Fugitive Slaves - A Word of Advice.
London, Sept. 1, 1851.
Dear Douglass:—
I know of not surer medium of communicating to our fugitive brethren in Canada a word of advice, than through the columns of your paper. Owing to the great influx of fugitives into this country within the past and present year, and the comparative destitution that many are in, I addressed a letter, a few weeks since, to the editor of the "London Times," in which I suggested that many of these people might be induced by an offer of fair compensation, to go to the West Indies, and become tillers of the soil instead of wandering about the streets of London, looking in vain for work. My communication resulted in a correspondence, and finally an interview between several proprietors and agents of West India estates (one of whom has the control of twelve farms) and myself. These men appeared not only willing to employ such fugitive as are now in this country; but expressed a wish to enter into an arrangement with the fugitives in Canada to go to the islands of Trinidad, and Jamaica.
Knowing that there were many proprietors and agents dissatisfied with the Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies, and that a species of slavery has been carried on under the name of emigration, I frankly told these men upon what conditions I thought our people would go to the West Indies.
But as to go there to be bound or fettered in any way, I assured them that no fugitive slave would ever consent to. And although I was assured that the utmost freedom would be enjoyed by all who might consent to go, I understand that a secret move is on foot in London to induce our unsuspecting people in Canada to go to the West Indies, and that agents are already in Canada for that purpose. The Rev. Josiah Henson, is said to be one of these.
As my letter in the Times first brought this subject before the people, and fearing that some might be entrapped by this new movement, I take the earliest opportunity of warning all colored men to be on their guard, how they enter into agreements, no matter with whom, white or colored, to go to the West India Islands, least they find themselves again wearing the chains of slavery.
A movement that is concocted in secret, and that too, by men, many of whom would place the chains upon the limbs of the emancipated people of the West Indies to-morrow, if they could, and which is kept from the knowledge of the Abolitionist of this country, should find no countenance with our oppressed people. He who has made his escape from the cotton, sugar, and rice fields of the Southern States, is ready to finish his life among the cold hills of Canada, and if needs be, to subsist upon the coarsest food; but he is not willing to enter into a second bondage.
Then I would say again, Beware, least you are entrapped by the enemy.
Yours, for our people,
W. W. BrownBrown, William Wells

William Wells Brown (c. 1814-84) was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky, but escaped to freedom in Ohio in 1834, taking the name Wells Brown from a Quaker man who aided his escape. After settling in Cleveland, he worked on a Lake Erie steamboat, from which he helped many fugitive slaves escape to Canada. In the 1840s he moved his family to New York, where he began lecturing for the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1843-49). Brown was active in universal reform movements advocating temperance, women's rights, and prison reform. Brown studied medicine informally, but chose to remain active in reforms instead of committing to professional medical practice. In 1847, Brown published his first book, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, and moved to Boston. From 1849 to 1854 he traveled and lectured in Europe, meeting many prominent figures and publishing two more books: Three Years in Europe; Or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met (1852) and Clotel; Or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States (1853), the first novel known to be written by an African American. After friends in England purchased his freedom in 1854, he returned to the United States to continue his work in the abolitionist, temperance, woman suffrage, and prison reform movements. He also wrote four books about African American history, including The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements, which appeared in 1863 and ran through ten editions in three years. During the Civil War, Brown joined Douglass in recruiting blacks for the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Lib., 12 January 1855; London Lancet, 6 December 1884; R. J. M. Blackett, Beating against the Barriers: The Lives of Six Nineteenth-Century Afro-Americans (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 45, 48, 95-96, 101-02; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 35, 42, 50-51; DAB, 3:161; DANB, 71-73. .