The women's relatively comfortable lives end after Jefferson's death. The novel explores slavery's destructive effects on African-American families, the difficult lives of American mulattoes or mixed-race people, and the 'degraded and immoral condition of the relation of master and slave in the United States of America.' Featuring an enslaved mixed-race woman named Currer and her daughters Althesa and Clotel, fathered by Thomas Jefferson, it is considered a tragic mulatto story.

Three additional versions were published through 1867. Set in the early nineteenth century, it is considered the first novel published by an African American and is set in the United States. He was staying after a lecture tour to evade possible recapture due to the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Brown, who escaped from slavery in 1834 at the age of 20, published the book in London. Brown had escaped from slavery in Kentucky while still in his youth, and became active on the anti-slavery circuit.Clotel or, the President's Daughter at Project GutenbergĬlotel or, The President's Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States is an 1853 novel by United States author and playwright William Wells Brown about Clotel and her sister, fictional slave daughters of Thomas Jefferson. It is considered to be the first novel written by an African American.īrown used the injustices of slavery to demonstrate the destructive effects it had on the African American family, most significantly the so-called tragic mulatto. Brown was still considered someone else's legal property within the borders of the United States at the time of its publication.

It gained notoriety amid the unconfirmed rumors regarding Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemmings. The separation of these three women is just the beginning of the injustices they face. Clotel is bought by her lover Horatio Green. In the end, Currer and Althesea are auctioned to the notorious slave trader, Dick Walker. Because she was beautiful and the mistress of Jefferson, Currer and her daughters lived a confortable life, this changed when her master passes away. In the novel, Currer is the former mulatto mistress of President Thomas Jefferson who together have two daughters, Althesea and Clotel. It is about the tragic lives of Currer, Althesea, and Clotel. This novel focuses on the difficult lives of mulattoes in America and the 'degraded and immoral condition of the relation of master and slave in the USA' (Brown). It is often considered the first African-American novel. Clotel or, The President's Daughter is a novel by William Wells Brown (1815-84), a fugitive from slavery and abolitionist and was published in London, England in December 1853.