William Wells Brown was a black man that suffered the pain of slavery for over 20 years. He finally escaped from his master New Years day, 1834, and began his fight for equality. Through his lifetime, he wrote books, gave speeches and participated in many anti-slavery acts. He was the first African American to publish a play and a novel depicting the struggles of slaves. When he became a free man, Brown made a promise to himself and was determined to live the rest of his life fighting the evils of slavery.

Brown was born near Lexington, Kentucky in 1814. He lived with his mother, Elizabeth, in a log hut with his six other brothers and sisters. They all had different fathers. Brown's father was a white man named George Higgins who was related to his master, Dr. Young. When Brown was about two years old, Dr. Young moved from Kentucky to St. Louis, Missouri. His complexion was quite fair, and he was often mistaken for a white boy. Brown's early life on the plantation involved no work. An old woman slave would watch him while his mother was out working

This book was based on The Narrative of William Wells Brown, a Fugitive Slave, which he wrote and published in 1847. The author of this biography, Lucille Schulberg Warner used public lectures, letters, newspaper articles, books and prefaces to books for her information about Brown. These were all primary sources because they came directly from Brown's ideas and writings. For example, on pg.15, Warner used one of Jefferson's quotes that Brown had mentioned he felt the same way about. Brown was talking about how he felt that slavery affected the children of slave owners. Warner affiliated this quote in the book:

After Dr. Young was finally settled in at St. Louis, he saw that he had more than enough slaves to run the household. He began "hiring out", or renting slaves. First, Brown was hired to Major Freeland to work at his hotel. He was treated awfully there and often received whippings. Each slave only had one set of clothes that they would wear until they wore off. They were given no more meat or meal than will keep them working. They would never receive butter, milk or sugar. Probably the worst part was that they were treated like herds of cattle. One day, he could no longer endure the pain and he ran 4 miles to Dr. Young's farm. However, he was sent right back to the hotel. Dr. Young would often make contracts with people to rent Brown for his services for a certain period of time. He was sent to work on steamboats, in other hotels and a waiter as well. Perhaps maybe his most meaningful job was when he worked for Mr. Elijah J. Lovejoy.

After a little time back at the plantation, Brown was hired out to Mr.Walker, a slave shipper. It hurt Brown so much to see his own people being bought and sold, but he had to do his job because the contract said that he would work for Walker for one year. Sometimes when slaves appeared to be old and had gray hairs, brown would have to cover them up with black ink to make the look younger. This way, the slave owners that purchased them would think that they were young and able to do strenuous labor.

Brown began noticing problems with his marriage. He found his wife cheating on him a number of times so he decided to move the whole family to Farmington, NY. Nothing seemed to restore Betsey and Brown's marriage so they separated in the spring of 1847. Brown took the children to Boston. He now had a narrative of his slave life written and was given an offer to leave to Great Britain. He accepted and left on the ship Canada with his two daughters. When he arrived he put the girls in the best schools he could find for he knew that they wouldn't be discriminated against because he saw that racial differences were tolerated better in Europe than in America. He was writing all kinds of abolitionist essays, articles. He also gave great speeches that greatly moved the people. In 1852, he began having problems supporting the family. That autumn, he published his first book, The Years in Europe. That put a little bit of money in his pocket. In 1854, he finally returned to America as a free man. During the next years, he continued writing, traveled th

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Approximate Word count = 2117
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)