William W. Brown: Abolitionist and Historian

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At just after 8 p.m. on February 2, 1857, an air of expectancy gripped the crowd assembled in the town hall in the little village of Salem, Ohio. The audience leaned forward in their seats, eager to catch a glimpse of the middle-aged black man who strode confidently onto the stage. William Wells Brown, the object of their curiosity, cleared his throat and began to recite from Experience, or How to Give a Northern Man a Backbone, the first play authored by an African American.

For almost a year, Brown had traveled about the Northeast reading his drama, which dealt with the evils of slavery and urged the abolitionists in attendance to do something about the plight of blacks held in bondage. No copies of this 1856 play have survived, but fortunately, his second such work, The Escape, or A Leap For Freedom, fared better following its 1858 publication.

These two plays–the only ones known to have been written by Brown– represented only a tiny portion of his literary achievements. Virtually illiterate in his youth, Brown went on to become a historian, an essayist, a journalist, and a lecturer, as well as America’s first black novelist, playwright, and travel-book author.

Born near Lexington, Kentucky, sometime between 1813 and 1815, William was the son of Elizabeth, a slave on a farm owned by Dr. John Young. His father was George Higgins, Young’s half-brother or cousin.

In 1816, Dr. Young moved to Missouri with his family and slaves, settling in Saint Charles County on the northern shore of the Missouri River. Four years later, Young went off to serve in the state’s first legislature, leaving his farm in the hands of overseer Grove Cook, a cruel man who made frequent use of the whip. In his autobiography, William described a beating that his mother received, remembering that ‘cold chills ran over me, and I wept aloud.’

While William was still a boy, the Young’s took an infant nephew into their home. Since his name too was William, they changed the young slave’s name to Sanford. The youth did not take losing his only possession–his name–lightly and endured several beatings for persisting in calling himself William.

Light skinned, William also found himself at the wrong end of the lash when people mistook him for a member of the Young family, a resemblance that was obviously beyond his control. This question of skin color caused William to suffer the scorn of some fellow slaves as well. As he later wrote, ‘the nearer a slave approaches an Anglo-Saxon in complexion the more he is abused by both owner and fellow-slaves. The owner flogs him to keep him ‘in his place,’ and the slaves hate him on account of his being whiter than themselves.’

When Dr. Young moved to St. Louis in 1827, he hired William out to work in a variety of jobs. In his first book, Narrative of William Wells Brown, A Fugitive Slave, William wrote of his treatment at the hands of a tavern keeper named Major Freeland, a drunkard who severely beat the then-teenager. After brief stints working on a steamboat and at the Missouri Hotel in the city, William was hired by Elijah P. Lovejoy, editor of the St. Louis Times. There for only a brief time, William was nonetheless able to acquire the rudiments of an education.

In 1832, William was put in the employ of James Walker, a slave trader, for one year and was forced to take part in the transportation of fellow slaves down river for auction. By the time William’s distasteful service to Walker had expired, Dr. Young found himself in financial difficulty. To ease his situation, he made plans to sell William, despite an earlier promise to Higgins that he never would sell his son. Regretful that such a move was necessary, Young gave William a week to find a new owner. Instead, William talked his mother into trying to flee to Canada. Against her better judgement, Elizabeth agreed.

Tags: African American History, American History, Historical Figures, Literature, People, Politics, Social History

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