William Wells Brown: From "Eloquent Fugitive Lecturer" to First African-American Novelist
In the years leading up to the Civil War, America was in a state of turmoil. In these rough years that would lead to even harder years, slavery and race relations were leading causes of strife. William Wells Brown was a man of these times. To study the life and writings of William Wells Brown is to study the history of America through these years. Brown was born in 1814, and spent the first years of his life as one of nearly forty slaves belonging to a white Kentucky landowner. While a teen, Brown's master moved him to Missouri, around forty miles north of the present-day Saint Charles. Upon moving to Missouri, Brown fled his master and would never have to return to living as a slave. Traveling upriver, Brown found work on a steamboat in Cleveland, Ohio, where he began his work as an abolitionist. Taking advantage of his job on a boat on the Great Lakes, Brown aided ex-slaves escaping to Canada, totaling 69 in 1842 alone (Coleman 49). The Cleveland job was temporary, though, and Brown eventually settled in Buffalo, New York. Living in Buffalo, Brown started a family and began expressing his abolitionist views in writings and lectures. As the struggles of African-Americans came to fruition, Brown would represent his generation and become the first African-American, "to publish a book of travels, a novel, and a drama," and probably "America's first Negro foreign newspaper correspondent" (Farrison 29). Whether Brown was just in the right place at the right time, the influence and importance of his work is undeniable.
About this blog:
This blog is a mock travel journal of William Wells Brown. It was created for the purpose a class about African American literature. The blog will outline the life of William Wells Brown, one of the first African American writers.
