FUGITVE SLAVES—A WORD OF ADVICE.

LONDON, Sept. 1, 1851

DEAR DOUGLASS:—I know of no 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 coun
try 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 compen
sation, 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 cor
respondence, and finally an inteview between
several proprietors and agents of West India
estates (one of whom has the control of
twelve farms) and myself. These men ap
peared not only willing to employ such fugi
tives as are now in this country; but express
ed 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 every 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 ready 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 sla
very.

A movement that is concocted in secret,
and that too, by men, many of whom would place
the chains upon the limbs of the emancipa
ted people of the West Indies to-morrow, if
they could, and which is kept from the knowl
edge of the Abolitionist of this country,
should find no countenance with our op
pressed 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. .