Frederick Douglass speaks at the Nantucket Anti-Slavery Convention

Background. Frederick Douglass, born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, escaped slavery in Maryland in 1838 and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts, an abolitionist center. He moved to Lynn, Massachusetts, in 1841. Douglass became a licensed preacher in 1839, which helped hone his oratorical skills. He first heard William Lloyd Garrison speak in 1841 at Liberty Hall in New Bedford, an experience that deeply influenced him.

The Convention. A few days after hearing Garrison speak in New Bedford, Douglass spoke at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket. Nantucket is an island in Massachusetts, about 30 miles south of the Cape Cod peninsula, and is the southeasternmost town in the state. This event established Douglass as a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York.

Garrison Connection. William Lloyd Garrison was impressed with Douglass and had written about his anti-colonization stance in The Liberator as early as 1839. Douglass later said that no face and form impressed him with such sentiments of the hatred of slavery as Garrison. This mutual respect preceded Douglass's speech at the Nantucket convention, which occurred shortly after Douglass first heard Garrison speak in New Bedford.