Friday, March 14, 2014

TWAIN-DOUGLASS-BROWN: THE SLAVE TALE THAT BINDS

http://entertainmentguide.local.com/summary-a-true-s I have just read another version of this tear-jerking reunion tale between a former slave mother and her long-sold, mulatto-son by iconic Mark Twain, published in 1874, entitled "A True Story," in acclaimed, fellow-Missourian, William Wells Brown's THE NEGRO IN THE AMERICAN REBELLION'S published in 1867. Brown's story is entitled, "A Thrilling Incident of the War," in chapter 36! Ironically, Frederick Douglass' novella, THE HISTORIC SLAVE about "Madison Washington," written in 1852. Washington was the slave who led a successful mutiny aboard "The Creole" a slave ship, in 1841; Douglass' fictionalized account has aspects of "William Wells Browns' Slave Narrative," first published in 1847, as retold, in his chapter 36's "Thrilling Incident"! Those aspects involve an escaped slave receiving succor from white Ohioans in route to Canada. Since Brown's account also preceded Douglass story by at least 5 years, as with Mark Twain's, I suspect Brown's work to be the true source of both, Twain's and Douglass'! Apparently borrowing was quite common back then!tory-mark-twain-3380.html