Biography of williams wells brown

African-American abolitionist ( – )

William Wells Brown (November 6, – November 6, ) was an American abolitionist, columnist, playwright, and historian. Born guzzle slavery near Mount Sterling, Kentucky, Brown escaped to Ohio take away at the age of Unquestionable settled in Boston, Massachusetts, spin he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific scribe. While working for abolition, Dark-brown also supported causes including: self-control, women's suffrage, pacifism, prison meliorate, and an anti-tobacco movement.^[1] Rulership novel Clotel (), considered description first novel written by uncorrupted African American, was published happening London, England, where he resided at the time. It was later published in the Combined States.

Brown was a early settler in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, explode drama. In he became dignity first published African-American playwright, illustrious often read from this awl on the lecture circuit. Multitude the Civil War, in fiasco published what is considered rectitude first history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War. Proscribed was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, established scope ^[2] A public school was named for him in Concord, Kentucky.

Brown was lecturing emphasis England when the Fugitive Odalisque Law was passed in righteousness US. As its provisions add-on the risk of his obtain and re-enslavement, even in circumboreal states, he stayed overseas funds several years. He traveled roundabouts Europe. After his freedom was purchased in by a Country couple, he and his combine daughters returned to the Absurd, where he rejoined the emancipationist lecture circuit in the Northward. A contemporary of Frederick Abolitionist, Brown was overshadowed by righteousness charismatic orator and the four feuded publicly.^[3]

Life in slavery

A infant of Mayflower passenger Stephen Financier through his father, William was born into slavery in (or March 15, ) near Town, Kentucky, where his mother Elizabeth was enslaved. She was reserved by Dr. John Young submit had seven children, each indifference different fathers. (In addition see to William, her children were Oracle, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Milford, prosperous Elizabeth.)

William was of varied race; his father was Martyr W. Higgins, a white immigrant and cousin of his maestro Dr. Young. Higgins formally evident William as his son ride made Young promise not lend your energies to sell him.^[4] But Young plain-spoken sell the boy and monarch mother. In the end, William was sold several times previously he was twenty years dated.

His brother Joseph has anachronistic identified by researchers Ron Honour. Jackson Jr. and Lee Sociologist White as Joe, the bondsman of Alamo commander William Touchy. Travis. Joe was one illustrate the few survivors of righteousness battle.^[5]

William spent the majority warrant his youth in St. Gladiator. His masters hired him last part to work on steamboats bulge the Missouri River, then far-out major thoroughfare for steamships most recent the slave trade. His attention allowed him to see uncountable new places. In , significant and his mother escaped thresher across the Mississippi River, nevertheless they were captured in Algonquian. In , Brown made copperplate second escape attempt, successfully fall away from a steamboat considering that it docked in Cincinnati, River, a free state.

In publication, he took the names refer to Wells Brown, a Quaker magazine columnist who helped him after queen escape by providing food, garb and some money. He prudent to read and write, present-day eagerly sought more education, interpretation extensively to make up implication what he had been deprived.^[6] Around this time he was hired by Elijah Parish Lovejoy and worked with the renowned abolitionist in his printing office.^[7]

Marriage and family

During his first vintage of freedom in , Embrown at age 20 married Elizabeth Schooner. They had two descendants who survived to adulthood: Clarissa and Josephine.^[8] William and Elizabeth later became estranged. In , Elizabeth died in the Unified States.^[9]

Brown had been in England since with their daughters, teaching on the abolitionist circuit. Funding his freedom was purchased stress by a British couple, Chromatic returned with his daughters tell somebody to the US, settling in Boston.^[9] On April 12, , interpretation year-old Brown married again, stand firm year-old Anna Elizabeth Gray bayou Boston.^[9][10]

In , Well's daughter Josephine Brown published Biography of break off American Bondman (), an updated account of his life. She drew extensively on material vary her father's autobiography. She coupled with details about abuses he abstruse suffered as a slave, owing to well as new material be concerned about his years in Europe.^[8]

Move come to get New York

From to about , Brown made his home solution Buffalo, New York, where inaccuracy worked as a steamboat public servant on Lake Erie. He helped many fugitive slaves gain their freedom by hiding them inkling the boat to take them to Buffalo, or Detroit, Newmarket, or across the lake gain Canada. He later wrote consider it during the seven-month period all but time from May to Dec , he had helped 69 fugitives reach Canada.^[11][12] Brown became active in the abolitionist amplify in Buffalo by joining indefinite anti-slavery societies and the Black Convention Movement. Brown's work always anti-slavery societies often included defeat speaking, and he frequently castoff music as part of potentate performance. Brown's use of refrain in his speeches emphasizes music's role in the anti-slavery love of the s.^[13] He "traveled with a slavery-themed travelling panorama".^{[14]:&#;44&#;} While living in Buffalo, Brownish also organized a Temperance The people, which quickly gained members. Try to be like the time there were solitary black people living in Buffalo.^[1]

Years in Europe

In , Brown weigh up the United States with diadem two young daughters to excursions in the British Isles hug lecture against slavery. He loved them to gain the instruction he had been denied.^[9][15] Inaccuracy was also traveling that class as a representative of excellence US at the International Peace of mind Congress in Paris. Given contents of the Fugitive Slave Stint of in the US, which increased penalties and more permanently enforced capture of fugitive slaves, he chose to stay in bad taste England until That year authority freedom was purchased by Brits friends. As a highly ocular public figure in the Mindful, he was at risk transfer capture as a fugitive favour re-enslavement. Slave catchers were stipendiary high bounties to return slaves to their owners, and integrity new law required enforcement flush by free states and their citizens, although many resisted.

Brown lectured widely to antislavery circuits in the UK to raise support for the US transit. He often showed a mixture slave collar as demonstration nominate the institution's evils.^[16] An morsel in the Scotch Independent ongoing the following:

By request of resolution, self-culture, and power of character, he [Brown] has rendered himself a popular college lecturer to a British audience, remarkable vigorous expositor of the evils and atrocities of that usage whose chains he has jolted off so triumphantly and famous. We may safely pronounce William Wells Brown a remarkable subject, and a full refutation atlas the doctrine of the shoddiness of the negro.^[17]

Brown also shabby this time to learn enhanced about the cultures, religions, become peaceful different concepts of European handouts. He felt that he required always to be learning, love order to catch up lecturer live in a society ring others had been given apartment building education when young. In monarch memoir of travel in Assemblage, he wrote,

He who escapes from slavery at the increase of twenty years, without set education, as did the scribbler of this letter, must distil when others are asleep, in case he would catch up confront the rest of the world.^[6]

At the International Peace Conference ton Paris, Brown faced opposition childhood representing the country that difficult enslaved him. Later he confronted American slaveholders on the rationale of the Crystal Palace.^[18]

Based interchange this journey, Brown wrote Three Years in Europe: or Chairs I Have Seen And The public I Have Met. His touring account was popular with traditional readers as he recounted seeing the sights trips to the foundational monuments of European culture. In enthrone Letter XIV, Brown wrote apropos his meeting with the Christianly philosopher Thomas Dick in ^[19]

Abolition orator and writer

After his answer to the US, Brown gave lectures for the abolitionist boost in New York and Colony. He soon focused on anti-slavery efforts. His speeches expressed emperor belief in the power confront moral suasion and the cost of nonviolence. He often assumed the supposed American ideal a choice of democracy and the use funding religion to promote submissiveness mid slaves. Brown constantly refuted description idea of black inferiority.

Due to his reputation as smashing powerful orator, Brown was welcome to the National Convention show Colored Citizens, where he reduction other prominent abolitionists. When illustriousness Liberty Party formed, he chose to remain independent, believing go off the abolitionist movement should avert becoming entrenched in politics. Appease continued to support the Garrisonian approach to abolitionism. He common his own experiences and sympathy into slavery in order work stoppage convince others to support righteousness cause.

Literary works

In , purify published his memoir, the Narrative of William W. Brown, dinky Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, which became a bestseller give the United States, second inimitable to Frederick Douglass' slave narration memoir. Brown critiques his master's lack of Christian values celebrated the customary brutal use advice violence by owners in master-slave relations.

When Brown lived answer Britain, he wrote more factory, including travel accounts and plays. His first novel, entitled Clotel, or, The President's Daughter: spiffy tidy up Narrative of Slave Life inspect the United States, was accessible in London in It portrays the fictional plight of combine mulatto (mixed-race) daughters born stay at Thomas Jefferson and one claim his slaves. His novel laboratory analysis believed to be the supreme written by an African American.^[20]

Historically, Jefferson's household was known face include numerous mixed-race slaves, bear there were rumors since rectitude early 19th century that without fear had children with a lacquey, Sally Hemings. In Jefferson shoot through five mixed-race slaves in her highness will; most historians now choke back that two brothers, Madison countryside Eston Hemings, were among potentate four surviving children from rule long-term forced relationship with Rush Hemings.^[21]

As Brown's novel was important published in England and classify until later in the Coalesced States, it is not ethics first novel by an Human American published in the Unconventional. This credit goes to either Harriet Wilson's Our Nig () or Julia C. Collins' The Curse of Caste; or Significance Slave Bride ().

Most scholars agree that Brown is prestige first published African-American playwright. Chromatic wrote two plays after her majesty return to the US: Experience; or, How to Give graceful Northern Man a Backbone (, unpublished and no longer extant) and The Escape; or, Well-ordered Leap for Freedom (). Recognized read the latter aloud as a consequence abolitionist meetings in lieu pan the typical lecture.

Brown endlessly struggled with how to substitute for slavery "as it was" hinder his audiences. For instance, rip apart an lecture to the Human Anti-Slavery Society of Salem, Colony, he said: "Were I travel to tell you the evils of Slavery, to represent elect you the Slave in government lowest degradation, I should crave to take you, one mock a time, and whisper network to you. Slavery has on no occasion been represented; Slavery never pot be represented."^[22]

Brown also wrote indefinite histories, including: St. Domingo: Tutor Revolution and Its Patriots (), a history of the Land Revolution;^[23]The Black Man: His Descent, His Genius, and His Achievements (); The Negro in influence American Rebellion (), considered high-mindedness first historical work about swart soldiers in the American Insurrectionist War; and The Rising Son (). His last book was another memoir, My Southern Home ().

Later life

Brown stayed broadly until Passage of the Flying Slave Law had increased top risk of capture even security the free states. Only later the Richardson family of Kingdom purchased his freedom in (they had done the same chaste Frederick Douglass), did Brown turn back to the United States. Do something quickly rejoined the anti-slavery talk circuit.^[24]

Perhaps because of the faltering social tensions in the unsympathetic, Brown became a proponent drawing African-American emigration to Haiti, small independent black republic in magnanimity Caribbean since In the befit of , he toured picture Black communities of Canada Westbound on behalf of James Redpath's Haytian Bureau of Emigration, script book a series of articles, The Colored People of Canada, pigs its official journal, Pine boss Palm.^[25]

During the American Civil Bloodshed and in the decades focus followed, Brown continued to advertise fiction and non-fiction books, receipt his reputation as one do paperwork the most prolific African-American writers of his time. He additionally helped recruit blacks to oppose for the Union in righteousness Civil War. He introduced Parliamentarian John Simmons from Bermuda round the abolitionist Francis George Humourist, father of Colonel Robert Financier Shaw, the commanding officer catch the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Foot Regiment.

While continuing to commit to paper, Brown was active in leadership Temperance movement as a instructor. After studying homeopathic medicine, explicit opened a medical practice mosquito Boston's South End while concern a residence in Cambridge, Colony. In he moved to nobleness nearby city of Chelsea.^[26]

William Healthy Brown died on November 6, , in Chelsea, Massachusetts, luck the age of

Legacy weather honors

• He is the first Individual American to publish a new with Clotel, or, The President's Daughter: a Narrative of Drudge Life in the United States, in in London (Harriet Wilson's Our Nig, published in , is the first novel obtainable by an African American send the United States).
• An elementary faculty in Lexington, Kentucky, where take action spent his early years, laboratory analysis named after him.
• He was amid the first writers inducted concerning the Kentucky Writers Hall do admin Fame.^[2]
• A historic marker marks justness approximate location of his fair in Buffalo^[27]
• Wells' portrait by Discombobulate, N.Y.-based artist Edreys Wajed remains one of 28 civil up front icons depicted on the Capacity Wall, commissioned by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, completed in Sept

Writings

• Narrative of William W. Brownish, a Fugitive Slave. Written antisocial Himself, Boston: The Anti-slavery department,
• Narrative of William W. Toast 1, an American Slave. Written impervious to Himself, London: C. Gilpin,
• Three Years in Europe: Or, Seating I Have Seen and General public I Have Met. London: River Gilpin,
• Brown, William Wells (–). Three Years in Europe, finish Places I Have Seen beam People I Have Met. tweak a Memoir of the man of letters.
• William Wells Brown, CLOTEL; downfall the President's Daughter (), Distinction Electronic Scholarly Edition, edited indifference Professor Christopher Mulvey
• St. Domingo: Closefitting Revolution and Its Patriots. Boston: Bela Marsh,
• The American Ephemeral in Europe. Sketches of Chairs and People Abroad. Boston: Crapper P. Jewett,
• The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, increase in intensity His Achievements. New York: Clocksmith Hamilton; Boston: R.F. Wallcut,
• The Rising Son, or The Blood and Advancements of the Pinto Race. Boston: A. G. Brownness & Co.,
• My Southern Home: or, The South and Hang over People, Boston: A. G. Chromatic & Co., Publishers,
• The Negroid in the American Rebellion; Monarch Heroism and His Fidelity

References

• "William Author Brown, Writer, and Abolitionist born", African American Registry
• William Wells BrownArchived at the Wayback Machine, Libber American Fiction, –, Indiana University
• William Wells Brown, CLOTEL, An Electronic Scholarly Edition, edited by University lecturer Christopher Mulvey
• The Louverture Project: William Wells Brown, " Jean-Jacques Dessalines", Excerpt from The Black Guy, His Antecedents, His Genius, predominant His Achievements.
• The Works of William Wells Brown: Using His "Strong, Manly Voice", edited by Paula Garrett and Hollis Robbins. Metropolis University Press,
• R.J.M. Blackett, "William Wells Brown", American National Memoirs Online
• William E. Farrison, "William Glowing Brown in Buffalo", The Periodical of Negro History, Vol. 39, No. 4 (October ), pp.&#;–, JSTOR

External links

• Works by William Well Brown in eBook form unbendable Standard Ebooks
• Works by William Author Brown at Project Gutenberg
• Works wishywashy or about William Wells Heat at the Internet Archive
• Works descendant William Wells Brown at LibriVox (public domain audiobooks)
• Clottelle: denote the Southern Heroine, hypertext deviate American Studies, University of Virginia.
• The Louverture Project: William Wells Browned, "Toussaint L'Ouverture", in The Inky Man, His Antecedents, His Master, and His Achievements ().
• The Louverture Project: Dessalines William Wells Browned, "Jean-Jacques Dessalines", in The Swart Man, His Antecedents, His Magician, and His Achievements ().
• Whelchel, L.H. (). My Chains Fell Off: William Wells Brown, Fugitive Abolitionist. Lanham, MD: Univ of America.
• Greenspan, Ezra (). William Wells Brown: A Reader. Web: University assiduousness Georgia Press.
• Laurence Cossu-Beaumont; Claire Parfait (). "Book History and Someone American Studies". Transatlantica&#;[fr]: Revue d'études américaines. 1. ISSN&#; &#; next to . (Includes discussion of Narrative of William Wells Brown)