Higgins, a white planter and cousin of his master Dr. (In addition to William, her children were Solomon, Leander, Benjamin, Joseph, Milford, and Elizabeth.) William was of mixed race his father was George W. John Young and had seven children, each by different fathers. Life in slavery Ī descendant of Mayflower passenger Stephen Hopkins through his father, William was born into slavery in 1814 (or March 15, 1815) near Lexington, Kentucky, where his mother Elizabeth was a slave. A contemporary of Frederick Douglass, Brown was overshadowed by the charismatic orator and the two feuded publicly. After his freedom was purchased in 1854 by a British couple, he and his two daughters returned to the US, where he rejoined the abolitionist lecture circuit in the North. A public school was named for him in Lexington, Kentucky.īrown was lecturing in England when the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was passed in the US as its provisions increased the risk of capture and re-enslavement, he stayed overseas for several years. He was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame, established in 2013.

Following the Civil War, in 1867 he published what is considered the first history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War. In 1858 he became the first published African-American playwright, and often read from this work on the lecture circuit. His novel Clotel (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American, was published in London, England, where he resided at the time it was later published in the United States.īrown was a pioneer in several different literary genres, including travel writing, fiction, and drama. While working for abolition, Brown also supported causes including: temperance, women's suffrage, pacifism, prison reform, and an anti-tobacco movement. He settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific writer. Born into slavery near Mount Sterling, Kentucky, Brown escaped to Ohio in 1834 at the age of 19. 1814 – November 6, 1884) was an American abolitionist, novelist, playwright, and historian.

Clotel by William Wells Brown