Moses Roper

Like Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown after him, eminent black abolitionist and onetime fugitive Moses Roper found refuge and a receptive audience in England when fear of capture led him to leave the American Northeast. The son of an African-Indian house slave and the white planter who owned her, Roper was born in Caswell County, North Carolina, but spent his early life across the South under several different masters. Roper's many failed attempts at escape resulted in brutal punishment culminating in his sale or exchange into still harsher circumstances. Undaunted, Roper, at last succeeded in fleeing bondage in 1833, securing papers allowing him to attain a job as a steward on a ship bound for New York. He worked at odd jobs throughout the Northeast, and joined Boston's American Anti-Slavery Society. The frequent advertisements for his capture prompted Roper...