WILLIAM WELLS BROWN¹William Wells Brown (c. 1814-84) was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky, but escaped to freedom in Ohio in 1834. 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). 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 lecturer 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. 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; DAB, 3:161; DANB, 71-73. TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

[n.p.] [16 March 1855.]
TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS.
SIR :
Had not your many changes and re-changes prepared me to be astonished at nothing that you might say, or do, I would have been somewhat surprised at the attack made upon me by you, in your paper of the 2d of March.²Douglass published a brief editorial under the title “WILLIAM WELLS BROWN,” complaining that Brown had shown “his faithfulness to the American Anti-Slavery Society, by covering us with reproach and dishonor.” Douglass called upon Brown to write and explain the evidence to support his charges. FDP, 2 March 1854. You commence by saying, “we do regret that he should feel called

upon to show his faithfulness to the American Anti-Slavery Society by covering us with dishonor." Let me say to you, Frederick Douglass, that my difference with you has nothing whatever to do with the American Anti-Slavery Society, and no one knows that better than yourself. And I regard such an insinuation as fit only to come from one whose feelings are entirely lost to all sense of shame. My charge against you is, that, just before I left the United States for England,³Brown departed Boston for England in October 1849. Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 1:154n. you wrote a private letter⁴No surviving letter meeting this description has been located. to a distinguished Abolitionist in Great Britain, injurious to me, and intended to forestall my movements there. In a note⁵The letter of Brown to Douglass of 20 January 1855 has not survived. which I forwarded to you, to your address at Rochester on the 20th of January last, I gave you to understand that I had been made aware of your having acted in that underhand manner. The following is a part of the note I sent you more than a month ago. “During my sojourn in England, and several months after my arrival there, and while spending a few days with a friend of yours, the post brought me a letter, which had been re-mailed in London, and it proved to be from you, dated at New Bedford. After I had finished reading the letter, your friend seemed anxious to learn its contents. I handed it to her, with the request that she would read it; your friend appeared much astonished at the kindness expressed by you to me, and exclaimed, 'Douglass has done you a great injustice,' and immediately revealed to me the contents of a letter which she had received from you, some months before, and which was written a short time previous to my departure from America. I need not say that the very unfavorable position in which your letter placed me before your friend, secured for me a cold reception at her hands. I need not name the lady; you know to whom I refer, unless you wrote to more than one.” Your attack upon me, in your paper of the 2d inst., in which you ask for “facts,” when my note containing the above had been in your possession more than a month, shows too well your wish to make a sneaking fling at me, instead of seeking for “facts," and acting the part of an honorable man. Why did you not give my note a place in your paper, and make such comments as you thought best? No, that would not have suited you. But, anxious to heap insult upon injury,⁶A paraphrase of 1 Pet. 3:9. you resort to the mode most congenial to your feelings and sense of justice. Had I not thought it due to the public to state the above “facts,” I would have treated your scurillous paragraph with that silence and contempt that all such articles so justly deserve. However, no future insinuation of yours, no matter how false or unjust, shall provoke from me a reply.

WILLIAM WELLS 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. .⁷In a printed editorial following the letter, Douglass replies to Brown and requests the “facts” of his accusations.

PLSr: FDP, 16 March 1855.