Thirty Years a Slave

"I was born in Virginia, in 1832, near Charlottesville, in the beautiful valley of the Rivanna river. My father was a white man and my mother a negress, the slave of one John Martin. I was a mere child, probably not more than six years of age, as I remember, when my mother, two brothers and myself were sold to Dr. Louis, a practicing physician in the village of Scottsville." So begins the narrative of Louis Hughes, an ex-American slave who escaped from bondage, made a life for his family in the North and ended has life a respected Wisconsin businessman.