Frederick Douglass, the world-renowned abolitionist, writer, publisher, and orator, was born upstream here on the Aaron Anthony farm in February 1818 as part of the Bailey family, enslaved by Anthony. Under the cruel American system of chattel slavery, slave status was inherited from mothers, so even though his grandfather Isaac Bailey was free, Isaac's wife Betsey and all of her descendants were born as slaves-for-life. Instead of birth certificates, Anthony recorded children's names as property in his farm ledger. From this agricultural landscape and fresh tidal creek, Douglass learned to detest the traumas of slavery as he explored the land, water, and mill and fished on the millstream's muddy shore, where his quest for freedom and natural rights began. As an adult, he became a leading intellectual with his own newspaper and thundered "Agitate, agitate, agitate," drawing thousands from across the northern states, Ireland, and Britain. He met with Lincoln to press for emancipation and the enlistment of Black soldiers, then tirelessly recruited soldiers to fight for the Union Army. After the Civil War, he demanded full rights of citizenship for Black people and became the first African American to hold positions as U.S. Marshal, Recorder of Deeds in the District of Columbia, and consul-general to the Republic of Haiti. Slavery split families and kinships, and Douglass saw his mother only a few brief times; she named him Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey. When he self-emancipated in 1838 and eventually arrived in New Bedford, Mass., he changed his name for safety.