William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown (born November 6, 1814 in Lexington , Kentucky , † November 6, 1884 in Chelsea , Massachusetts ) was an American abolitionist , lecturer , novelist, playwright and historian . Born into slavery in the southern states , Brown fled to the north, where he stood up for the abolitionist cause and worked as a writer. Brown was also a pioneer in a variety of literary genres, including travel writing and drama. He is the author of what is considered to be the first novel by an African-American .

biography

Brown's mother Elizabeth, who was a Dr. Young had seven children from different fathers (in addition to William, Solomon, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Millford and Elizabeth). Brown's father was the white plantation owner George Higgins, who was a relative of the owner of the plantation on which Brown was born.

Brown was sold several times before he was 20, but by then had lived in St. Louis for most of his life. Then his owners hired him to work on the Missouri River , which was then an important transport route for the slave trade . He made several attempts to escape and on New Year's Day 1834 he was successful in a steamer at the port of Cincinnati ( Ohio ) leave. He took the name of a Quaker friend to gain freedom. He worked for nine years on the Underground Railroad and as a steam boatman on Lake Erie - he used this position to bring escaped slaves across the lake to freedom in Canada . Brown then became active in the abolitionist movement and joined several anti-slavery associations as well as the Negro Convention Movement.

Speaker and author for the Abolition

Brown's original concern was Prohibition , but he then focused on anti-slavery efforts and made speeches in New York and Massachusetts that reflected his belief in the power of appeals and the importance of nonviolent resolution. He often attacked the presupposed American ideal of democracy and the use of religion as grounds for the servility of slaves. Brown fought all his life against the idea that blacks were subjects of the white race. In the early 1850s he traveled to the United Kingdom , where he solicited supporters for the affairs of the American abolitionists. A newspaper article in the Scotch Independent reported:

“By dint of resolution, self-culture, and force of character, he has rendered himself a popular lecturer to a British audience, and vigorous expositor of the evils and atrocities of that system whose chains he has shaken off so triumphantly and forever. We may safely pronounce William Wells Brown a remarkable man, and a full refutation of the doctrine of the inferiority of the negro. ”

“Through steadfastness, self-education and strength of character, he has made himself a popular lecturer to a British audience and a staunch commentator on the evils and atrocities of the system whose chains he has so triumphantly and definitively shaken off. We can safely proclaim William Wells Brown as a remarkable man and a complete refutation of the doctrine of negro inferiority. "

- Scotch Independent : June 20, 1852

Thanks in part to his reputation as a powerful narrator, Brown was invited to the National Convention of Colored Citizens , where he met other prominent abolitionists. When the Liberty Party was formed, he chose to remain independent because he believed that the abolitionist movement should avoid political trench warfare. He continued his support of the William Lloyd Garrison approach and shared his personal experiences and observations of slavery in order to bring others to support the cause.

Literary works

His advocacy for abolitionism was not limited to just giving lectures. Brown published his life story in 1847 under the title Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself , which became a bestseller and sold as well as the life story of Frederick Douglass . In it he primarily criticizes the lack of Christian values ​​among slave owners and the brutal use of force in the relationship between slave owners and slaves. During her time in the UK , Brown published other texts, including travelogues and plays.

His first novel, Clotel, or, The President's Daughter: a Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, is considered to be the first novel published by an African-American . However, because the book was published in the United Kingdom, it is not the first novel by an African-American to be published in the United States. This trait is due either to Harriet Wilson's Our Nig (1859), rediscovered by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. in 1982 , or to Julia C. Collins' The Curse of Caste; or The Slave Bride (1865), found by Professor of English Literature William L. Andrews of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Professor of History Mitch Kachun of Western Michigan University in 2006. Andrews and Kachun interpret Our Nig as an autobiographical novel, arguing that Collins' book is the first fully fictional novel by an African American to be published in the United States.

Most literary scholars agree that Brown was the first African-American playwright whose plays were published. Brown was the author of two plays, The Experience; or, How to Give a Northern Man a Backbone (1856, unpublished and now lost) and The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom (published 1858), which he read out at meetings of the abolitionists instead of the usual lectures.

Brown also wrote several works as a historian, including The Black Man: His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements (1863), The Negro in the American Revolution (1867), The Rising Son (1873), and another volume of his autobiography, My Southern Home (1880).

Next life

After British friends bought him his freedom, Brown returned to the United States, where he continued to give lectures. Presumably because of the increasingly dangerous mood for blacks in the United States in the 1850s, he turned around and became a supporter of Afro-American emigration to Haiti . Like several other abolitionists, Brown concluded that more militant action was needed to move the matter forward. Throughout the Civil War and the decades that followed, Brown continued to publish fictional and non-fictional works, earning a reputation as one of the most prolific African American writers of his day. He also played his role in the Civil War when he introduced the Bermuda soldier Robert John Simmons to the abolitionist Frances George Shaw. Shaw was the father of Col. Robert Gould Shaw , the commander of the 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry .

William Wells Brown died in Chelsea in 1884.

See also

• African American literature

Individual evidence

1. ^ William W. Brown: The Black Man: his Antecedents, his Genius, and his Achievements. Thomas Hamilton, New York 1963.
2. ↑ Randy F. Nelson: The Almanac of American Letters . William Kaufmann, Los Altos, California 1981, ISBN 0-86576-008-X , p. 67.
3. ↑ Dinitia Smith: A Slave Story Is Rediscovered, and a Dispute Begins. In: The New York Times. October 28, 2006, p. B7
4. ^ Sven Birkerts: Emancipation Days. In: The New York Times. October 29, 2006. ( The New York Times Book Review )

literature

• Ezra Greenspan: William Wells Brown: an African American life , New York, NY; London: Norton, 2014, ISBN 978-0-393-24090-0

Web links

Commons : William Wells Brown  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• Works by William Wells Brown at Project Gutenberg
• The Louverture Project: William Wells Brown - Toussaint L'Ouverture - from the 1863 book The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements .
• The Louverture Project: Dessalines - A description of Jean-Jacques Dessalines from the 1863 book The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements by William Wells Brown.