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Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman

Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman

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  • Austin Steward
  • Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
  • Paperback
  • 9781508797241
  • 9 X 6 X 0.25 inches
  • 0.38 pounds
  • History > United States - Civil War Period (1850-1877)
  • English
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Book Description

This is a memoir written by a former slave in the U.S. during the 19th century. From the preface: The author does not think that any apology is necessary for this issue of his Life and History. He believes that American Slavery is now the great question before the American People: that it is not merely a political question, coming up before the country as the grand element in the making of a President, and then to be laid aside for four years; but that its moral bearings are of such a nature that the Patriot, the Philanthropist, and all good men agree that it is an evil of so much magnitude, that longer to permit it, is to wink at sin, and to incur the righteous judgments of God. The late outrages and aggressions of the slave power to possess itself of new soil, and extend the influence of the hateful and God-provoking Institution, is a practical commentary upon its benefits and the moral qualities of those who seek to sustain and extend it. The author is therefore the more willing-nay, anxious, to lay alongside of such arguments the history of his own life and experiences as a slave, that those who read may know what are some of the characteristics of that highly favored institution, which is sought to be preserved and perpetuated. Facts are stubborn things,-and this is the reason why all systems, religious, moral, or social, which are founded in injustice, and supported by fraud and robbery, suffer so much by faithful exposition. The author has endeavored to present a true statement of the practical workings of the system of Slavery, as he has seen and felt it himself. He has intended nothing to extenuate, nor aught set down in malice; indeed, so far from believing that he has misrepresented Slavery as an institution, he does not feel that he has the power to give anything like a true picture of it in all its deformity and wickedness; especially that Slavery which is an institution among an enlightened and Christian people, who profess to believe that all men are born free and equal, and who have certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The author claims that he has endeavored since he had his freedom, as much as in him lay, to benefit his suffering fellows in bondage; and that he has spent most of his free life in efforts to elevate them in manners and morals, though against all the opposing forces of prejudice and pride, which of course, has made much of his labor vain. In his old age he sends out this history-presenting as it were his own body, with the marks and scars of the tender mercies of slave drivers upon it, and asking that these may plead in the name of Justice, Humanity, and Mercy, that those who have the power, may have the magnanimity to strike off the chains from the enslaved, and bid him stand up, a Freeman and a Brother!
Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman

Author Bio

Austin Steward (1793-1865) was born in Prince William County, Virginia, to slave parents Robert and Susan Steward. When Steward was eight or nine years of age, his master, Captain William Helm, sold his Virginia plantation and moved his slaves to upper New York State. 

Steward was hired out to various employers, but sometime around 1813, he escaped to Canandaigua, where he labored summers for a local farmer and attended a Farmington academy during the winter. In 1815 Helm located Steward, who retained his freedom with the assistance of the New York Manumission Society through a legal technicality in the state's Gradual Emancipation Law of 1799. About 1817 Steward moved to Rochester and, despite violent opposition by local whites, developed a successful grocery business during the 1820s. 

He also taught a Sabbath school in the city. After being chosen by Rochester blacks to deliver an oration at their 5 July 1827 ceremonies celebrating slave emancipation in New York State, Steward became increasingly involved in the antislavery, temperance, and black convention movements. During the late 1820s, he served as Rochester subscription agent for Freedom's Journal and the Rights of All and hosted black reform meetings. He served as a vice-president at the first black national convention (1830).

In 1831 Steward joined the Wilberforce colony at the urging of a group of settlers. He organized and directed the settlement despite continual conflict with the Israel Lewis faction. Steward returned to Rochester in 1837, reentered business (this time with less success), and served on a committee appointed to oversee black schools in the city. After fire destroyed his business, he moved back to Canandaigua about 1842 and taught school. Despite these business failures, Steward regained his prominence among New York blacks during the early 1840s, presiding over New York State black conventions in 1840, 1841, and 1845 and simultaneously devoting new energy to the antislavery, black suffrage, and temperance causes. 

His evangelical approach to these struggles culminated in his attendance at the 1843 Christian convention at Syracuse, which attempted to harmonize reform ideals with New Testament principles. In later years, Steward's age forced him to localize his efforts; he chaired local black meetings, served as Canandaigua's subscription agent for the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and was a vocal opponent of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. He wrote and published his autobiography, Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman, in 1857; it sold well, and three other editions were printed during the following decade. 

The terminal illness of his talented daughter Barbara during 1860-61 placed Steward in a precarious financial situation and prompted his return to Rochester to sell copies of his narrative and to seek aid from former friends. Although he entertained the idea of going south to teach black contrabands during the Civil War, he remained in Rochester until his death.

 

 

Source: University of North Carolina Press 

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