Frederick Douglass was born in slavery as Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey near Easton in Talbot County, Maryland. He was not sure of the exact year of his birth, but he knew that it was 1817 or 1818. As a young boy he was sent to Baltimore, to be a house servant, where he learned to read and write, with the assistance of his master's wife. In 1838 he escaped from slavery and went to New York City, where he married Anna Murray, a free colored...

"Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is the first full-length narrative written by a former woman slave in America. It tells the story of Harriet Jacobs's early life as a slave in North Carolina; her fugitive years in New York, Boston, and Rochester, where she became an abolition activist; and her struggle for freedom, hard won in 1852. This text is a reprint of the 1861 first edition, with explanatory annotations and an introduction by Nellie Y....

"The definitive, dramatic biography of the most important African-American of the nineteenth century: Frederick Douglass, the escaped slave who became the greatest orator of his day and one of the leading abolitionists and writers of the era. As a young man Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) escaped from slavery in Baltimore, Maryland. He was fortunate to have been taught to read by his slave owner mistress, and he would go on to become one of the major...

"A talented seamstress, born enslaved in 1818, bought freedom for herself and her son."--

A biography of the fugitive slave turned "conductor" on the Underground Railroad describes Tubman's youth in the South, her escape to Philadelphia, her efforts to liberate slaves, and her work for the Union Army.