Frederick Douglass' Life and His Work Frederick Douglass was born 1817, in Tuckahoe, Maryland. He was famous for escaping slavery, and his work as an abolitionist. He grew up in Tuckahoe, Maryland as a slave with his mother, Harriet Bailey. In 1836 he attempted to escape from slavery, but unfortunately he failed. Two years later he succeeded, and fled to New Bedford, Mass. Poor treatment as a slave led to a life filled with hatred for slavery. Before and during the civil war he urged other African Americans to escape slavery as he had. He began working as an abolitionist in 1841. He was at an antislavery convention in N