John Brown (fugitive slave)

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For the abolitionist, see John Brown.

John Brown (c.1810 - 1876) also known by his slave name, 'Fed', was a slave in Virginia. He moved at age ten to North Carolina where he was separated from his mother. He was moved to Georgia where he worked some years on a cotton farm in Milledgeville under harsh conditions.

After several attempts, Brown finally managed to escape and moved around the country and the world, eventually sailing to England in 1850 where he worked as a carpenter in London. He contacted the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society and in 1855 he dictated the book Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Now in England to the society's secretary, Louis Alexis Chamerovzow. This is one of the many descriptions of slave's life in the south known as "slave narratives."

Brown married a local woman and remained in London until his death, earning a living as a herbalist. He died in London in 1876.

[edit] External links

• biography of John Brown
• full 'Slave Life' narrative

[edit] 'Books

• Brown, John (1855), and Chamerovzow, Louis (ed.). Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Now in England, London: W.M. Watts.