Douglass's life sort of stands across the expanse of the 19th century as a symbol of the worst and the best in the American character he was the slave who saw most of the worst brutalities of slavery he was the slave however who freed himself and by luck pluck and gifts remade himself most importantly he had an enormous ability to capture in words the meaning of what America is about I have no accurate knowledge of my age never having seen any authentic record containing it by far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday Frederick Douglas 1845 it was long the Eastern Shore of Maryland near quiet Creek called the Tuckahoe at the life of the man who would inspire a nation began Frederick Douglass was born in Talbot County on Maryland's Eastern Shore he wasn't a certain of his birth himself in fact he thought that he had been born in 1817 but slave records tell of the birth of Frederick Augustus to a slave named Harriet in February 1818 he knew who his mother was although she was a distant figure in his life she lived on another plantation he never really knew who his father was although he came to believe that his father was definitely a white man and probably his his master raised by his grandmother at the far end of the plantation the tiny boy named Frederick that a carefree playful life along the muddy shores of the Tuckahoe until he was six about age six Douglass found that his child had come to an abrupt end he was assigned to act as the companion and caretaker of the child mother owner of the plantation and as a result he could get in trouble for things that he either had done or had failed to do and so it became immediately apparent that he was no longer a child but was a slave and was part of that institution of slavery