Name John Brown | Role Fugitive slave | |
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Died 1876, London, United Kingdom | ||
John brown fugitive slave
John Brown (c.1810 – 1876) also known by his slave name, "Fed", was a slave in Virginia.
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Born in Virginia to slave parents Joe and Nancy, Fed grew up under the care of his mother along with his three brothers and two sisters, and remembered seeing his father Joe only once when he was allowed to see their family. Fed was told by Joe that his grandfather was a member of the Igbo people from Nigeria and captured by slave traders in the 18th century. He moved at the age of ten to North Carolina, where he was separated from his mother. He was moved to Georgia and worked for 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.