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

CONTENTS

TESTIMONIALS.

PREFACE TO THE EIGHTH ENGLISH EDITION.

NARRATIVE.

CHAPTER I.

CHAPTER II.

CHAPTER III.

CHAPTER IV.

CHAPTER V.

CHAPTER VI.

CHAPTER VII.

CHAPTER VIII.

CHAPTER IX.

CHAPTER X.

CHAPTER XI.

CHAPTER XII.

THE AMERICAN SLAVE-TRADE.

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