William Wells Brown

Born a Kentucky slave, William Wells Brown used his oratorical skills as a lecturer for both the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society to spread the abolitionist message. In 1847, Brown published the first edition of his Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself. This slave narrative sold more than thirteen thousand copies in six editions in the United States and England. In 1849 he traveled abroad and began lecturing in England, where he remained until 1854. Brown was a prolific writer, publishing an autobiography, a travel book, a book of abolitionist songs, a play, novels, and a history of black people. Brown is perhaps best remembered today as a pioneer in African American literature. Clotelle, the first novel published by an African American, was the work of his pen. Clotelle is a fictionalized account of Thomas Jefferson’s relationship with his slave Sally Hemings, first published in 1853.

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• The Underground Railroad
• William Wells Brown
• Henry Highland Garnet
• Samuel Ringgold Ward
• Slave Purchased and Freed by her Mother
• Runaway Slave Notice
• The Amistad
• Insurrections
• Douglass' Monthly