Other editions of book Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom

The autobiography of Louis Hughes serves as a window on the daily lives of slaves before and during the Civil War. Born into slavery near Charlottesville, Virginia in 1832, the narrative charts his life through Pontotoc, Mississippi to Memphis where he met his wife Matilda Morgan, to Tombigbee, Alabama and escape from slavery in Mississippi in 1865. Hughes provides unique historical insight into slavery in the Confederacy during the Civil War and concludes with the family living as free people in Milwaukee.

Louis Hughes was born a slave in Virginia and at age 12 was sold away from his mother, whom he never saw again. After a few interim owners, he was sold to a wealthy slaveowner who had a home near Memphis and plantation nearby in Mississippi. Hughes lived there as a house servant until near the end of the Civil War, when he escaped to the Union lines and then, in a daring adventure with the paid help of two Union soldiers, returned to the plantation for his wife. The couple made their way to Canada and after the war to Chicago and Detroit, eventually settling in Milwaukee. There Hughes became relatively comfortable as a hotel attendant and as an entrepreneur laundry operator. Self-educated and eloquent, Hughes wrote and privately published this memoir in 1897. It is a compelling account, by turns searing and compassionate about slavery, slaves, and slaveowners. No reader can be unmoved as Hughes tells about his five attempts to escape, about having to stand by helplessly while watching his wife whipped, of the joy of finally meeting again the brother whom he had not seen since they were little children in Virginia. Yet he also writes knowingly about the economics of slavery and the day-to-day business of the plantation, and the glass-house relationships between slaves and masters. Hughes died in Milwaukee in 1913.

Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom by Louis Hughes. Louis Hughes was born in Virginia (1832), but was sold (1844) in the Richmond slave market to a cotton planter and his wife who lived on the Mississippi River. Later, he traveled with them to their new home in Memphis, Tennessee, and spent time during the Civil War in Alabama. Hughes made five attempts to escape, alone and with his wife and friends, but he and his wife succeeded in finding freedom only after Emancipation. Slavery, as it existed in this country, has long been dead. It may, therefore, be asked to what purpose is the story which follows, of the experiences of one person under that dead and accursed institution? To such question, if it be asked, it may be answered that the narrator presents his story in compliance with the suggestion of friends, and in the hope that it may add something of accurate information regarding the character.

Self-educated and eloquent, Hughes wrote and privately published this memoir in 1897. It is a compelling account, by turns searing and compassionate about slavery, slaves, and slave owners. CHAPTER I. LIFE ON A COTTON PLANTATION. BIRTH - SOLD IN A RICHMOND SLAVE PEN. A SLAVE MARKET. SLAVE WHIPPING AS A BUSINESS. SOLD IN THE MARKET. ON THE AUCTION BLOCK PRICE OF SLAVES. STARTED FOR A COTTON PLANTATION. MY MISSISSIPPI HOME. PLANTATION LIFE. THE GREAT HOUSE. HOUSE SERVANT AND ERRAND BOY. CRUEL TREATMENT. INSTRUCTIONS IN MEDICINE. THE OVERSEER - WHIPPINGS AND OTHER CRUELTIES. THE SLAVE CABIN. COTTON RAISING. THE COTTON WORM. THE COTTON HARVEST. PREPARING COTTON FOR MARKET. OTHER FARM PRODUCTS. FARM IMPLEMENTS. THE CLEARING OF NEW LAND. COOKING FOR THE SLAVES. CARDING AND SPINNING. WEAVING - CLOTHES OF THE SLAVES. SLAVE MOTHERS - CARE OF THE CHILDREN. METHODS OF PUNISHMENT. FOURTH OF JULY BARBECUE. ATTENDANCE AT CHURCH. RELIGIOUS MEETINGS OF THE SLAVES. A NEIGHBORHOOD QUARREL. CHAPTER II. SOCIAL AND OTHER ASPECTS OF SLAVERY. REMOVAL TO MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE. A NEW AND SPLENDID HOUSE. A FAMILY OF FREE PERSONS SOLD INTO SLAVERY. MY MARRIAGE - BIRTH OF TWINS. MADAM'S CRUELTY TO MY WIFE AND CHILDREN. EFFORTS TO LEARN TO READ AND WRITE. TOM STRIKES FOR LIBERTY AND GAINS IT. NEWS OF TOM'S REACHING CANADA. M'GEE EXPECTS TO CAPTURE TOM. MAKING CLOTHES. A SUPERSTITION. MEMPHIS AND ITS COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE. CHAPTER III. SLAVERY AND THE WAR OF THE REBELLION. BEGINNING OF THE WAR. PETTY DISRESPECT TO THE EMBLEM OF THE UNION. THE BATTLE OF SHILOH, APRIL 9, 1862. MOURNING IN MASTER'S FAMILY. ALARM OF THE MEMPHIS REBELS. THE FAMILY FLEE FROM MEMPHIS. I AM TAKEN TO BOLIVAR FARM. CAPTURE OF A UNION TRADING BOAT. BOSS TAKEN PRISONER. MY THIRD EFFORT FOR FREEDOM. REBELS BURN THEIR COTTON. MY FOURTH RUNAWAY TRIP. INCIDENTS. UNION RAID AT MASTER'S FARM. UNION SOLDIERS PASS THE PANOLA HOME. HIDING VALUABLES FROM THE YANKEES. DEATH TO RUNAWAY SLAVES. SLAVES HUNG AND LEFT TO ROT AS A WARNING. RUNAWAY SLAVE CAUGHT AND WHIPPED. A HOME GUARD ACCIDENTALLY SHOOTS HIMSELF. SUBSTITUTES FOR COFFEE. CHAPTER IV. REBELLION WEAKENING - SLAVES' HOPES STRENGTHENING. M'GEES SLAVES TAKEN TO ALABAMA. M'GEE'S GREAT SCHEME. M'GEE'S DEATH. I MAKE SOME MONEY. GOING BACK TO PANOLA. INCIDENTS. MY FIFTH STRIKE FOR FREEDOM IS A SUCCESS. GOING BACK FOR OUR WIVES. A HAZARDOUS TRIP. TWO BRAVE MEN. OUT OF BONDAGE AT LAST. A WORD FOR MY OLD MASTER. CHAPTER V. FREEDOM AFTER SLAVERY. COMING NORTH. IN CANADA. A CLEW TO MY BROTHER WILLIAM. WORK IN CHICAGO. ATTENDING NIGHT SCHOOL. I SETTLE IN MILWAUKEE. BEGIN BUSINESS FOR MYSELF IN A SMALL WAY. MEETING RELATIVES OF MY OLD MASTER. FINDING MY BROTHER WILLIAM. GROWTH OF THE LAUNDRY BUSINESS. EMPLOYED AS A NURSE. A TRIP SOUTH. I MAKE NURSING MY REGULAR BUSINESS.

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Excerpt from Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom; The Institution of Slavery as Seen on the Plantation and in the Home of the Planter; Autobiography of Louis HughesThe institution of human slavery, as it existed in this country, has long been dead; and, happily for all the sacred interests which it assailed, there is for it no resurrection. It may, therefore, be asked to what purpose is the story which follows, of the experiences of one person under that dead and accursed institution? To such question, if it be asked, it may be answered that the narrator presents his story in compliance with the suggestion of friends, and in the hope that it may add something of accurate information regard ing the character and influence of an institution which for two hundred years dominated the country exercising a potent but baneful influence in the formation of its social, civil and industrial structures, and which finally plunged it into the most stupendous civil war which the world has ever known. As the enlightenment of each generation depends upon the thoughtful study of the history of those that have gone before, everything which tends to fullness and accuracy in that history is of value, even though it be not presented with the adjuncts of literary adornment.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Louis Hughes (1832-1913) was an American author and businessman. He was born as a slave in Virginia. At the age of six he was separated from his mother and was sold in a local Virginia slave market. He secretly learned to read and write and later published a remarkable autobiography, Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom (1897) which pictures his experience in particular and slavery in general.