Autobiography of a Female Slave

Despite its title, Autobiography of a Female Slave (1857) is not actually an autobiography, nor was it written by a slave. Instead, as scholar Carolyn Wedin Sylvander notes, Martha Griffith Browne, a white slave owner who later became an abolitionist, compiled the novel from "recited and well-known facts" and from her "firsthand experiences" (p. 145). The narrative is so realistic that readers are often unsure how to interpret it. Sylvander notes that "Since its first publication readers have sometimes taken the Autobiography to be an authentic slave narrative, sometimes an edited or shaped narrative, and sometimes a completely fictionalized story" (p. 145). Despite not actually being an autobiography, the text does offer an account of the types of trials faced by many slaves and remains a powerful anti-slavery narrative.