John Sella Martin (September 27, 1832 - 1876) was an escaped slave who became a noted abolitionist and a pastor. He was born in Charlotte, North Carolina. His mother was a slave, and his father was the white slaveholder, as was the law at the time that the children of slave women assume the legal status of the mother he was also a slave, and would serve his own father. At the age of six Martin, his mother and his only sister were taken to Columbus, Georgia were they were sold. His mother and sister were purchased by one slaveholder and he by another.
His new owner was an old bachelor and Martin served him in the capacity of an valet de chambre until the age of eighteeen. They resided together in one of the principal hotels in Columbus and Martin was afforded the opportunity to learn how to read and write as well as be exposed to a more worldly view as opposed to being an agriculrural worker as he met travellers from throughout the United States and Canada staying at the hotel as well as their servants.
When he was sixteen his owner went blind and Martin was entrusted with helping him carry out his personal affairs, he gave him a more indepth home-school type education as it was in his best interest. When his owner died Martin -then eighteen, was set free. However the former owners relatives successfully contested the will and Martin remained in bondage and was sold and taken to Mobile, Alabama. [1]
After escaping slavery in 1856 Martin he entered the ministry and made his way to Boston, Massachusetts where he became minister of the First Independent Baptist Church in the Beacon Hill section of that city.[2]
"They say that the negroes are very well contented in ... slavery.... [S]uppose it were the fact the black man was contented...to see his wife sold on the auction-block or his daughter violated.... I say that is the heaviest condemnation of the institution, that slavery should blot out a man's manhood so as to make him contented to accept this degradation, and such an institution ought to be swept from the face of the earth." - J. Sella Martin
Martin died in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1876 by an overdose of laudanum, there was no suicide note so it wasn't known if the overdose was accidental or intentional; he had developed a drinking problem in his later years and was unemployed at the time of his death, he left behind a wife and one child.[3]