Introduction

Abstract William Grimes (1784–1865) authored the first fugitive slave narrative in American history in 1825, when he was slightly over fortyears of age. The longest African American autobiography published up to that time,1 the Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, Written by Himself was motivated not so much by a reformist impulse as by personal financial need. Grimes and his family had been rendered homeless and nearly penniless in April of 1824 because of his forced decision to pay$500 for his self-purchase to his menacing Savannah, Georgia, master, from whom Grimes had escaped nine years earlier. Having been enslaved for a little more than thirty years, Grimes recounted a personal history of almost unrelieved anguish, both physical and psychological.