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Massachusetts State Seal
Commonwealth Museum   Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin
Commonwealth Museum Secretary of the Commonwealth William Francis Galvin

Virtual Tour Detail

Frederick Douglass

Photo of Frederick Douglass Frederick Douglass, fugitive slave and abolitionist, escaped from bondage in Maryland in 1838. Douglass first heard William Lloyd Garrison at an ant-slavery rally in New Bedford and joined Garrison's movement. As the war approached, however, Douglass broke with the ant-war, anti-Union Garrison. Douglass settled in Rochester, New York, and, using political means to achieve moral ends, established his own newspaper, The North Star, which urged abolitionists to vote.