William Wells Brown Publishes Clotel — First Novel by a Black American

William Wells Brown — who had escaped slavery in 1834 and published the first Black American travel narrative — published 'Clotel; or, The President's Daughter' in London, becoming the first novel published by a Black American. Fictionalizing Thomas Jefferson's enslaved descendants, it combined sentimental fiction, political argument, and documentary evidence. Brown had also written the first play by a Black American, 'The Escape' (1858).