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Lot 57
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Frederick Douglass signs an ironic thought provoking land deed
Frederick Douglass signs an ironic thought provoking land deed
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Description:

Douglass Frederick 1817 - 1895 Frederick Douglass signs an ironic thought provoking land deed
Bifold, 8.5" x 14", Consisting of a Land Deed with the signature of Frederick Douglass as "Fredk. Douglass", recorder, located in the docket on the verso. Additionally signed by husband and wife, "Adeline B. Ergood", and "John R. Ergood", on verso of the first leaf, with the second leaf containing a statement of Re-affirmation from the State of Florida, signed notarized and witnessed "this 12 day of January, 1883", with the recording docket located on the verso of the second leaf. Lightly toned with some ink smudging. Faint handling marks and a small stain along inner margin not affecting text. Professional repair to partial separation along folds. Notarized twice with blind stamp embossed seals to the second leaf.


A lovely land deed with a clean, fresh signature of Frederick Douglas, while acting as recorder of deeds for the or the District of Columbia, in his later years after a long hard but highly influential life of rebellion, pushing the consciousness of the status quo to the limits. Born a slave of mixed race on a plantation in Maryland, Douglass had little to no contact with his mother as at the time it was custom to part children from their mothers at an early age. In 1838 after repeatedly failed escaping to freedom, Frederick finally managed while dressed undercover with a falsified ID papers. And thus began his life as the most influential African America of the 19th century.

One biographer argues:

Douglass made a career of agitating the American conscience. He spoke and wrote on behalf of a variety of reform causes: women's rights, temperance, peace, land reform, free public education, and the abolition of capital punishment. But he devoted the bulk of his time, immense talent, and boundless energy to ending slavery and gaining equal rights for African Americans. These were the central concerns of his long reform career. Douglass understood that the struggle for emancipation and equality demanded forceful, persistent, and unyielding agitation. And he recognized that African Americans must play a conspicuous role in that struggle. Less than a month before his death, when a young black man solicited his advice to an African American just starting out in the world, Douglass replied without hesitation: "Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!"

Douglass was strongly pro suffrage and championed woman's rights, an especially interesting point as this particular land deed, for a parcel in Washington DC, required reaffirmation because the original was "defective" as "the wife not having been examined privily (privately) and apart from her husband and this deed is now given to correct said defect"

A thought provoking statement and without additional research may have been a result of "state" differences in the handling of contracts in involving husbands and wives, as the parties had moved to Florida where it need to be reaffirmed. However certainly a most ironic document considering the period/timing in woman's history, and that the "recorder", Frederick Douglas, was at the time one of the most assertive advocators of woman's rights. Douglass was so actively involved with the rights of women, he was known to have said that he could not accept the right to vote as a black man if women could not also claim that right. He suggested that the world would be a better place if women were involved in the political sphere., 'In this denial of the right to participate in government, not merely the degradation of woman and the perpetuation of a great injustice happens, but the maiming and repudiation of one-half of the moral and intellectual power of the government of the world'

A wonderful, ironic thought provoking document.

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