Life and Times of Frederick Douglass

It is the only one of Douglass's autobiographies to discuss his life during and after the Civil War, including his encounters with American presidents such as Lincoln and Garfield, his account of the ill-fated "Freedman's Bank", and his service as the United States Marshall of the District of Columbia.

[1] The 1892 revision brought Douglass's story up to date with thirteen new chapters, the final three of which covered his experience in Haiti, to which he was U.S. minister from 1889 to 1891.

His Early Life as a Slave, His Escape from Bondage, and His Complete History to the Present Time, Including His Connection with the Anti-slavery Movement; His Labors in Great Britain as Well as in His Own Country; His Experience in the Conduct of an Influential Newspaper; His Connection with the Underground Railroad; His Relations with John Brown and the Harper's Ferry Raid; His Recruiting the 54th and 55th Mass.

[5] Douglass begins by describing his earliest childhood memories of living with his grandparents, Betsy and Isaac Bailey, until he was seven or eight years old.

Douglass claims to know little about his parentage as his mother was rarely able to see him as a "hired out" enslaved person, and he is unsure of his father's identity.

Douglass details several cruel interactions he witnessed between Captain Anthony and enslaved people at the plantation.

Without Mrs. Auld's lessons, Douglass searches for different ways to educate himself, such as carrying a spell book and purchasing The Colombian Orator.

The Captain believes Douglass is spoiled and takes him to Edward Covey, a cruel man known to transform enslaved people obediently.

Douglass met different people, such as John Brown and Harriet Beecher Stowe, who influenced his life as an abolitionist.

John Brown and his companions grasped control of the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia, as part of a grander scheme to liberate enslaved people.

People assumed Douglass was involved due to his connection to Brown and thus became a fugitive wanted by the federal government and the state of Virginia.

With the election of President Abraham Lincoln, Douglass views the American Civil War as a fight to end the slavery system.

Douglass met Lincoln, who welcomed him into the White House and listened to his concerns regarding the unequal treatment of Black people.

President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, issued on January 1, 1863, freed enslaved people in the area of rebel governments.

After the abolition of slavery, Douglass realized the emancipated enslaved people needed advocates to speak on their behalf.

For example, when trying to eat dinner while traveling in a steamer, white people remove him from the cabin due to his skin color.

In the final chapter of his Part II, Douglass thanks people he knows who participated in the anti-slave movement as well as a reflection of a person's purpose in life.

Douglass discusses President James Garfield's inauguration and later on his death about a month after he was shot by Charles J. Guiteau.

Prior to his death, President Garfield had informed Douglass of his plan to appoint a Black man as US minister.

He argues that the results of the 1884 presidency were due to the fact that Republicans disregarded Black people as means to increase Southern support.

Douglass reflects on his trip to Europe and the rest of the world with his wife in 1886 and the people he met in Great Britain years before.

He continues to deliver speeches all over the world, speaking on behalf of Black people aiming to achieve racial equality.

[1] William Andrews, as well as other scholars, criticized the fact that Douglass's last autobiography can be seen as a shift in African American literature from "asserting black identity against a slaveholding nation" to "accommodation to the values and goals of the white middle class into which they attempted to assimilate".

[6] While in his two previous narratives, Douglass focused on the quest for literacy, in Life and Times, he sought to "re(connect) with a realm outside of language".

[6] Grandt adds that Douglass finds it difficult "to escape the tautology of language by placing authentic blackness outside of the text itself".

Grandt also writes that the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass is "indicative of a general loss of emotional force and economy".