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Runaway Slave By William Grimes Sparknotes

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Anthony Osorio 51
History Period 4

William Grimes

Everyone wants freedom, but what lengths are you willing to go to obtain it? Yes, slavery helped the economy, but separating people by race is immoral, and no person knows this better than William Grimes, writer of the first slave narrative Life of William Grimes, Runaway Slave. William Grimes was born in King George County, Virginia, he was the son of a wealthy plantation owner, Benjamin Grymes, Grimes’s mother was a slave on a neighboring Plantation owned by a Dr. Steward. Grimes’s skin was lighter than others so on some occasions, he could pass as a white man. Grimes’s book provides first hand information about his early years and the mistreatment of slaves "in law, a bastard and slave, …show more content…
When he arrives, he passed and spoke to his former master Oliver Sturges, he goes undetected, but for his safety, he moves away from New York to live in New Haven, Connecticut. There, he meets his former master Mr. Bullock and flees New Haven, he travels New England as a Barber, but business is hard for him. After some time, Grimes moves back to New Haven, and after overhearing someone identify him as a slave runaway so he flees, but realizes he is leaving too much, he stay with his friends and business. Grimes settles in New Haven, Connecticut and opens a barber shop near Yale college. Grimes meets his wife Clarissa Ceaser and has 18 children, only 12 survive. But his former master, Mr. Wellman, demands that Grimes pays for his freedom, and buys himself out to slavery. Grimes agrees in fear of getting arrested and sold back into slavery, "if I did not buy myself. I instantly offered to give up my house and land, all I had". Grimes sacrificed all his possessions to gain freedom, this show how much freedom is worth to this hero. Grimes writes The Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, in hopes to get some money for his book to start his life again. So, the first slave narrative is

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