This chapter considers African American life writing in the United States, designed for, but also about and by, children, adolescents, and young adults. In the nineteenth century, the genre included materials intended for adult readers as well as youths: the literacy forbidden to many enslaved subjects was spread through religion and church schools, as well as with popular culture narratives like Nat Love’s “Deadwood Dick” adventures. More recently, the distinction between “child-” and “adult-” intended readerships continues to be murky with respect to graphic life narratives and autobiographical persona poetry. By exploring both widely available texts and more unconventional materials not meant for public consumption, such as the letters and diaries of adolescents, Anatol reflects on ways notions of “truth” and the “usefulness” of traditionally conceived autobiographical narratives can be challenged, perhaps to undermine the elitist and Eurocentric paradigms of earlier times.

This chapter reveals the profound impact that the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act had on the slave narrative by comparing narratives from the same author published before and after the passage of the act. Consulting pre- and post-1850 narratives by Henry Box Brown, William Grimes, and Josiah Henson, this chapter illuminates key ways in which the Fugitive Slave Act shaped one of the premier genres of African American literature.

Chapter 7 moves beyond most scholarly accounts of Black abolitionist transatlantic visits to the British Isles and focuses on Josiah Henson in the time period 1876–1877. I analyze his lecturing tour, his visit to Windsor Palace to meet Queen Victoria, and the numerous artistic responses to him, which included a revised performance of Uncle Tom’s Cabin on the stage, a bust in the Royal Academy, and a wax model in Madame Tussaud's. I argue that Henson exploited adaptive resistance in an entirely new age and to do this, he needed to reawaken British interest and lecture about the memory of slavery. He used assimilationist language to capitalize on his association with the character of Uncle Tom from Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin to win fame (and fortune) on the British stage. However, Henson had to negotiate racial stereotypes and work in a climate that whitewashed the nation’s own bloody history of slavery in favor of a romanticized plantation ideal in America. Henson fought against this at every turn and contributed to the Black American protest tradition in Britain a decade after the end of the Civil War.

Four major accounts written by formerly enslaved people of their experiences as they were trafficked through the New Orleans slave markets can tell us a great deal about human trafficking in antebellum New Orleans, and in turn the Southern United States. Specifically, the autobiographies of Henry Bibb, William Wells Brown, Josiah Henson, and Solomon Northup showcase the way the New Orleans slave market worked. These four, of the many tens of thousands sold through New Orleans, together offer a composite view of this epicenter in the larger network of human trafficking and enable speculation, in turn, on the nature of the experience of those who endured it in terms of severe alienation, trauma and certain limited possibilities to act by way of shaping their fate.