William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown (circa 1814 – November 6, 1884) was a prominent African-American abolitionist lecturer, novelist, playwright, and historian. Born into slavery in Montgomery County, Kentucky, near the town of Mount Sterling, Brown escaped to the North in 1834, where he worked for abolitionist causes and was a prolific writer. His novel Clotel (1853) is considered the first novel written by an African American; it was published in London, where he was living at the time. Brown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama. He has a school named after him in Lexington, and was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame.[1]

Brown was lecturing in England when the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was passed in the US; he stayed overseas for several years to avoid the risk of capture and re-enslavement. After his freedom was purchased in 1854 by a British couple, he and his two daughters returned to the US. He rejoined the abolitionist lecture circuit. A contemporary of Frederick Douglass, Wells Brown was overshadowed by the charismatic orator and the two feuded publicly.[2]

William was born into slavery in 1814 near Mount Sterling, Kentucky, as his mother Elizabeth was a slave. She was held by Dr. John Young and had seven children, each by different fathers. (In addition to William, her children were Solomon, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Milford, and Elizabeth.) William's father was George W. Higgins, a white planter and cousin of his master Dr. Young. Higgins had formally recognized William as his son and made his cousin Young promise not to sell the boy.[3] But Young did sell him with his mother. William was sold several times before he was twenty years old.

William spent the majority of his youth in St. Louis. His masters hired him out to work on steamboats on the Missouri River, then a major thoroughfare for steamships and the slave trade. In 1833, he and his mother escaped together, but they were captured in Illinois. In 1834, Brown made a second escape attempt, successfully slipping away from a steamboat when it docked in Cincinnati, Ohio, a free state. In freedom, he took the names of Wells Brown, a Quaker friend who helped him after his escape by providing food, clothes and some money.

Marriage and family[edit]

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