Frederick Douglass for Kids

by Nancy I. Sanders

  Rosetta, the oldest of their children, married Nathan Sprague and lived with her family in Rochester. When her parents moved to Washington, DC, Rosetta and her family moved as well, settling in the suburbs of the capital where Nathan found work in real estate. Rosetta had a special bond with both of her parents. At times, she helped her father by writing down lectures and editorials that he dictated. Other times, she helped her mother by writing her letters and notes. Rosetta spoke at the Anna Murray Douglass Union of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) in 1900, sharing memories of her childhood along with a special tribute honoring her mother.

  After the Civil War, Lewis Douglass was often seen with his father in various political activities at the nation’s capital. He married Helen Loguen, daughter of Bishop J. W. Loguen of the A.M.E. Zion Church. President Grant appointed Lewis as a member of the council of the legislature of the District of Columbia. During the administration of President Hayes, Lewis served as assistant marshal of the District of Columbia before settling into a career in real estate.

  Rosetta Douglass Sprague (1839-1906). Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  Lewis H. Douglass (1840-1908). Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  Frederick Douglass Jr. (1842-1892). Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  Charles Remond Douglass (1844-c. 1929). Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  Frederick Douglass spent many hours working here at his desk writing his letters, speeches, and books. Photo by author, courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

  Frederick Douglass Jr. worked as a recruiting agent during the Civil War to muster black troops. His job took him deep into southern territory to Mississippi and other states. After the war was over, he married Virginia Hewlett. Frederick Jr. served as court bailiff in the District of Columbia.

  Charles Douglass returned home from the Civil War and was married in Rochester. He was soon appointed as a clerk in the War Department, where he served with the Freedmen’s Bureau. Active in various political and presidential appointments, Charles traveled as a US consul to Santo Domingo. He was involved with the Capital City Guard Corps, the Washington, DC, militia that he commanded as major. His work with the county schools was influential in hiring African Americans as teachers with equal salary benefits.

  A Great Storyteller

  Never having received one day of formal schooling in his life, Frederick Douglass was still a well-educated man. He was a man of letters and he wrote constantly. For years he wrote newspaper articles, speeches, and letters.

  He was also a man of books. He devoured books, both modern and historic as well as classic. He surrounded himself with books in his home. In his personal library at Cedar Hill he filled bookshelves to overflowing. He owned over 2,000 books.

  Frederick Douglass was also a great storyteller. He loved to tell stories to guests and family members who visited him in his home. Friends recalled that Douglass rivaled President Lincoln in his ability and love for telling a story. Often, because of the clever wit and jovial spirit Douglass had, his stories made his listeners laugh.

  Combining his love for writing, books, and telling stories, Frederick Douglass worked on his autobiography throughout his lifetime. His third autobiography, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, was published in 1881. He continued to update this last biography as the final years of his life unfolded. It was rereleased in various subsequent versions.

  Colonel Lloyd’s Plantation

  Even though Frederick Douglass had returned to the Eastern Shores of Maryland, he had never been back to visit Colonel Lloyd’s plantation since the day he sailed away from it when he was about seven years old and was sent to live in Baltimore as a slave for Hugh Auld. Expressing his desire to see the old plantation once again, a friend offered to take Douglass in his small boat, along with several other friends.

  Douglass was hesitant, unsure how the descendants of the great Colonel Lloyd would greet him. As their small boat sailed down the river and tied up anchor at the dock, a wide range of emotions flooded Douglass’s heart. “From the deck of our vessel,” he remembered, “I saw once more the stately chimneys of the grand old mansion which I had last seen from the deck of the Sally Lloyd when a boy. I left there as a slave, and returned as a freeman; I left there unknown to the outside world, and returned well known.”

  Douglass’s concerns were soon put to rest. He and his friends received a gracious invitation to come up to the house. The group visited with young Howard Lloyd, the great-grandson of Colonel Edward Lloyd, who escorted them through the estate. A number of the buildings were still the same as when Douglass had lived there.

  Together, they walked to the Lloyds’ family cemetery and stood under the quiet, towering trees. They meandered through the beautiful gardens. When their tour of the grounds was complete, Douglass and his companions were invited to sit on the grand veranda of the great house and enjoy the stately view.

  During his lifetime, Frederick Douglass wrote three autobiographies, including Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom, and this final one, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  In 1881 Frederick Douglass visited the great house at Colonel Lloyd’s plantation. Photo by author, courtesy of Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park

  Anna Murray Douglass Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site; FRDO 246, Carol M. Highsmith, photographer, www.cr.nps.gov/museum

  Frederick Douglass visited the Lloyds’ family cemetery. Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  After their short rest, Howard Lloyd invited them inside the house, where they were offered refreshments in the dining room. Once outside again, Douglass was greeted by various people who stopped by because they heard he was visiting. A number of them were children of people who had been enslaved on that very plantation and whom Douglass had known when he was a child.

  It was a very emotional experience for Douglass. He shared, “That I was deeply moved and greatly affected by it can be easily imagined.” He realized that a visit such as this was “one which could happen to but few men, and only once in the life time of any.” Returning with his friends to the dock, they climbed aboard their ship and turned for home.

  A Great Loss

  In August 1882 the Douglass household experienced a great loss. Beloved wife, mother, and grandmother Anna Murray Douglass passed away. In September Frederick and Anna would have been married for 44 years.

  Frederick grieved for the loss of Anna. She had befriended him and invited him to join her circle of free blacks in Baltimore while he was still a slave. She had made arrangements and helped plan his escape to freedom. In their early years of marriage, they had shared the joys of settling into their new home together and raising a family. A hard worker with a head for finances, Anna had provided the support and financial stability their family needed through hard economic times and limited salaries generated from Frederick’s work as an abolitionist. When he was forced to flee abroad in danger of his life, Anna had kept the home fires burning and the family knit closely together. A devout abolitionist herself, Anna had been influential and well known among her friends in her antislavery circles.

  Now she was gone.

  She would be sorely missed.

  A New Season

  Time marched on as Frederick Douglass dealt with his grief and sorrow. As days turned into months and then a full year went by, however, Douglass was lonely. His grand house on Cedar Hill felt empty. He decided to marry again.

  As the Recorder of Deeds for the Dist
rict of Columbia, Frederick Douglass had hired a clerk to help him with the paperwork. Helen Pitts supported woman’s suffrage and believed in equality of the races. Her ancestors had arrived in America on the Mayflower, and she came from a prestigious family. She was 45.

  In 1884 Frederick and Helen were married. Reverend Francis Grimké, husband of Charlotte Forten Grimké, performed the wedding ceremony. With their similar political beliefs and interests, Frederick and Helen had many things in common. However, because Frederick was black and Helen was white, the marriage caused strong objections from different people.

  As usual, these protests did not sway Frederick Douglass’s firm convictions in equal rights. He responded to public opinion by stating that when he married a woman the same color as his mother, nobody objected, but now that he married a woman the same color as his father, many people protested.

  Silver tea set in the Douglass home at Cedar Hill. Photo by author, courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

  Helen Pitts Douglass, second wife of Frederick Douglass.

  Courtesy National Park Service, Museum Management Program and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site; FRDO 318, Carol M. Highsmith, photographer, www.cr.nps.gov/museum

  The Douglass’s piano and violin in their home at Cedar Hill. Photo by author, courtesy National Park Service, Frederick Douglass National Historic Site

  Not everyone protested, however. For those who knew Frederick Douglass and the principles he lived for, they understood that race or skin color made no difference to this great man. It was the quality and character of a person that mattered to him. He chose to marry his new wife because he loved her.

  The house at Cedar Hill once more rang out with the voices of happy guests and welcome visitors. The back lawn behind the house was used as a croquet court. Numerous delightful hours were spent with friends and family playing lively games of croquet, with Frederick Douglass often winning many of the matches himself.

  Helen and Frederick also shared a love for music. She played the piano and often accompanied him as he played the violin. The sweet melodies they enjoyed together filled the home at Cedar Hill with light and happiness once again.

  The Trip of a Lifetime

  From September 1886 to August 1887, Frederick and Helen Douglass embarked on the trip of a lifetime. They spent that year touring Europe. The couple started in England to visit Douglass’s old friends from the years he spent in exile on that country’s friendly shores.

  As Frederick and Helen traveled by train from London to Paris and on to Rome, they enjoyed the beautiful countryside, the ancient cities, and the friendly people. They stopped at many historic towns and museums along the way. They visited formidable castles, toured quaint villages, and explored beautiful gardens.

  Throughout his trip, Douglass felt an amazing variety of emotions. When they toured the old castles and peered into the dark recesses of torture chambers, he felt sad. He remembered his own experiences as a slave and questioned how any person could treat a fellow human being so. When he walked through a Roman amphitheater where years ago men fought with wild beasts before wildly cheering crowds, Douglass remembered his nation’s sorrowful history of slavery. He wondered sadly what it was in the human heart that could find amusement in such terrible sports.

  When they stood on the shore and smelled the salty waters of the Mediterranean Sea, Douglass took a deep breath and marveled that the air he breathed wafted over to them from Africa’s golden shores. And when they had traveled down to the land of the pharaohs, where he saw his first camel, groaning under the strain of its heavy burden, Douglass said, “I have large sympathy with all burden-bearers, whether they be men or beasts…. I had at the moment much the same feeling as when I first saw a gang of slaves chained together and shipped to a foreign market.”

  Several highlights of the trip were treasured by Frederick Douglass. He saw many famous items in places such as the Museum of Genoa in Italy. He recalled, however, “that the one that touched me most was the violin that had belonged to and been played upon by Paganini, the greatest musical genius of his time.” He could scarcely pull himself away.

  When Douglass visited Rome, it was hard for him to describe the feelings he experienced knowing that he was walking in the footsteps of Paul from the Bible. Douglass said, “It was something to feel ourselves standing where this brave man stood, looking on the place where he lived, and walking on the same Appian Way where he walked.”

  In Egypt, the land of the Nile, Douglass observed that “nothing grows old here but time, and that lives on forever.” He decided to climb to the top of the Great Pyramid and with typical humor recalled that he made the climb with some difficulty. “I had two Arabs before me pulling, and two at my back pushing, but the main work I had to do myself.” As he stood on the top of the pyramid, looking out over the stark and beautiful desert where stood the Sphinx, the other pyramids, and the sites of ancient cities now vanished in the shifting sands of time, he marveled that “there are stirred in the one who beholds it for the first time thoughts and feelings never thought and felt before.”

  Finally, at year’s end, his grand and glorious trip came to an end. It was time to return home. With Helen’s hand in his, they headed back to Cedar Hill.

  “After my life of hardships in slavery and of conflict with race and color prejudice and proscription at home, there was left to me a space in life when I could and did walk the world unquestioned, a man among men.”

  —Frederick Douglass

  The Darkest Hour

  If the years of slavery were the nation’s most sorrowful hour and the years of the Civil War the nation’s bloodiest hour, the years that followed the war became America’s darkest hour. All the freedoms, all the rights, all the humanity for an oppressed race that men had died for on the battlefield were swept away, almost before they had time to take root.

  Frederick Douglass watched the tide of events with a heart that was filled with sorrow, yet ever with hope. As always, he lifted his voice and let it be heard.

  Early in these years as the US marshal of the District of Columbia, Douglass felt it a great honor when he escorted both the outgoing and incoming president during the ceremonies conducted for James Garfield’s inauguration into office. He said, “I deemed the event highly important as a new circumstance in my career, as a new recognition of my class, and as a new step in the progress of the nation.”

  Hope filled Douglass’s heart when President Garfield spoke privately with Douglass for advice on using African Americans as statesmen. Yet this same hope was dashed to the ground when President Garfield was assassinated. “His death,” lamented Douglass, “appeared to me as among the gloomiest calamities that could have come to my people.”

  In his position as US marshal, Frederick Douglass escorted newly elected President Garfield during his inauguration ceremony. Courtesy of Documenting the American South, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Libraries

  For a short time after the war, a period of Reconstruction worked in favor of equal rights throughout the nation. But as those years drew to an end, a period of mob violence and terror took its place. Frederick Douglass observed these terrible events with a sad and heavy heart. He said, “The country had not quite survived the effects and influence of its great war for existence. The serpent had been wounded but not killed.”

  “My cause first, midst, last, and always, whether in office or out of office, was and is that of the black man—not because he is black, but because he is a man, and a man subjected in this country to peculiar wrongs and hardships,” —Frederick Douglass

  In this the nation’s darkest hour Frederick Douglass remained at his post, letting his voice be heard through the influential government positions he held. He spoke at key meetings, wrote letters of influence, and worked hard to fight for civil rights.

  Appointment to Haiti

  In 1881 Frederick Douglass was appointed by President Benjamin Harrison to be
the minister resident and consul general to Haiti. As usual, Douglass viewed his role in Haiti from a unique perspective. He understood the concerns the small, impoverished nation of Haiti had when approached by strong-arm tactics from the United States to establish a navy base on its shores. Douglass recognized the prejudice of Americans who met with the government leaders in Haiti, trying to arrange commerce deals and political deals to their own advantage.

  In his appointed position, Douglass stayed true to his moral convictions, unswayed by politics, public opinion, or bad press. He knew how to deal with lies, scandals, and prejudice. He valued the people of Haiti and their leaders, many of them former slaves or descendants of slaves. And in 1892 when the government of Haiti appointed him to be their representative as the commissioner of the Haitian exhibit at the World’s Columbian Exhibition in Chicago, Frederick Douglass considered it a great honor.

  His Final Stand

  By the late 1800s mob violence ravaged the South, establishing a reign of terror against blacks. Lynch law, where southern citizens took matters in their own hands and lynched anyone they chose, was responsible for the murders of scores of innocent African Americans. Throughout the North, many people joined in the tide of opinion against former slaves, believing the lies painted by the press and southern government leaders who declared blacks were unfit for citizenship, unworthy of rights afforded to American citizens, and unequipped to vote.