A fictional account of Harriet Wilson's life as an indentured servant in New England...where slavery was experienced outside of the Southern Plantation.

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Although the author offers the usual pre-war literary protestations, the Black resident of New Hampshire and Massachusetts obtained a pretty good education somewhere. This was a forgotten novel until a copy was offered at auction and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. became interested, finding that this volume and a book published in Portuguese in Brazil (both in 1859) established these ladies as the first Black authors. After a diligent search by Dr. Gates and his students, the only document is the death certificate of Mrs. Wilson's son at age seven and the book itself.
There are many recent reprintings of this book and it is a shame that the author did not profit from it. The unsold copies were probably used for stove wood after her death.
Sadly, I didn't keep an eye on it while buying a few groceries and someone stole it from the the shopping cart before I could read much of it on the bus and pass it on to my friend in the old soldiers' home.
Chronological Appendix.

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