Brown, William Wells (1814?-1884), was an African American author and abolitionist . Brown is credited with writing the first novel by an African American. The novel, Clotel (1853), focuses on Thomas Jefferson’s mixed-race slave housekeeper and her daughter, Clotel. Without naming him, the novel portrays Jefferson as Clotel’s father. The full title of the novel is Clotel; or, the President’s Daughter. Its subtitle, A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States, suggests that the story is grounded in narratives of slave life popularized by fugitive slaves such as Brown himself.
Brown established his reputation as a writer in 1847 with the publication of his widely praised memoir Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself. The book describes Brown’s childhood, life in slavery , and escape. The book went through nine American and British reprintings by 1850. Brown also wrote the first African American travel book, Three Years in Europe (1852). Brown’s play, a melodrama called The Escape or, A Leap for Freedom (1858), is considered the first drama published by an African American writer.
Brown was among the earliest African American historians. His historical works include The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements (1863) and The Rising Son; or, The Antecedents and Advancement of the Colored Race (1873). Brown endowed African American history with many accounts of outstanding leaders through biographical sketches and short accounts of blacks living in Haiti, South America, and the Caribbean as well as the United States. Brown’s final book was the memoir My Southern Home; or, The South and Its People (1880).
William was born near Mount Sterling, Kentucky, probably in 1814. He originally had only a given (first) name. His mother was a slave and his white father was a relative of her owner. Brown was nearly illiterate until he escaped to freedom at the age of 19. He adopted the rest of his name from a Quaker named Wells Brown who aided him as he traveled north. Brown helped other slaves to escape to Canada via Lake Erie steamboats on which he worked. Starting in 1843, Brown formally joined the abolition movement as a lecturer for the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and later for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. By the late 1840’s, he was a major figure in the national abolitionist movement. In 1849, he traveled to Paris as a delegate to a peace congress. He also went to England, where he gave about 1,000 lectures, most urging the abolition of slavery in the United States. Brown died on Nov. 6, 1884. In 2014, the Library of America published a collection of his major writings, including speeches and letters.
