Born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, a slave, Frederick Douglass went on to become a leading abolitionist orator, writer, and public figure whose life spanned most of the nineteenth century, though the work for which he is best known was published during the American Renaissance. The two autobiographies he published during that period are premier examples of the slave narrative so significant in mid-nineteenth-century American literature. These works situate Douglass among other authors who stressed the importance of individual experience and moral conviction. Douglass's escape from slavery was only the beginning of his acquisition of freedom from other forms of white paternalism and control, and he developed into a leader in the fight for abolition of slavery, black enfranchisement, and equal rights.

Frederick Douglass was born in February 1818 at Tuckahoe near Easton, Talbot County, Maryland. The month and year of birth have been fixed by historians, even though Douglass...