Slavery In Clotel By William Wells Brown

Could you image being the mulatto daughter of President Thomas Jefferson and then being sold as slaves? This is what the novel Clotel by William Wells Brown explains; the life of Currer and her beautiful mulatto daughters Clotel and Althesa becoming slaves. William Wells Brown was born a mulatto and became a slave because his mother was black. Brown had many slave masters, including Dr. Young and Mr. Freeland. Despite being a slave Brown escapes and became the first black men to publish a work of fiction, Clotel. He writes Clotel to reveal the true side of slavery. Why is Clotel written? Clotel is written to expose slavery for what it really was. In the United State a slave was anyone born to a black mother. Slaves normally referred …show more content…
Clotel 's setting is in the South. Brown decided to place Clotel 's setting in the South because the southern states are the slave states. Throughout the novel the setting of all slave plantations were in the South. For instance, when Horatio 's wife, a white woman, learns of the relationship Horatio had with Clotel. She became extremely angry that she was his second choose for marriage and took the freedom from Clotel and her children. She has Clotel sent to New Orleans because life in the south was horrible for blacks. Although most of the novel took place in the South, some accorded on the North. When Clotel and William escaped and made it to the North, the Free States, they were astonished with the prejudice they still faced there. William was not allowed to sit in the front of the train, but had to travel in the luggage-van. After this he was still expected to pay the same price the white men paid. When the setting was farther north, for instance, Canada life for blacks were easier and they were looked at more as equals and could live a much better …show more content…
Clotel is written for abolitionists’ propaganda. It is written for abolitionist propaganda because Brown is spreading information about slavery in order to end it. He describes the inequality of blacks to whites throughout the entire book. “For the crime of having a dark skin” (page 189) blacks are treated unfairly and Brown thinks it is injustice. He described how white preachers would engrave in their slaves’ heads that slavery is a “Godly” practice. Masters would lie that it is written in the bible that blacks are inferior and must submit everything to whites. Most blacks, being unable to read and comprehend the bible themselves, knew only what the master told them and believed the God made them to be slaves. He questions how the United States could celebrate independence when one-sixth of its people are in