William wells brown autobiography of miss universe
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With the proceeds from his writing, and support from British abolitionists, Brown traveled widely in Europe doing speaking tours to raise funds in support of abolishing slavery in the United States.
Acquiring the Book
In late 2019, Miranda Rectenwald, curator of local history, spoke with Cassie Brand, curator of rare books, about obtaining a copy of Brown’s autobiography for the Libraries.
She is a good cook, a good washer, and her last mistress liked her very much. I have often laid and heard the crack of the whip, and the screams of the slave. He also became a physician in his later years. The slave narrative, which documents the harshness of enslaved life on the plantation and in St. Louis, sold ten thousand copies in two years.
In 1849 Brown went to England to lecture and stayed for five years due to the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
He was formerly from Virginia, and was a horse-racer, cock-fighter, gambler, and withal an inveterate drunkard. Upon my retreat they took possession of the type; and what to do to regain it I could not devise. I remained at the door, not daring to venture any further. The handle was about three feet long, with the butt-end filled with lead, and the lash, six or seven feet in length, made of cow-hide, with platted wire on the end of it.
After living with Major Freeland five or six months, I ran away, and went into the woods back of the city; and when night came on, I made my way to my master's farm, but was afraid to be seen, knowing that if Mr. Haskell, the overseer, should discover me, I should be again carried back to Major Freeland; so I kept in the woods. It was here that Francis McIntosh, a free colored man from Pittsburg, was taken from the steamboat Flora and burned at the stake.
After we returned home, I was tied up in the smoke-house, and was very severely whipped.
There were two men with the dogs, who, as soon as they came up, ordered me to descend. Major Freeland soon made his appearance, and took me out, and ordered me to follow him, which I did. At these auction-stands, bones, muscles, sinews, blood and nerves, of human beings, are sold with as much indifference as a farmer in the north sells a horse or sheep.
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I was present.I took refuge in the top of a tree, and the hounds were soon at its base, and there remained until the hunters came up in a half or three quarters of an hour afterwards. [REF I B816m]
Brown’s autobiography’s frontispiece—the illustration facing the title page—contains an author portrait done in a classic style often used by white authors at the time.
“Author portraits were often used as a sign of respectability and Brown portrays himself as a gentleman, declaring himself to be equal with other respected, published authors of that time, even if the government and wider society didn’t recognize that.
Access to the physical object versus the online text is very powerful for students and has been used in College Writing I classes on identity and selfhood, classes on printing history, and the Enslavement in St. Louis course,” Brand said.
Brown traveled and lectured widely in Europe and wrote on the theme of escape from slavery in multiple works and genres starting with this pivotal autobiography.
I watched the countenance of the man while the different persons were bidding on his wife.