ABSTRACT
The life of Frederick Douglas is the history of American slavery epitomised in a single human experience. Tradition says he was of noble lineage, but of this there is no written record. Frederick Douglass was born in the little town of Tuckahoe in Talbot County on the eastern shore of Maryland, supposedly in the month of February 1817. He saw it all, lived it all, and overcame it all. What he saw and lived and suffered was not too much to pay, however, for a great career, "It is something," as he himself said, "to couple one's name with great occasions, and it was a great thing to me to be permitted to bear some humble part in this, the greatest that had come thus far to the American people." The owner of Fred and of his mother, grandmother, sisters, and brother, was Captain Aaron Anthony.
