Frederick Douglass for Kids Read online

  Copyright © 2012 by Nancy I. Sanders

  All rights reserved

  First edition

  Published by Chicago Review Press, Incorporated

  814 North Franklin Street

  Chicago, Illinois 60610

  ISBN 978-1-56976-717-7

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Sanders, Nancy I.

  Frederick Douglass for kids : his life and times with 21 activities / Nancy I. Sanders.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-56976-717-7 (pbk.)

  1. Douglass, Frederick, 1818–1895—Juvenile literature. 2. Abolitionists—United States—Biography—Juvenile literature. 3. African American abolitionists—Biography—Juvenile literature. 4. Antislavery movements—United States—History—19th century—Juvenile literature. 5. Douglass, Frederick, 1818-1895—Study and teaching—Activity programs. 6. Antislavery movements—United States—Study and teaching—Activity programs. I. Title.

  E449.D75S25 2012

  973.8092—dc23

  [B]

  2011050092

  Cover and interior design: Sarah Olson

  Cover photographs: Frederick Douglass, courtesy University of North Carolina Chapel Hill; Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, courtesy Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park; “The 54th Massachusetts regiment, under the leadership of Colonel Shaw,” courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-09903; Lewis Douglass, courtesy Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; “Frederick Douglass appealing to President Lincoln and his cabinet,” courtesy Library of Congress, LC-DIG-highsm-09902

  Interior illustrations: Mark Bazuik

  Printed in the United States of America

  5 4 3 2 1

  God bless our native land,

  Land of the newly free,

  Oh may she ever stand

  For truth and liberty.

  —from “God Bless Our Native Land”

  by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

  Acknowledgments

  It takes a village to raise a child, and it takes a nation to write a book of this scope and influence. I want to thank the countless men and women who from our nation’s earliest history have made a stand for freedom. During the Revolutionary Era, Richard Allen, founder of Bethel A.M.E. Church in Philadelphia and first bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, forged a path for others to follow. His friends and fellow leaders of America’s free black communities included giants such as James Forten, Absalom Jones, and Prince Hall. They stood up for equal rights while always fighting to bring an end to slavery. They were followed by a generation of abolitionists both black and white who paved the way for Frederick Douglass to step forward and carry the torch for freedom.

  A heart full of gratitude goes out to Douglass biographers such as James Gregory, Frederic Holland, and Charles Chesnutt; Civil War historians such as George Washington Williams and William Wells Brown; along with Benjamin Quarles, Philip S. Foner, Yuval Taylor, and Henry Louis Gates Jr., whose books taught me so much about Frederick Douglass, his world, and our nation’s history during the Civil War years.

  I want to thank the men and women in our nation’s National Park Service who helped guide me on my search to learn more about this great man. Thank you Braden Paynter, Cathy Ingram, Joan Bacharach, and Amber Dumler. Also many thanks go to the individuals at libraries, universities, and historical societies who so graciously assisted me in acquiring images for this book: Chris Rowsom, Larry Naukam, Betty Spring, Michael Millner, Karen Shafts, Joellen Elbashir, Marie Henke, Beth Hansen, and Peter Berg. I would also like to thank the Tilghman family at Wye house as well as Claire Marziotti. Everyone’s generous spirit in sharing images for this project was greatly appreciated.

  Thanks go to everyone at Chicago Review Press who worked so hard to bring this book to life. Thank you Jerome Pohlen for all your help and guidance, as well as Cynthia Sherry and Yuval Taylor for your advice and expertise. Special gratitude goes to Michelle Schoob, Sarah Olson, Mary Kravenas, and Josh Williams, who helped launch this book into the world. Deep appreciation is also felt for my wonderful agent, Ronnie Herman, who inspires and guides me along my writing journey.

  And I’m especially grateful to my dear husband Jeff, whose committed faith, enthusiasm for our nation’s history, and interest in this project helped beyond measure. Thank you to our son Dan and your lovely fiancée Shirley for your loving support and encouragement. And thanks to our son Ben for traveling the East Coast with Jeff and me from Maryland’s Eastern Shore to Boston and New Bedford as we took photographs of the streets Frederick Douglass walked and homes he lived in.

  CONTENTS

  Time Line

  1 “Four Score and Seven Years Ago …”

  A Life Enslaved

  Help a Young Child Learn to Read

  Form a Debate Club

  2 “Our Fathers Brought Forth on This Continent …”

  Stepping into Freedom

  “To Take Off Spots of Any Sort, From Any Kind of Cloth”

  Make a Paste to Keep Flies Away

  Dress Like a Sailor: Tarpaulin Hat and Cravat

  The Current World Slave Market

  3 “A New Nation Conceived in Liberty …”

  A Brand New Life e 37

  Clothespin Dolls

  Sugar Water

  Carpetbag

  4 “Dedicated to the Proposition That All Men Are Created Equal …”

  New Heights of Achievement

  Spread the Word on Black Abolitionists

  New England Boiled Dinner

  Host an Oratorical Contest

  5 “Now We Are Engaged in a Great Civil War …”

  A Voice for the Nation

  Carry a Civil War Haversack

  “John Brown Song”

  Civil War Time Line

  Create a Memory

  6 “That This Nation, Under God, Shall Have a New Birth of Freedom …”

  The Nation’s New Hour

  Make a Cane

  Microfinancing

  7 “And That Government of the People, by the People, for the People, Shall Not Perish from the Earth”

  To Honor a Great Man

  Sculpt a Statue

  Maryland Beaten Biscuits

  Banana Leaf Card

  Afterword

  Resources

  Websites to Explore

  Places to Visit

  Books to Read

  Index

  TIME LINE

  1817/1818 Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey is born in February, a slave on Maryland’s Eastern Shore

  1826 Is sent to live in Baltimore as house slave for Hugh Auld family

  1836 Makes first attempt to escape, but fails

  1838 Escapes from slavery, marries Anna Murray, and changes name to Douglass

  1841 Speaks at antislavery convention in Nantucket, Massachusetts, and is hired as antislavery speaker

  1842 Defends George Latimer case

  1843 Embarks on a “Hundred Conventions” tour

  1845 Publishes first autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

  1845 Sails to England to escape capture by slave hunters

  Anna Murray Douglass

  Harriet Beecher Stowe

  1846 English friends raise money to purchase freedom

  1847 Returns to United States and begins publication of the North Star

  1847 Meets with fiery abolitionist John Brown

  1848 Speaks at Women’s Rights Convention at Seneca Falls, New York

  1851 Splits with William Lloyd Garrison over opinions on the constitution and how to end slavery

  1852 Delivers famous speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?”

>   1852 Is active as leader with Liberty Party convention and Free Soil Party

  1853 Accepts invitation to visit Harriet Beecher Stowe

  1857 Lectures on the Dred Scott decision

  1859 Flees to England after John Brown’s raid on Harpers Ferry

  1860 Returns to America and mourns death of youngest daughter, Annie

  1861 Urges the Union to emancipate the slave and raise black troops at outbreak of Civil War

  1863 Celebrates at Tremont Temple on January 1 when Lincoln issues Emancipation Proclamation

  1863 Recruits black troops; sons Lewis and Charles are first to enlist in New York

  1863 Visits White House to ask Lincoln for equal treatment of black troops

  1863 Ends publication of newspapers after 15 years

  1864 Lincoln invites Douglass to White House for advice

  1865 Civil War ends; Douglass mourns assassination of Lincoln and speaks at consequent gathering in Rochester

  1865 Stands for new cause to endorse black suffrage

  1870 Steps up as editor-in-chief of New National Era

  1871 President Grant appoints Douglass Commissioner to Santo Domingo, first of various presidential appointments

  Charles Douglass

  Commissioner to Santo Domingo

  1874 Accepts position as president of Freedmen’s Bank

  1876 Speaks at memorial ceremony for Abraham Lincoln

  1877 President Hayes appoints Douglass US marshal for the District of Columbia

  1877 Meets with former master, Thomas Auld

  1878 Purchases new home at Cedar Hill, near Washington, DC

  1882 Wife Anna dies

  1884 Marries Helen Pitts, woman’s suffragist

  1886 Tours Europe with Helen

  1889 President Harrison appoints Douglass minister and consul to Haiti

  1893 Publishes pamphlet with Ida B. Wells against racism that is distributed during World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago

  1895 Dies in home at Cedar Hill on February 20, 1895

  1

  “FOUR SCORE AND

  SEVEN YEARS AGO …”

  A Life Enslaved

  Frederick Douglass was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, about 12 miles from Easton, in Talbot County, Maryland. He was born into slavery and grew up an innocent victim of its hardships. The institution of slavery separated mothers from their children, as Frederick experienced when his mother was sent to work on a plantation far from her infant son. The system of slavery kept records for purposes of inventory, profit, and loss. Records were often kept listing the names of those who were enslaved along with a list of the names of the horses on the plantation.

  Frederick Douglass was born a slave, yet the journey he embarked upon took a road not traveled by many. He discovered literacy, the key he used to unlock freedom’s door, and flung wide that door to step into manhood. Bursting onto a scene ripe with political tension and strife over the “slave issue,” Douglass raised his newfound voice and challenged America.

  Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was the name given to him by his mother Harriet, whose shadow was a dim comfort to him during his earliest years. Not long after Frederick was born, she was sent to work on a farm 12 miles from the cabin where he was left behind with his grandmother. Some of his earliest memories included the warmth of feeling his mother’s embrace while he slept during the night. His mother walked 12 miles after a full day of hard labor to be close to her son for those few brief moments. She would then walk back those same 12 miles to return before sunrise to avoid punishment for being late to her work.

  Her nighttime visits were few, given the difficulty of her situation. One day young Frederick learned that his mother had died from illness. He was about seven years old at the time.

  The cabin where Frederick Douglass was born was probably in this grove of trees at Tappers Corner, near Tuckahoe Creek on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Photo by author

  A Log Cabin Home

  The cabin where Frederick was born, took his first steps, and learned to walk was the cabin of his grandparents, Betsey and Isaac Bailey. As was common among slaveholders, small children were left with the elderly, those too old to work in the field. A number of young children, most of them probably Frederick’s cousins, lived in the Bailey cabin, too.

  It was a log cabin built in an impoverished district known as Tuckahoe, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Situated in the woods near Tuckahoe Creek, the cabin was built of clay, wood, and straw. “At a distance,” Frederick said, “it resembled—though it was much smaller, less commodious and less substantial—the cabins erected in the western states by the first settlers.”

  Frederick loved his grandmother dearly. Her arms comforted him when he fell, and her nurturing care fashioned his earliest memories. She tenderly shielded him from the knowledge that he was a slave as long as she could.

  Frederick respected his grandmother, for she was truly a remarkable woman. She was a good nurse and knew how to treat most any ailment. These were valued skills in that area, for the region of Tuckahoe, with its low marshes, swamps, and mosquitoes, was known by its residents for its fever and ague, an illness marked with fits of shaking or shivering.

  Betsey Bailey was an excellent fisherwoman. Her skills at net-making as well as fishing for shad and herring were known around the region. Frederick remembered seeing her stand for hours in the water up to her waist, fishing with a net using a method known as seine-hauling. For this technique, she placed the net in the water so it surrounded the fish, then drew it up by pulling a rope that was looped along its edge. The fish were gathered together as the net formed a bag around them.

  Frederick’s grandmother was also an expert gardener. Her methods of planting and growing sweet potatoes made her a local legend. People from neighboring areas sent for her to place their stash of seedling potatoes into the ground. During the following harvest, she was rewarded for her efforts with gifts and a share of the bountiful crop.

  Frederick recalled the tender care his “Grandmother Betty” gave the seedling sweet potatoes to keep them over the winter for next year’s planting. Each fall, before the cold chill of frost could damage their fragile roots, she took the seedlings inside her cabin and buried them under the floor near the fireplace.

  Despite the simple memories of childhood spent under his grandmother’s loving care, the shadow of slavery darkened every corner of the small rustic cabin where Frederick spent his early years. His grandmother frequently spoke with a hushed fear of “Old Master.” Gradually, with an awakening of his young years, Frederick learned that his grandparents’ cabin belonged to “Old Master,” that the woods and lot he played in belonged to “Old Master,” and that even he, his grandmother, and his cousins were somehow the property of this mysterious person. Frederick later recalled, “Thus early did clouds and shadows begin to fall upon my path.”

  This small cabin is reminiscent of the cabin where Frederick Douglass lived with his grandmother. Douglass had it built behind his home at Cedar Hill in Washington, DC, where it stands today.

  Photo by author, courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

  Frederick Douglass’s Birthday

  Unsure of the exact day, Frederick Douglass estimated the date of his birth to be in February 1817. Plantation records list his birthday in February 1818. Why did he not know the date of his birth, even though it seems records were kept? Because Frederick was born a slave. As he recalled in one of his autobiographies, “Masters allowed no questions concerning their ages to be put to them by slaves.” While he was a slave, Frederick never saw the records his owners kept. When he later wrote his autobiographies, even though he tried time and time again to ask his former owners when his birthday was, he did not know what the plantation records stated.

  Harriet Bailey

  Frederick Douglass’s mother, Harriet Bailey, was a field hand. She died while he was young. Frederick later discovered that his mother had been
the only slave on the entire plantation of more than a thousand slaves who knew how to read. He cherished this knowledge as he rose from slavery to become a renowned scholar and man of letters.

  He never knew who his father was, but as a child Frederick heard whispers that it was “Old Master.” His mother died before she could reveal the true identity to Frederick, but one thing was known for certain: his father was white. Once again, the institution of slavery had made its mark on Frederick. He stated realistically, “Slavery had no recognition of fathers, as none of families. That the mother was a slave was enough for its deadly purpose. By its law the child followed the condition of its mother.” Brothers with the same father could be separated in life—one brother as the slave owner and the other brother as the slave. Many children born thus into the slave quarters were so fair-skinned that they looked as white as their brothers and sisters living in the master’s house on the plantation. Yet they remained enslaved because the law stated that any child whose mother was a slave remained a slave as well.

  Chief Clerk and Butler

  Eventually, Frederick came to learn that his owner was Captain Aaron Anthony, the chief clerk and butler on an immense plantation owned by Colonel Lloyd, a plantation that was one of the most prosperous in the state of Maryland. The plantation was so large that it took over a thousand enslaved workers to maintain it. The vast property was made up of various farms with different overseers, and all these overseers answered to Captain Anthony. The captain carried the keys to Colonel Lloyd’s storehouses, measured out the allowances allotted to every slave at the end of each month, oversaw all the goods brought onto the plantation, distributed the raw materials to the craftsmen, and shipped out the grain and tobacco and other produce grown on the plantation. Captain Anthony also oversaw the coopers’ shop, wheelwrights’ shop, blacksmiths’ shop, and shoemakers’ shop.

  Captain Anthony had two sons and a daughter named Lucretia. His daughter had married Thomas Auld by the time Frederick was aware of the family. The captain, as he was commonly known because of his experience sailing on Chesapeake Bay, owned about 30 slaves and three farms in Tuckahoe. He lived with his family in a house on Colonel Lloyd’s plantation, where he could conveniently command his post as the chief clerk and butler of the vast empire.