Clotel

Brown notes that in the 200 years “since the first cargo of slaves was landed on the banks of the James River” (3), four million slaves have come to live in 15 out of 31 states. As black people are “considered common property” (3), white people may act toward them “with perfect impunity” (3). Since the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, even if a slave escapes to the North, white people are required to return slaves to their masters in the South. All sorts of people own slaves, even “statesmen and doctors of divinity” (3). Slavery has been perpetuated by the fact that “persons in high places” (3) continue to own slaves. Those who are “friends of the slave” (3) must cast “the gaze of the world” (4) on slavery, for condemning “the traders, the kidnappers, the hireling overseers, and brutal drivers” (4) does nothing if “those who move in a higher circle” (4) are not affected. Writing from London, Brown concludes that slavery’s having been “introduced into the American colonies, while they were under control of the British Crown” (4) means the abolition of slavery should be important to the British. Brown hopes his book will help inspire the British to speak out against American slavery.