Henry Bibb: A Brief Biography

He lived and worked in Natchez from the year of 1830 to his murder in the year 1851. He learned the trade of a barber from his brother-in-law James Miller. He bought Miller’s barber shop from him for 300 dollars after he learned the trade of a barber. When he had mastered the trade, he started to teach young, free, black boys the trade of a barber.

The banned book that I chose to read for this quarter was “The Confessions of Nat Turner” by William Styron. The book is loosely based upon the slave rebellion that Nat Turner led in Southampton County, Virginia from August 21-23, 1831. The book starts with Nat Turner waiting for his trial for the rebellion, and then proceeds to look back on his life and then tell the novels through a series of flashbacks. The flashbacks start with his first slave master, Samuel Turner, and end with him leading the slave rebellion. The book has also come under quite a bit of criticism however.

While working on the plantation, Douglass was taught how to read by his slave master’s wife. However, the lessons stopped per the request of his slave master, yet, that did not stop him from continuing to learn how to read. At the age of sixteen, he was sold to a “slave breaker,” named Edward Covey, who was a very harsh slave master. After spending less than a year under Covey’s control, he tried to escape with a group of slaves, but was later caught by authorities and was

Thomas Clarkson was an abolitionist and a leading activist against the slave trade and slavery in Britain. Clarkson was born on the 28th of March, 1760 in Cambridgeshire, England. He was the son of a priest, who also worked in a local school. Later, in 1779, Thomas attended Cambridge University, where he won a competition with the subject; whether it was right to enslave men and women and put them against their will. After this event, Thomas was strongly driven to end slavery until the day he died.

Elijah of Buxton, written by Christopher Paul Curtis, is set in a small settlement of runaway slaves in Buxton, Canada in 1860. The settlement compromises of fields with horses and mules along with thick woods. This book takes place during a time of slavery in the United States. Runaways from Kentucky and other Southern states came to Buxton to be free from slavery with the help of abolitionists. In Buxton, there were also children who were born free such as Emma Collins, who is used by the town to draw in runaways, and Elijah Freeman.

He then used his experience from all of his "forty-two lynching",(Watson 3), investigations to write books on this subject. One book, for example, is called The Fire and the Flint. This book is about a doctor returning to the south only to be lynched.

People have moved to Michigan for various reason, but it all comes down to survival. At the time thousands of slaves used the underground railroad, which lays in the south of Michigan, to escape being used and abused. People want to be treated like people, but in the 1800’s African Americans freedom lied within their owner’s hands as if they were property. Henry Bibb wrote to his capture William Gatewood in 1844 from the underground railroad after he escaped the torture.

Running From Slavery Imagine being stripped away from your family, being bought by a stranger, and be expected to participate in forced labor for the rest of your life. This is what Kunta Kinte and Frederick Douglass had experienced in their life. Roots was a book written by Alex Haley, a descendant of Kunta Kinte. Roots was later made into a mini television series that depicted Kunta Kinte’s journey from living in his village Juffure, near the Gambia River in Africa, to being caught by slave catchers and sold into slavery. The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass was written by Douglass himself after escaping to the North to show people what life as a slave was really like.

In the early 18th century the rise to abolition movement began. Frederick Douglass played a huge role in the anti slavery movement. Douglass was brought into a world of slavery in 1818. Working as slave in Baltimore, Maryland, he challenged the ban on reading and writing, learning the alphabet at the age of twelve. When his master forbade his lessons, he turned to the white children

After Douglass published his Autobiography ‘Narrative of the life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave’ he had to escape to Great Britain, leaving his family behind in fear of being recaptured until 1847 when he became a free man with help from British supporters (Bodden 16-17). If he wouldn’t have sailed to Britain and gained support from British followers he would have risked being captured by white men and put back into slavery, so he had to leave everything behind. Despite all of this his sacrifice helped us learn more about slavery and what they went through. Frederick Douglass worked hard to free slaves, and even endangered himself a few times in the process.

He had to move over to England because his owner had the right to look and get him, so he moved out and two years later an englishman bought his freedom. Because Frederick Douglass is still a slave, his owner from which he escaped has the right to look for him, and get him and bring him back to his captivity, even if he was living up north. He moves over to England for some years, but later returns to the United States due to some englishman buying his freedom back in the states. At this point in time, Frederick Douglass is a free black man who has written his own book, inspired others, and spread his story internationally. Frederick Douglass is an odd character not only in his book, but in this time period in general.

Frederick Douglass was born as a slave in 1818 on a plantation in Maryland. After many years of enduring the pain and horrifying experiences of being a slave and then running away and staying hidden, he bravely published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. His narrative tells of his life as a slave, secretly learning to read and write, then leading up to his escape and the beginning of his life in New York. He uses a strong array of syntax, powerful sentence structure, and familiar poetic and biblical references to pull the reader in. These literary techniques are meant to make the reader feel the same fear, helplessness, and anger Frederick Douglass and many other slaves felt at the time.

As a slave, he determined that his intense desire in his life was getting education and found a way for hisfreedom. When Frederick was eight, he was sent to Baltimore as a houseboy for Hugh Auld, Captain 's son-in-law 's brother. Sophia, Auld 's wife, taught Frederick to read, but Auld, who believed that education would ruin slaves, made them unhappy and run away; so that Sophia turned to cruelty and became an evil with inhuman as the slavery being. From that point on, Frederick was grateful Hugh Auld and his wife who unwittingly gave Douglass the key to escape slavery because he realized that education and knowledge would be enlightenment and the path to freedomfor himself and his colored people later. He continued teaching himself to read and tried to grow up his knowledge by learning from the local boys in exchanging for reading lessons, the ships’ carpenters, and theMethodist hymn books.

An american soldier, Robert Gould Shaw was born on October 10, 1837 in Boston MA. So he was roughly about 24 to 25 years old when he joined the Civil War. Robert was a Union soldier in the war. Unwilling, he was a leader the famous 54th Massachusetts infantry. That was one of the first African American regiments in the Civil War.

Walter Dean Myers was a great author and inspiratory. He was born in Martinsburg, WV. When he was a child he would play basketball every chance he got. As he grew up he lived in many states such as, Manhattan, New Jersey, and Martinsburg. Also he has written over 20 books three of them are Monster, Bad Boy, and On A Clear Day.