendment states that the rights of citizens to vote cannot be denied "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." -
President Ulysses S. Grant appoints Douglass to the commission ivestigating the possibilty ...
President Ulysses S. Grant appoints Douglass to the commission investigating the possibility of annexing the Dominican Republic to the U.S. -
The Equal Rights Party nominates Douglass for vice-president of the US ...
The Equal Rights Party nominates Douglass for vice-president of the United States on a ticket headed by Victoria C. Woodhull.
Douglass moves his family to Washington, D.C., after a mysterious fire destroys his home in Rochester. He attributes the fire to arson. -
Becomes president of the troubled Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company.
Becomes president of the troubled Freedmen's Savings and Trust Company. Works with the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee to save the bank, which ultimately fails. -
1875 Congress passes a Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in public places.
Congress passes a Civil Rights Act prohibiting discrimination in public places. -
Douglass is appointed U.S. marshal of the District of Columbia by President Hayes.
1878 Purchases Cedar Hill, in Anacostia, Washington, D.C. The twenty-room house sits on nine acres of land. He later expands the estate by buying fifteen acres of adjoining land. -
Publishes his third and final autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass.
Publishes his third and final autobiography, The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass House,
("Cedar Hill")
Washington, District of Columbia. President Garfield appoints one of his own friends to the post U.S. Marshall and makes Douglass recorder of deeds for the District of Columbia, then a high-paying job -
Douglass' wife of forty- four years, Anna Murray Douglass dies.
1882 August 4
Douglass's wife of forty-four years, Anna Murray Douglass, dies after suffering a stroke. Douglass goes into a depression. -
1883 The U.S. Supreme Court rules the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional.
The U.S. Supreme Court rules the Civil Rights Act of 1875 unconstitutional. -
Douglass re- marries.
1884 January 24
Douglass marries Helen Pitts, a white woman who had been his secretary when he was recorder of deeds. The interracial marriage causes controversy among the Douglasses' friends, family, and the public. -
Tours Europe and Africa with wife , Helen Pitts.
1886-87 Tours Europe and Africa with wife -
Appointed U.S. minister resident and consul general, Republic of Haiti, and chargé d'affaires, Santo Domingo. Arrives in Haiti in October.
1889 July 1
Appointed U.S. minister resident and consul general, Republic of Haiti, and chargé d'affaires, Santo Domingo. Arrives in Haiti in October.
1890 The U.S. government instructs Douglass to ask permission for the U.S. Navy to use the Haitian port town of Môle St. Nicholas as a refueling station. -
Hati rejects the Navy's proposal.
1891 In April Haiti rejects the Navy's proposal as too intrusive. The U.S. press reports that Douglass is too sympathetic to Haitian interests. Douglass resigns as minister to Haiti in July. -
Douglass is commissioner in charge of the Haitian exhibit....
1892-93 Douglass is commissioner in charge of the Haitian exhibit at the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. -
Frederick Douglass dies suddenly.
Speaks at a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C. Dies suddenly that evening of heart failure while describing the meeting to his wife.
