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Why Did Frederick Douglass Escape

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Frederick Douglas is one of the most well-known former slaves in US history as he risked his life by escaping from slavery, and became one of the smartest men of his time. Born on a Maryland plantation in 1817, Douglas started planning his escape from slavery around the age of 21-years. In order to trick the bounty hunters, Douglas changed his name to Frederick Bailey on September 3, 1838. He also decided to disguise himself as a sailor, wearing a red shirt, a tarpaulin hat, and a black scarf tied loosely around his neck what he vividly describes that his clothes were only enough to cover the top half of his body (Douglass 276). He was a very smart man to have thought of these disguises and tricks to successfully escape slavery. After escaping slavery, Frederick Douglas wrote about his escape in his autobiography. Frederick Douglass described his escape on a train ride from Baltimore to Philadelphia. Douglass autobiography was written seven years later after his escape in 1845, some people thought that Douglass’s escape was too good for him to be a …show more content…

Douglass learned to read and write when he was living in the Auld’s household for seven years and being tutored by Mrs. Auld who taught him how to spell (Douglass 259). A lesson that we can all learned from Frederick Douglass enduring the Legacies of slavery in today's society is being able to face the world and to do what he did to fight for what we believe in as people of color. Instead of letting people use us as property and dehumanize colored Americans, because Douglass spent his life trying to get end slavery so that the world would be better off without colored people being held in captivity. It seemed like Douglass did not want others to go through what he went through as a slave not being able to be

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