Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. Duglass was never sure of the exact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. His father was white (probably his master)and his mother was a slave. As was the cruel custom in that part of Maryland, he was separated from his slave mother when he was an infant and cared for by an older slave woman on the country plantation. His mother could visit him only occasionally, by risking a beating to sneak away at night and walk twelve miles each way to see him. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore, to be a house servant, where he learned to read and write, with the assistance of his master's wife. As a young man in Maryland, Douglass was recognized as a very bright person by both blacks and whites. He began developing his speaking abbilities early on at a secret debating club called the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society. …
