Sunday, June 26, 2011

Excerpt from 'Clotelle, or the Colored Heroine'

William Wells Brown (1814-1884), who has written the following excerpt of a novel of his, was a prominent abolitionist lecturer and novelist. He was born into slavery in the South but managed to escape to the North in 1834. His mother had William by George Higgins, a white planter who was a cousin to the owner. The owner, Dr. Young, had promised Higgins that he would not sell his son (as Higgins recognized William as such) but William ended up being sold many times before he was 20 years old. In Buffalo, New York, he aided slaves escape by means of the Underground Railroad and he became active in the abolitionist movement by joining numerous anti-slavery societies such as the Negro Convention Movement. He lectured in England from 1849 and because of the 1850 Fugitive Law he stayed there until 1854 when the Richardson family bought his freedom (as they had done the same for Frederick Douglas).

The following excerpt is taken from the third edition of William Wells Brown's historic novel; this edition is called Clotelle, or the Colored Heroine (1867) and it is considered to be the first novel by an African-American. Brown advises his readers that the two leading characters are real personages and that the author witnessed many of the incidents.

[Quadroon; Octoroon]








One beautiful afternoon, when Isabella and Clotelle were picking wild strawberries some two miles from their home, and near the roadside, they observed a one-horse chaise driving past. The mother turned her face from the carriage not wishing to be seen by strangers, little dreaming that the chaise contained Henry and his wife. The child, however, watched the chaise, and startled her mother by screaming out at the top of her voice, "Papa! papa!" and clapped her little hands for joy. The mother turned in haste to look at the strangers, and her eyes encountered those of Henry's pale and dejected countenance. Gertrude’s eyes were on the child. The swiftness with which Henry drove by could not hide from his wife the striking resemblance of the child to himself. The young wife had heard the child exclaim “Papa! Papa!” and she immediately saw by the quivering of his lips and the agitation depicted in his countenance, that all was not right.

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