Hannah Crafts facts for kids
Hannah Bond, also known as Hannah Crafts, was an American writer born around the 1830s. She escaped from slavery in North Carolina around 1857 and traveled to the North.
After gaining her freedom, Bond settled in New Jersey. She likely married Thomas Vincent and became a teacher. She wrote The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, which is considered the first published novel by an African-American woman. It is also the only known novel written by a woman who had escaped slavery.
Her novel was probably written in the late 1850s. It was finally published in 2002. This happened after Henry Louis Gates, Jr., a professor at Harvard University, bought the old handwritten book and had it checked to make sure it was real. The book quickly became a bestseller!
In 2013, Gregg Hecimovich from Winthrop University found out who Hannah Bond really was. He discovered she had been enslaved by John Hill Wheeler in Murfreesboro, North Carolina. Professor Gates and other important scholars agree with his findings.
A Life of Courage and Words
Hannah Bond was born into slavery. She worked for Ellen Wheeler, John Hill Wheeler's wife, as a lady's maid. This job helped her learn to read and write. Her novel shows she knew a lot about the Wheeler family and John Wheeler's time as a US Minister in Nicaragua. She even used parts from books that were in Wheeler's large library.
Around 1857, Hannah Bond bravely escaped. She dressed in men's clothes, perhaps with help from someone in the Wheeler family. She traveled as a white boy to reach freedom in the North. For a while, she lived in upstate New York with a couple named Crafts. She later used their last name as her pen name. After that, she moved to New Jersey, where she got married and became a school teacher.
Her book, The Bondwoman's Narrative by Hannah Crafts, Fugitive Slave from North Carolina, is a fictional story about a young mixed-race enslaved woman who escapes to the North. Years later, her handwritten book was found in an attic in New Jersey. In 2001, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. bought it. He had it checked to prove it was real, and then it was published in 2002.
Most experts believed Hannah Crafts was a made-up name. They thought the book was a true story told as fiction. From her writing, it seems Hannah taught herself. Clues in her book suggest she was born in the 1830s.
The paper used for the book was special. Historians found it came from the library of John H. Wheeler, a slaveholder in North Carolina. This helped Gregg Hecimovich prove that "Hannah Crafts" had lived at the Wheeler plantation. Hannah Bond could read and use the library. Her novel shows ideas from other books, like Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Rob Roy by Sir Walter Scott. Hecimovich used old records and interviews to learn about Hannah Bond's life and confirm who she was.
Hecimovich also learned that girls from a nearby school often stayed at the plantation. They had to memorize parts of Charles Dickens' Bleak House. Hannah Bond's novel also shows ideas from this book. She might have heard the girls reading it aloud or read it herself. Bleak House was also printed in Frederick Douglass's newspaper, which many people who had escaped slavery read.
Other experts, like Joe Nickells, who checked the book's authenticity, had also connected Hannah Crafts to John H. Wheeler. She correctly described him as the US Minister to Nicaragua and his work, which was confirmed by his own diary. Experts thought the novel was based on her life. They believed she married a Methodist minister and lived in New Jersey. Her married name might have been Hannah Vincent, as a Hannah and Thomas Vincent were listed in New Jersey census records in 1870 and 1880.
About Her Amazing Book
Experts believe The Bondwoman's Narrative was written between 1855 and 1869. For example, the book shows she knew about Dickens' novel Bleak House, which came out in 1853.
Her pen name, Crafts, was once thought to be a tribute to Ellen and William Craft. They were enslaved people who made a famous escape in 1848, which was reported in newspapers. However, Gregg Hecimovich thinks it's more likely Hannah took the name after staying with a Crafts family in upstate New York when she first reached the North through the Underground Railroad.
Most scholars think the book was written before the American Civil War. They believe Hannah Bond would have mentioned the war if she had written her book during or after it. She did mention other events happening at the time, as well as making up her own fictional ones.
See also
- Harriet Wilson
- Our Nig
- William Wells Brown
- List of enslaved people
