CHRONOLOGY
- 1817—
- February. Born on a plantation at Tuckahoe, near the town of Easton, Talbot County, on the eastern shore of Maryland; the exact date not known. His mother, Harriet Bailey, was the slave of Captain Aaron Anthony, the manager of the estate of Colonel Edward Lloyd.
- 1825—
- Sent to Baltimore to live with Hugh Auld, a relative of his master.
- 1833—
- Returns to Maryland and becomes the slave of Thomas Auld, at St. Michaels, Talbot County; while here he has an encounter with the Negro slave-breaker, Covey.
- 1836—
- First attempt to run away results in his being sent back to Baltimore where he is apprenticed by Thomas Auld to William Gardiner of Fells Point, to learn the trade of ship-calker.
- 1838—
- September 3d. Makes his escape from Baltimore, reaching New York the next day. September 15th, according to the marriage certificate, possibly a day earlier, he marries a free colored woman, Anna Murray, who on receiving the news of his escape follows him to New York. They are directed to New Bedford, Mass., by Anti-Slavery friends where Douglass begins his life as a freeman. He changes his name from Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, to Frederick Douglass.
- 1841—
- August 11th. Makes his first speech before an Anti-Slavery convention and becomes a lecturer in the Anti-Slavery cause.
- 1842—
- Participates in the campaign for equal rights in Rhode Island during the “Dorr Rebellion.”
- 1843—
- Takes part in the campaign of “A Hundred Anti-Slavery Conventions”; his hand broken in a
fight with a mob at Pendleton, Indiana.
- 1845—
- Writes, in order to prove that he is what he proclaims himself, a fugitive slave, Narrative of Frederick Douglass, giving the names of his owners. This book was published by the Anti-Slavery Society. August 16th, sails for Liverpool, England, lest the publication of his biography should lead to his capture and reënslavement. He is received with enthusiasm in England and his freedom is purchased by two members of the Society of Friends.
- 1846—
- August 7th. Addresses the “World’s Temperance Convention” at Covent Garden Theatre, London. December 5th, the papers are signed which grant him his freedom.
- 1847—
- April 20th. Reaches America again. December 3d, the first issue of the North Star, subsequently Frederick Douglass’s Paper, is published, he having first removed to Rochester, N. Y. Following its establishment came his rupture with Garrison and the Abolitionist wing of the Anti-Slavery party.
- 1848—
- September. Delivers an address before a colored convention at Cleveland, O., on farming and industrial education.
- 1851—
- Announces his sympathies with the voting Abolitionists.
- 1852—
- Supports the Free Soil party and is elected a delegate from Rochester to the Free Soil Convention at Pittsburg, Pa.
- 1853—
- Visits Harriet Beecher Stowe at Andover, Mass., with reference to the forming of an industrial school for colored youth.
- 1855—
- My Bondage and My Freedom published in New York and Auburn.
- 1856—
- Supports Frémont, the candidate of the Republican party, for President.
- 1858—
- Douglass’s Monthly is established. Its publication is continued until 1864.
- 1859—
- August 20th. Visits John Brown at Chambersburg, Pa. This was his last interview with the
old Anti-Slavery hero before the attack on Harper’s Ferry, three weeks later. At this
interview John Brown made a final effort to induce him to join in the dangerous
enterprise.
- 1859—
- November 12th. Sails from Quebec on his second visit to England. This trip is undertaken because he is in danger of being implicated in the plot to cause an uprising of the slaves for which John Brown had already been executed.
- 1860—
- Returns to the United States, called home by the death of his daughter, Anna.
- 1860—
- December 3d. Attempts to speak in Tremont Temple, Boston, but the meeting is broken up.
- 1863—
- Publishes in Douglass’s Monthly his address to colored men urging them to enlist in the Federal Army. He is instrumental in forming the Fifty-fourth and Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Regiments of colored soldiers. Subsequently he visits President Lincoln to secure fair treatment of the colored soldiers and is promised, by Secretary Stanton, a commission as Assistant Adjutant to General Thomas, which, however, he does not receive.
- 1866—
- February 7th. Interviews President Johnson to urge upon him the wisdom of granting the suffrage to the freedmen. Issues shortly afterward an address in reply to President Johnson’s argument against granting the suffrage to Negroes. In September, is elected a delegate to the “National Loyalists’ Convention” in Philadelphia.
- 1869—
- Becomes editor of the New National Era which he continued to edit until 1872, at a pecuniary loss of about $10,000.
- 1871—
- Visits San Domingo as Secretary to the Commission, consisting of B. F. Wade, Dr. S. G. Howe and Andrew D. White, to determine the attitude of that country toward annexation to the United States. He is appointed a member of the upper house of the territorial legislature of Washington, D. C., but shortly resigns his position in favor of his son, Lewis. May 30th, he delivers the Decoration Day address at Arlington National Cemetery. Becomes president of the “Freedmen’s Savings and Trust Company.”
- 1872—
- April. Presides at the National Convention of colored citizens held in New Orleans.
Chosen elector-at-large from the State of New York on the Presidential ticket which
elected General Grant to a second term and is afterward designated to carry the vote of
the electoral college of New York to Washington.
- 1876—
- April 14th. Delivers an address at the unveiling of the Lincoln Monument in Lincoln Park, Washington, D. C.
- 1877—
- Appointed Marshal of the District of Columbia, which office he held until 1881.
- 1878—
- May. Visits St. Michaels and is reconciled to his old master, Thomas Auld.
- 1879—
- September 12th. Reads a paper before the American Social Science Association in which he opposes the Negro exodus to Kansas.
- 1881—
- May. Appointed Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia. June 12th, visits the Lloyd plantation.
- 1882—
- January. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass published. August 4th, his first wife dies: she was the mother of five children.
- 1884—
- January 24th. Marries Miss Helen Pitts, of New York.
- 1889—
- Appointed Minister and Consul General to Hayti.
- 1893—
- Commissioner for the Haytian Republic at the World’s Fair at Chicago. Makes an address on Negro Day at the Fair.
- 1895—
- February 20th. Dies at his home at Cedar Hill, Washington. Buried with honors from the Metropolitan Church (African Methodist Episcopal); public services being held subsequently in Rochester. His body finally interred beside those of his wife and daughter, in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, N. Y.