sole title to distinction. His
mother was a negro slave, tall, erect, and well-proportioned, of a
deep black and glossy complexion, with regular features, and manners
of a natural dignity and sedateness. Though a field hand and compelled
to toil many hours a day, she had in some mysterious way learned to
read, being the only person of color in Tuckahoe, slave or free, who
possessed that accomplishment. His father was a white man. It was in
the nature of things that in after years attempts should be made to
analyze the sources of Douglass's talent, and that the question should
be raised whether he owed it to the black or the white half of his
mixed ancestry. But Douglass himself, who knew his own mother and
grandmother, ascribed such powers as he possessed to the negro half of
his blood; and, as to it certainly he owed the experience which gave
his anti-slavery work its peculiar distinction and value, he doubtless
believed it only fair that the credit for what he accomplished should
go to those who needed it most and could justly be proud of it. He
never knew with certainty who his white father was, for the exigencies
of slavery separated the boy from his mother before the subject of
his paternity became of interest to him; and in after years his white
father never claimed the honor, which might have given him a place in
history.

Douglass's earliest recollections centered around the cabin of his
grandmother, Betsey Bailey, who seems to have been something of a
privileged character on the plantation, being permitted to live with
her husband, Isaac, in a cabin of their own, charged with only the
relatively light duty of looking after a number of young children,
mostly the offspring of her own five daughters, and providing for her
own support.

It is impossible in a work of the scope of this to go into very
elaborate detail with reference to this period of Douglass's life,
however interesting it might be. The real importance of his life to us
of another generation lies in what he accomplished toward the world's
progress, which he only began to influence several years after his
escape from slavery. Enough ought to be stated, however, to trace
his development from slave to freeman, and his preparation for the
platform where he secured his hearing and earned his fame.

Douglass was born the slave of one Captain Aaron Anthony, a man of
some consequence in eastern Maryland, the manager or chief clerk of
one Colonel Lloyd,