When in his early life this child discovered that he had been born a slave, he resolved not to die one, having also discovered that there was such a thing as human freedom. Except this early resolution and the hope it gave, his youth had no brighter prospect for the future than had that of thousands of others who were born into American slavery. Certainly, there was nothing in it to foretell that he who was to be known as William Wells Brown would ever become a compeer of great humanitarians and an acquaintance of celebrated writers in both America and Europe. Yet such he was before he was fifty years old; and in addition to being a prominent abolitionist, he was America's first Negro man of letters.
On January 1, 1834, while in Cincinnati, Ohio, Brown escaped from slavery. En route from Cincinnati to Canada, he was befriended in south-central Ohio by a Quaker, whose name he added to the one name-William-that had been his in slavery. Instead of going on to Canada, he settled in Cleveland, began working very hard and educating himself, and married. After two and a half years he moved to Buffalo, New York, where he maintained a home for nine years, and then to Farmington, New York, where he lived for two years. Arriving in Boston for the first time in the spring of 1847, Brown made this city and its environs his home for the remainder of his life, with the exception of five years he spent abroad. His voice as that of an anti-slavery lecturer was heard for the first time in New England when he addressed the Annual Convention of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in Marlborough Chapel in Boston in May, 1847.
Brown was in slavery less than twenty years, but in that time his changes of masters and occupations were numerous. His varied experiences as a slave familiarized him with more departments of the “peculiar institution” than Frederick Douglass and other Negro anti-slavery leaders ever saw. Brown worked as an anti-slavery agent in New England for two years. After Brown had been in Boston about two months, he published his Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave (Boston, 1847). This little volume of 110 pages at once became a best seller among the slave narratives published before the Civil War. Within two years it went through four editions totaling eight thousand copies. There was no other antebellum slave narrative of which as many copies were sold. In it he simply turned to writing as one more means of attacking the monster called slavery. Writing was a means of reaching and perhaps convincing many who could not be reached from the anti-slavery platform. It presented the facts so that the reader might review them leisurely and unemotionally and be led by his intelligence as well as his conscience to oppose slavery. The narrative recounts Brown's experiences as a slave from his earliest recollections to the time of his escape; and because his experiences had been varied, his book graphically portrayed slavery in all of its phases, showing all of them to be ugly.
In July, 1849, he went abroad on a twofold mission—to represent the American Peace Society at an International Peace Congress in Paris and to win continued British support for the anti-slavery movement in the United States. After the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, it was unsafe for Brown to return to America, as he was not legally free; so he stayed abroad. In the fall of 1853 there came from the press of Partridge and Oakey, London, Brown's Clotel; Or, The President's Daughter; A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, the first novel published by an American Negro. His freedom having been purchased by friends in England, Brown returned to Boston in September, 1854, and continued his work as an anti-slavery agent until the Civil War ended. During his five years in Great Britain, he had delivered more than a thousand speeches to a variety of audiences, and he had won the esteem of most of those with whom he had come in contact. Enriched by his experiences abroad, he now became one of the most prominent Garrisonian abolitionists, and as an anti-slavery lecturer he was surpassed only by Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips.
The Escape was published in Boston in June, 1858, and until evidence to the contrary is discovered, it may still be considered the first drama published by an American Negro. Like Clotel, this drama is based on actual experiences and is primarily an anti-slavery argument. The subject matter of both the novel and the play belonged to the same department of the "peculiar institution", the department of romances between masters and beautiful slave women, usually mixed-breeds. Brown was in favor of woman suffrage because he could see no more relationship between sex and political rights than between complexion and these rights. Nowhere in his works did he express any belief in the perfectibility of human beings, either as individuals or in society, but he was convinced that such social evils as slavery, whether physical or economic, and intemperance, war, and race and sex prejudice were eradicable and, therefore, had no excuse for being. He died in Chelsea, a suburb of Boston, on November 6, 1884, and was buried three days later in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cemetery. His grave has remained unmarked except for the numbered slab that serves to identify it in the records in the cemetery office.
All this information was compiled from the resources of JSTOR. To read in depth on the life and history of William Wells Brown, follow the links below:
On January 1, 1834, while in Cincinnati, Ohio, Brown escaped from slavery. En route from Cincinnati to Canada, he was befriended in south-central Ohio by a Quaker, whose name he added to the one name-William-that had been his in slavery. Instead of going on to Canada, he settled in Cleveland, began working very hard and educating himself, and married. After two and a half years he moved to Buffalo, New York, where he maintained a home for nine years, and then to Farmington, New York, where he lived for two years. Arriving in Boston for the first time in the spring of 1847, Brown made this city and its environs his home for the remainder of his life, with the exception of five years he spent abroad. His voice as that of an anti-slavery lecturer was heard for the first time in New England when he addressed the Annual Convention of the New England Anti-Slavery Society in Marlborough Chapel in Boston in May, 1847.
Brown was in slavery less than twenty years, but in that time his changes of masters and occupations were numerous. His varied experiences as a slave familiarized him with more departments of the “peculiar institution” than Frederick Douglass and other Negro anti-slavery leaders ever saw. Brown worked as an anti-slavery agent in New England for two years. After Brown had been in Boston about two months, he published his Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave (Boston, 1847). This little volume of 110 pages at once became a best seller among the slave narratives published before the Civil War. Within two years it went through four editions totaling eight thousand copies. There was no other antebellum slave narrative of which as many copies were sold. In it he simply turned to writing as one more means of attacking the monster called slavery. Writing was a means of reaching and perhaps convincing many who could not be reached from the anti-slavery platform. It presented the facts so that the reader might review them leisurely and unemotionally and be led by his intelligence as well as his conscience to oppose slavery. The narrative recounts Brown's experiences as a slave from his earliest recollections to the time of his escape; and because his experiences had been varied, his book graphically portrayed slavery in all of its phases, showing all of them to be ugly.
In July, 1849, he went abroad on a twofold mission—to represent the American Peace Society at an International Peace Congress in Paris and to win continued British support for the anti-slavery movement in the United States. After the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, it was unsafe for Brown to return to America, as he was not legally free; so he stayed abroad. In the fall of 1853 there came from the press of Partridge and Oakey, London, Brown's Clotel; Or, The President's Daughter; A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, the first novel published by an American Negro. His freedom having been purchased by friends in England, Brown returned to Boston in September, 1854, and continued his work as an anti-slavery agent until the Civil War ended. During his five years in Great Britain, he had delivered more than a thousand speeches to a variety of audiences, and he had won the esteem of most of those with whom he had come in contact. Enriched by his experiences abroad, he now became one of the most prominent Garrisonian abolitionists, and as an anti-slavery lecturer he was surpassed only by Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips.
The Escape was published in Boston in June, 1858, and until evidence to the contrary is discovered, it may still be considered the first drama published by an American Negro. Like Clotel, this drama is based on actual experiences and is primarily an anti-slavery argument. The subject matter of both the novel and the play belonged to the same department of the "peculiar institution", the department of romances between masters and beautiful slave women, usually mixed-breeds. Brown was in favor of woman suffrage because he could see no more relationship between sex and political rights than between complexion and these rights. Nowhere in his works did he express any belief in the perfectibility of human beings, either as individuals or in society, but he was convinced that such social evils as slavery, whether physical or economic, and intemperance, war, and race and sex prejudice were eradicable and, therefore, had no excuse for being. He died in Chelsea, a suburb of Boston, on November 6, 1884, and was buried three days later in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, Cemetery. His grave has remained unmarked except for the numbered slab that serves to identify it in the records in the cemetery office.
All this information was compiled from the resources of JSTOR. To read in depth on the life and history of William Wells Brown, follow the links below: