To properly uplift the lost history of Dr. Frederick (Bailey) Douglass on Maryland’s Eastern Shore there must be a greater understanding of the communal, religious, education, social and political institutions before and after the Civil War.
Reconstruction in the border state of Maryland brought forth the establishment of schools for “colored students” under the authority of the Freedmen’s Bureau, a subject of scholarship lost within the cocktail society of today’s disinterested and unknowing tax-payer funded historical organizations and institutions of higher learning.
In our survey of the Shore bibliography there is a small list of books, journal articles and other sources which discuss the Freedmen’s Bureau in Maryland but it would appear the history has largely been lost on the Shore.
Specifically, the history of educator Henry Augustus Monroe has been lost within its local, regional and national consequence.
It is our understanding Dr. Frederick (Bailey) Douglass assisted and/or encouraged Monroe, a native of Massachusetts and drummer boy for the famed 54th Infantry, to go down South to Maryland’s Eastern Shore and use his education to reach one teach one.
At the recording of this document Monroe is either 19 or 20 years old.
SOURCE:
United States, Freedmen’s Bureau, Records of the Superintendent of Education and of the Division of Education, 1865-1872
Lost History of Dr. Frederick (Bailey) Douglass on Maryland's Eastern Shore 