What to the Slave is the Fourth of July? Lesson Plan

Frederick Douglass was one of the greatest writers, orators, abolitionists, reformers, and polemicists of the 19th century. Born into slavery in Talbot County, Maryland around 1818, Douglass eventually escaped to freedom in 1838. He did not know the identity of his father and did not have a close relationship with his mother. The earliest years of his life were spent with his first master, Captain Anthony, a moderately wealthy slaveholder. Douglass lived on the main plantation of Colonel Lloyd, one of Maryland's wealthiest men. In a fortuitous turn of events, Douglass was sent to Baltimore to live with Anthony's son-in-law's brother and his wife. There Douglass taught himself how to read...