Louis Hughes (1832-1913) was an

African-American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an Race and ethnicity in the United States, ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American ...

slave born in Virginia. He is the author of the

memoir A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobi ...

''Thirty Years a Slave''.

Biography

Hughes was born in 1832 to a white plantation owner and black slave in

Charlottesville, Virginia Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Ch ...

. He was enslaved for over thirty years, spending most of that time in

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

. During that time, he learned in secret how to read and write. Thirty-three years after gaining freedom at the end of the Civil War, he wrote his memoir ''Thirty Years a Slave'', published in 1897. It is considered an essential text for understanding the experience of slavery in western Tennessee.

Early life

When Hughes was six years old, he was separated from his mother and sold in a

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography and climate of the Commonwealth ar ...

slave market A slave market is a place where slaves are bought and sold. These markets became a key phenomenon in the history of slavery. Slave markets in the Ottoman Empire In the Ottoman Empire during the mid-14th century, slaves were traded in special ...

. In 1844, Edmund McGee, a wealthy

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

planter, purchased young Hughes as a Christmas gift for his wife. He stayed with the family for twenty years. While in his youth, he worked as an errand boy and later became the family's butler in 1850 when they built a new home outside Memphis. Though Hughes did not work daily in field labor, he did have bad experiences with Edmund's wife, Madam McGee. "Some weeks it seemed I was whipped for nothing," Hughes recalled, "just to please my mistress' fancy." Hughes and his wife Matilda had twin girls while in slavery, but due to neglect of the children caused by a dispute between the Madam and Matilda, the children died, for which Hughes blamed the Madam. One day, after the Madam overheard an old slave woman singing a song of freedom, the Madam exclaimed, "Don't think you are going to be free; you darkies were made by God and ordained to wait upon us." Three of his escape attempts ended with severe beatings, the scars of which he bore for the rest of his life, he said, on his body and soul. His fifth attempt was a success, in June 1865, the same month the Confederacy surrendered in his state.

Free life

Hughes settled in

Milwaukee Milwaukee ( ), officially the City of Milwaukee, is both the most populous and most densely populated city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin and the county seat of Milwaukee County. With a population of 577,222 at the 2020 census, Milwaukee is ...

with his wife Matilda, the cook from the McGees' household who escaped with him. Together they started a successful laundry business. From his learned medical experience from McGee, during his time as a slave, he pursued a career in nursing. In 1897, his autobiography was published and became an important source documenting a slave's perspective. By 1905, he was described as a janitor. In addition to the two children who died in and as a result of slavery, they had four more children born free, three girls and one boy. Hughes died in Milwaukee 1913 and is buried at Forest Home Cemetery next to Matilda. His original house in Milwaukee on 9th Street was still standing as of 2020, but was unmarked, boarded up and "not long for this world".

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Hughes, Louis 1832 births 1913 deaths People who wrote slave narratives African-American businesspeople 19th-century American businesspeople 20th-century African-American people