ILLUSTRATED EDITION OF THE LIFE AND ESCAPE OF WM. WELLS BROWN FROM
AMERICAN SLAVERY
By Wm. Wells Brown
Written By Himself.
Fourteenth Thousand.
London: C. Gilpin, 5, Bishopsgate Street Without
1851
One Shilling
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TESTIMONIALS.
TO THE FRIENDS OF FREEDOM AND EMANCIPATION IN EUROPE.
Boston, July 17, 1849.
In consequence of the departure for England of their esteemed friend
and faithful co-labourer in the cause of the American slave, William W.
Brown, the Board of Managers of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society
would commend him to the confidence, respect, esteem, and hospitality of
the friends of emancipation wherever he may travel:--
1. Because he is a fugitive slave from the American, house of bondage,
and on the soil which gave him birth can find no spot on which he can
stand in safety from his pursuers; protected by law.
2. Because he is a man, and not a chattel; and while as the latter
he may at any time be sold at public vendue under the American
star-spangled banner, we rejoice to know that he will be recognised and
protected as the former under the flag of England.
3. Because, for several years past, he has nobly consecrated his time
and talents, at great personal hazard, and under the most adverse
circumstances, to the uncompromising advocacy of the cause of his
enslaved countrymen.
4. Because he visits England for the purpose of increasing,
consolidating and directing British humanity and piety against that
horrible system of Slavery in America, by which three millions of human
beings, by creation the children of God, are ranked with fourfooted
beasts, and treated as marketable commodities.
5. Because he has long been in their employment as a lecturing agent
in Massachusetts, and has laboured to great acceptance and with great
success; and from the acquaintance thus formed, they are enabled
to certify that he has invariably conducted himself with great
circumspection, and won for himself the sympathy, respect, and
friendship, of a very large circle of acquaintance.
In behalf of the Board of Managers,
WM. LLOYD GARRISON.
ROBERT F. WALLCUT.
SAMUEL MAY, JUN.
Boston, July 18, 1849.
My dear friend,
To-day you leave the land of your nativity, in which you have been
reared and treated as a slave--a chattel personal--a marketable
commodity--though it claims to be a republican and Christian land,
the freest of the free, the most pious of the pious--for the shores of
Europe; on touching which, your shackles will instantly fall, your limbs
expand, your spirit exult in absolute personal freedom, as a man, and
nothing less than a man. Since your escape from bondage, a few years
since, you have nobly devoted yourself to the cause of the three
millions of our countrymen who are yet clanking their chains in hopeless
bondage--pleading their cause eloquently and effectively, by day and by
night, in season and out of season, before the people of the Free States
(falsely so called) of America, at much personal hazard of being seized
and hurried back to slavery. Not to forsake that cause, but still more
powerfully to aid it, by enlisting the sympathies, and consolidating
the feelings and opinions of the friends of freedom and universal
emancipation in the old world in its favour and against the atrocious
slave system, do you bid farewell to the land of whips and chains
to-day. God--the God of the oppressed, the poor, the needy, the
defenceless--be with you, to guide, strengthen, aid, and bless you
abundantly! Three millions of slaves are your constituents, and you are
their legitimate and faithful representative. With a mother, sister, and
three brothers, yet pining in hopeless servitude, with the marks of the
slavedriver’s lash upon your body, you cannot but “remember them that
are in bonds as bound with them.” Speak in trumpet tones to Europe, and
call upon the friends of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” there, to
cry, “Shame upon recreant and apostate America, which flourishes the
Declaration of Independence in one hand, and the whip of the negro
overseer in the other!” Challenge all that is free, all that is humane,
all that is pious, across the Atlantic, to raise a united testimony
against American slaveholders and their abettors, as the enemies of God
and the human race! So shall that cry and that testimony cause the knees
of the oppressor to smite together, the Bastile of slavery to tremble
to its foundation, and the hearts of the American Abolitionists to be
filled with joy and inspired afresh! Tell Europe that our watchword is,
“Immediate--unconditional emancipation for the slave,” and the motto we
have placed on our anti-slavery banner is, “No Union with Slaveholders,
religiously or politically!”
You have secured the respect, confidence, and esteem of thousands of the
best portion of the American people; and may you continue faithful to
the end, neither corrupted by praise, nor cast down by opposition, nor
intimidated by any earthly power!
Accept the assurances of my warm personal regard, and believe me to be,
Your faithful co-labourer and unwearied advocate of the best of causes,
WM. LLOYD GARRISON,
President of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
WM. W. BROWN.
At a large and influential meeting of the coloured citizens of Boston,
U.S., held in the Washington Hall, on Monday evening, 16th of July,
1849, the following resolution was unanimously adopted:--That, in taking
a farewell of our brother, Wm. Wells Brown, we bid him God speed in his
mission to Europe, and we cordially commend him to the hospitality of
the friends of humanity.
From the Annual Report of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society,
adopted at their meeting held in Boston, U.S., on the 26th of January,
1851:--“We have again to express our acknowledgment to the untiring
anti-slavery men and women of Great Britain for their continued
sympathy, encouragement, and assistance, which we have been happy to
acknowledge in former years. The kindness with which Wm. Wells Brown was
received on his first arrival seems to have met with no diminution. We
notice, with pleasure, meetings held for him, and attended by him,
in various parts of the United Kingdom, which appear to have had
an excellent effect in arousing and keeping alive the anti-slavery
sentiments of the British people; of these sentiments we have received
substantial results in the contributions which enrich the Annual Bazaar.”
FRANCIS JACKSON, President
EDMUND QUINCY, Secretary
JOHN T. HILTON, Chairman
J. H. SNOWDON
WM. T. RAYMOND
PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH ENGLISH EDITION.
The present Narrative was first published in Boston (U.S.), in July,
1847, and eight thousand copies were sold in less than eighteen months
from the time of its publication. This rapid sale may be attributed to
the circumstance, that for three years preceding its publication, I had
been employed as a lecturing agent by the American Antislavery Society;
and I was thus very generally known throughout the Free States of the
Great Republic as one who had spent the first twenty years of his life
as a slave, in her southern house of bondage.
In visiting Great Britain I had two objects in view. Firstly, to attend
the Peace Convention held in Paris, in August, 1849, to which I had been
delegated by the American Peace Committee for a Congress of Nations.
Many of the most distinguished American Abolitionists considered it a
triumphant evidence of the progress of their principles, that one of the
oppressed coloured race--one who is even now, by the constitution of the
United States, a slave--should have been selected for this honourable
office, and were therefore very desirous that I should attend. Secondly,
I wished to lay before the people of Great Britain and Ireland the
wrongs that are still committed upon the slaves and the free coloured
people of America. The rapid increase of communication between the
two sides of the Atlantic has brought them so close together that the
personal intercourse between the British people and American slaveowners
is now very great; and the slaveholder, crafty and politic, as
deliberate tyrants generally are, rarely leaves the shores of Europe
without attempting at least to assuage the prevalent hostility against
his beloved “peculiar institution.” The influence of the Southern States
of America is mainly directed to the maintenance and propagation of the
system of slavery in their own and in other countries. In the pursuit
of tins object, every consideration of religion, liberty, national
strength, and social order is made to give way; and hitherto they have
been very successful. The actual number of the slaveholders is small;
but their union is complete, so that they form a dominant oligarchy in
the United States. It is my desire, in common with every Abolitionist,
to diminish their influence; and this can only be effected by the
promulgation of truth and the cultivation of a correct public sentiment
at home and abroad. Slavery cannot be let alone. It is aggressive, and
must be either succumbed to or put down.
In putting forth the eighth edition of this little book, I cannot but
express a surprise that a work written hastily, and that too by one who
never had a day’s schooling, should have met with so extensive a sale.
In committing my narrative once more to the public, I cannot do so
without returning my heartfelt thanks to the gentlemen connected with
the English press, for the very kind manner in which they have noticed
it, and thereby aided in getting it before the public.
WILLIAM WELLS BROWN.
22, Cecil Street, Strand. May, 1851.
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NARRATIVE.
CHAPTER I.
I was born in Lexington, Kentucky, one of the Western slave states. My
mother was the slave of Dr. John Young: my father was a slaveholder and
a relative of my master. Dr. Young was the owner of from forty to
fifty slaves, most of whom were field hands. I have no recollection of
Kentucky, as my master removed from that state, during my infancy, to a
large plantation, which he had purchased, near the town of St. Charles.
My master, being a politician, soon found those who were ready to put
him into office, for the favors he could render them; and a few
years after his arrival in Missouri he was elected to a seat in the
legislature. In his absence from home everything was left in charge of
Mr. Cook, the overseer, and he soon became more tyrannical and cruel.
Among the slaves on the plantation was one by the name of Randall. He
was a man about six feet high, and well-proportioned, and known as a
man of great strength and power. He was considered the most valuable and
able-bodied slave on the plantation; but no matter how good or useful
a slave may be, he seldom escapes the lash. But it was not so with
Randall. He had been on the plantation since my earliest recollection,
and I had never known of his being flogged.. No thanks were due to the
master or overseer for this. I have often heard him declare that no
white man should ever whip him--that he would die first.
Cook, from the time that he came upon the plantation, had frequently
declared that he could and would flog any nigger that was put into
the field to work under him. My master had repeatedly told him not to
attempt to whip Randall, but he was determined to try it. As soon as he
was left sole dictator, he thought the time had come to put his threats
into execution. He soon began to find fault with Randall, and threatened
to whip him if he did not do better. One day he gave him a very hard
task--more than he could possibly do; and at night, the task not being
performed, he told Randall that he should remember him the next morning.
On the following, morning, after the hands had taken breakfast, Cook
called out to Randall, and told him that he intended to whip him, and
ordered him to cross his hands and be tied. Randall asked why he wished
to whip him. He answered, because he had not finished his task the day
before. Randall said that the task was too great, or he should have done
it. Cook said it made no difference--he should whip him. Randall stood
silent for a moment, and then said, “Mr. Cook, I have always tried to
please you since you have been on the plantation, and I find you are
determined not to be satisfied with my work, let me do as well as I may.
No man has laid hands on me, to whip me, for the last ten years, and
I have long since come to the conclusion not to be whipped by any man
living.” Cook, finding by Randall’s determined look and gestures,
that he would resist, called three of the hands from their work,
and commanded them to seize Randall, and tie him. The hands stood
still;--they knew Randall--and they also knew him to be a powerful man,
and were afraid to grapple with him. As soon as Cook had ordered the men
to seize him, Randall turned to them, and said--“Boys, you all know me;
you know that I can handle any three of you, and the man that lays hands
on me shall die. This white man can’t whip me himself, and therefore
he has called you to help him.” The overseer was unable to prevail upon
them to seize and secure Randall, and finally ordered them all to go to
their work together.
Nothing was said to Randall by the overseer for more than a week. One
morning, however, while the hands were at work in the field, he came
into it, accompanied by three friends of his, Thompson, Woodbridge and
Jones. They came up to where Randall was at work, and Cook ordered
him to leave his work, and go with them to the barn. He refused to go;
whereupon he was attacked by the overseer and his companions, when he
turned upon them, and laid them, one after another, prostrate on the
ground. Woodbridge drew out his pistol, and fired at him, and brought
him to the ground by a pistol ball. The others rushed upon him with
their clubs, and beat him over the head and face, until they succeeded
in tying him. He was then taken to the barn, and tied to a beam. Cook
gave him over one hundred lashes with a heavy cowhide, had him washed.
with salt and water, and left him tied during the day. The next day he
was untied, and taken to a blacksmith’s shop, and had a ball and chain
attached to his leg. He was compelled to labor in the field, and perform
the same amount of work that the other hands did. When his master
returned home, he was much pleased to find that Randall had been subdued
in his absence.