Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman (Classic Reprint Series)

360 pp. "Revealing, poignantly written autobiography describes what life in America was like for a former slave: the help he received from abolitionist groups; his years as a successful merchant in Rochester, New York; and his support of a small ex-slave community in Canada." "Austin Steward (1793-1860) was an African-American abolitionist and author. He was born a slave of William Helm in Prince William County, Virginia. In 1815, Steward escaped to Canada where he joined the Wilberforce Colony, an establishment of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). His autobiography, Twenty-Two Years a Slave was published in 1857....Wilberforce Colony was a colony established by free American Black citizens, founded at the end of the second decade of the 19th century north of present day London, Ontario, Canada. This was one of several movements initially growing from or sympathetic to the American Colonization Society, established in 1816 to settle free Blacks in an African colony. When American Black communities favored emigration, they preferred a country where free Blacks could hold full political control of their destiny. The establishment of Wilberforce Colony in Canada was one such movement, linked particularly to Cincinnati, Ohio."