The New Man: Twenty-Nine Years a Slave; Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man

‘We doubt whether there is to be found in literature anything of its kind at once as authentic and as entertaining.’ Washington Post

“There were masters of different dispositions and temperaments. Many owners treated their slaves so humanely that they never ran away, although they were sometimes punished; others allowed the overseer to treat their slaves with such brutality…”

H. C. Bruce was born into slavery on March 3rd, 1836, as far as he is able to tell. He subsequently spent twenty-nine years a Slave, twenty-nine years a Free Man – The subtitle to these personal recollections.

From 1841 Bruce begins with his formative years amidst slavery camps of varying owners from Virginia to Missouri, working in plantations and tobacco factories, for brick-makers and rail-splitters.

When Bruce finally finds love, his fiancée’s master opposes the marriage, concerned by his ability to read and write. Subsequently both risk life and limb to escape to Kansas and secure their freedom.

With a lucid, personal, authentic and unbiased narrative, Bruce illuminates the conditions he faced, the hardships and the joys from his life in bondage. Constantly contrasting the kindness and cruelties of slave-owners, Bruce also paints the fascinating complexities in relationships between slave and master.

“But what could we do? Nothing at all.”