Anna

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In the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass", did it ever say where Douglass met his wife Anna? Just wondering, I must've missed it somewhere.

-- Anonymous, February 03, 2000

Answers

Douglass seems to have been VERY private about his personal life after he escaped slavery. He rewrote the Narrative several times in his life, and if anything, he says LESS about Anna in the other versions. However, what I've been able to find out is that Anna was a FREE woman who lived in Baltimore. Frederick met her while he was living on his own, with the implication being that he met her while at a camp-meeting (an early type of religious gathering).

He does indicate in a later version of his autobiography that once he knew that he had successfully escaped, he sent for her immediately and they were married, so she did NOT live in the North, as the Narrative implies (at least to my reading)

You didn't miss anything. Finding information on Douglass' personal life, especially his first wife, is difficult. Yes, his first wife. In 1884 he married a white woman two years after Anna died. This caused him no small grief in his later years, as you can imagine.

-- Anonymous, February 04, 2000


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