Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave

by William Grimes, William L. Andrews (Editor), Regina E. Mason

Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave is the first fugitive slave narrative in American history. Because Grimes wrote and published his narrative on his own, without deference to white editors, publishers, or sponsors, his Life has an immediacy, candor, and no-holds-barred realism unparalleled in the famous antebellum slave narratives of the period. This edition of Grimes's autobiography represents a historic partnership between noted scholar of the African American slave narrative, William L. Andrews, and Regina Mason, Grimes's great-great-great-granddaughter. Their extensive historical and genealogical research has produced an authoritative, copiously annotated text that features pages from an original Grimes family Bible, transcriptions of the 1824 correspondence that set the terms for the author's self-purchase in Connecticut (nine years after his escape from Savannah, Georgia), and many other striking images that invoke the life and times of William Grimes.

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Historical, African American, Memoir

145 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1855

Reviews

[Tim Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this because I assigned it in a history course entitled "#oldnewmedia." It is an excellent edition of the first narrative published by a fugitive slave. The editors did an outstanding job explaining the significance of its publication; the annotations are crisp, clean, and concise. I especially liked how the author juxtaposes life in the slave south and the questionably "free north."

As far as my intellectual interests in book culture, there's a lot to say about the book. The author's motives, tactics, audience are a consistent feature of the narrative. The book raises questions about literacy, print, and markets outside of the usual context of radical abolitionist sponsorship.

[Documenting Books · Rating 5 out of 5]

Who was William Grimes? Documenting The autobiography of the first African American slave to give account of slavery in the USA. Told from his own voice and with the help of nobody. This story was recollected by Grime's great great great grand daughter Regina Mason. Don't miss out!.

Available on Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@documentingbo...
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZq-i...

[Don · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really remarkable memoir, and more interesting because its first edition predates the more famous narrative of Frederick Douglass by 20 years, and because it was published without white sponsorship. The added historiographical and personal information by the editors is also quite interesting.

[Sandy D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not an easy read (partially because of the style, partially because of the horrible things Grimes is so matter of fact about), but an important one. Grimes was not a particularly likeable man, and he was bitter about his life in the North as well as the South.

Mason's story about her genealogical research was pretty amazing.

[Harry Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book makes it clear, for anyone who needed to be convinced in the early 1800s, that slavery was cruel and violent, for Mr Grimes is repeatedly beaten, mostly for offences he didn't commit, as his word is routinely disbelieved by his oppressors. It also proves that slavery was a poor way to maintain the purity of the races, were that an object, because Grimes himself was born of a slave mother and a white father.

A few other things stand out. First, whenever wages are mentioned, they often seem to have been higher in the unfree South than in the free North -- but then again, it is unclear how much Grimes's masters deduct for letting him out to work for wages. After escaping to the North, it seems that Grimes is scrambling to work for less money -- but then again, he is able to amass a four-figure savings. Second, although he changes masters at least ten times while a slave, the white people involved usually ask his approval for each transaction; I can't recall if he ever withholds it. On one occasion, he asks to be sold, and his master is offended and angry but complies. Third, after reaching the North, Grimes seems constantly to be in court, to claim wages, to clear himself of libel, and otherwise to gain redress against people who misuse him. The litigiousness of life in Connecticut, and Grimes's ability to avail himself of the courts, is striking.

The writing is pithy. In a preamble addressed "To the Public," Grimes asserts that "The condition of the slave...is painful and unfortunate and will excite the sympathy of all who have any." (29) Toward the end, Grimes attempts to deal with slavery in the abstract, starting with the question of comfort in bondage vs. desperation in freedom: "To say that a man is better off in one situation than another, if in the one he is better clothed and better fed, and has less care than in the other, is false. It is true, if you regard him as a brute, as destitute of the feeling of human nature." (101) A few lines later, his position becomes ambiguous: He advises slaves against escaping, for the danger and for the apprehension of recapture (Grimes was finally relieved of the latter, when his last master manumitted him in exchange for most of his accumulated money and property); but he then states that, in spite of being "cheated, insulted, abused, and injured" in the North, he has been able to "get along here as well as anyone who is poor and in a situation to be imposed on." (101-102)

The integrity of the family seems to fare as badly in freedom as under slavery, for Grimes mentions that his wife joined the gold rush in California, leaving him in Connecticut.

[Holt Daniels]

no rating because who am I to judge mr. grimes on his own life story.

I read this for an essay I wrote on Solomon Northup’s 12 Years a Slave where i compared and contrasted the two’s narratives to show the complexity of an american slave’s agency. this was an extremely painful read because grimes goes into cutting matter-of-fact detail about brutal beatings and the inhumane conditions and events which occurred in his life.

grimes’s narrative is so powerful because everything, even down to the very words he choses to write, reveals how horrifically oppression shatters a persons agency. this work should absolutely be part of the important canon of american slave narratives.

[armin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't read a slave narrative for some time and it was nice going back to one which was less known but followed the common theme of so many other works that I had previously read. Of the many things that slave narratives like this have in common is the way they open with a white abolitionist writing a testimony to the veracity of the text and that they know the writer and are aware of its genuineness. Overall, the reading is pretty smooth and if you are up for it, you can even finish it in one single sitting.

[Haurenlill · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal narrative from a former enslaved person. He will really leave you thinking about this narrative for a long time after the last page

[Oliwia · Rating 4 out of 5]

jako że to jedna z moich lektur na literaturę amerykańską...

[Alicia · Rating 4 out of 5]

William Grimes (3/4 white, 1/4 black; son of a white slave-owner who cared nothing for him) wrote the first fugitive slave narrative in American history, in 1825. Just as amazing as the suffering, beatings, and trials that William endured under 10 different masters was the story of Grimes' great-great-great-granddaughter Regina (one of the editors) who searched her family history, found that she was descended from an escaped slave, and brought William Grimes' autobiography back into print in 2008. (She even mentions doing research at the Mormon Family History Center in Oakland, CA.) This is a great family history success-story! I wish more details had been told about the actual escape and the good men who helped to hide him on board a ship, but Grimes didn't want to implicate anyone who helped him.

"It did seem to me that the Lord heard my prayers, when I was a poor, wretched slave, and delivered me out of the land of Egypt, and out of the house of bondage; and that it was His hand, and not my own artfulness and cunning, which had enabled me to escape: therefore, if we trust in God, we need have no fear of the greatest trials; and though my heart has been pierced with sufferings keen as death, and drank from the cup of slavery the bitterest dregs ever mingled in it, yet, under the consolations of religion, my fortitude never left me." - pg. 57

[Connie Ritter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very Interesting Read

I decided to read this booster watching a movie concerning genealogy. The boo wasn't quite what I expected but still a good read. I would suggest it to my friends and have done so.