John Brown also known by his slave name, 'Fed', was a slave in Virginia. He moved at age ten to North Carolina

North Carolina

North Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...

 where he was separated from his mother. He was moved to Georgia

Georgia (U.S. state)

Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788...

 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

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1850 where he worked as a carpenter in London. He contacted the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society

Anti-Slavery Society

The Anti-Slavery Society or A.S.S. was the everyday name of two different British organizations.The first was founded in 1823 and was committed to the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. Its official name was the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the...

 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 narrative

Slave narrative

The slave narrative is a literary form which grew out of the written accounts of enslaved Africans in Britain and its colonies, including the later United States, Canada and Caribbean nations...

s."

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

Herbalist

An herbalist is:#A person whose life is dedicated to the economic or medicinal uses of plants.#One skilled in the harvesting and collection of medicinal plants ....

. He died in London in 1876.

External links

• 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], 1855.

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.