Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass was born in or around 1817 into slavery in Maryland. He escaped in 1838. He was a great orator and writer, and he was a leading figure in the abolitionist m movement. He was the son of Harriet Bailey and an unknown white man. His mother was a slave so therefore he was born a slave. He was separated from his mother when only a few weeks old. His grandparents raised him. When he turned eight, he was sent to a woman who took care of slave children on the plantation of Colonel Edward Lloyd. When he was nine, he was sent to Baltimore where he lived with Mr. and Mrs. Hugh Auld, relatives of his master. He started to stu