High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! David Ruggles (March 15, 1810 - December 16, 1849) was an anti-slavery activist who was active in the New York Committee of Vigilance and the Underground Railroad. He was an "African-American printer in New York City during the 1830s", who "was the prototype for black activist journalists of his time". He claimed to have led over six hundred people, including friend and fellow abolitionist Frederick Douglass, to freedom in the North.