Roper’s brief but detailed account of seeking employment is a wearying back-and-forth saga of a man with a good work ethic who is faced with the consequences of not just interpersonal but systemic racism that economically hinders the real opportunity, progress, and prosperity of its victims. As a legally “black” man (albeit with almost white skin) recently escaped from slavery, Roper discovered that he was not quite as free in New York as he had hoped - he could still be captured and returned to the horrors of the plantation in Florida. Haunted by this thought, he left the intrusive life of the city and tried to find work in the countryside, but failed because he had no references. He returned to New York City, where again he struggled to get work. Eventually, he returned to work for the Fox, despite problems on his maiden voyage. Roper had endured sea sickness and an abusive crew: they strangled Roper with a noose till he bled from his nose and whipped him with knotted ropes for being a black man, then abandoned ship in New York to avoid the kind captain’s punishment. This voyage was just eighty miles up the Hudson to Poughkeepsie, where Roper was employed at an inn. Two days into his new employment, he became violently sick with cholera and found himself immediately without a job and lodging. He recovered swiftly with the help of a compassionate woman who bought him medicine and nursed him to health, after which he travelled 80 miles to Albany. He still could not find work, so went to the countryside again, failed again, returned to Albany, and was employed as a steward on a canal boat. After travelling 350 miles in this post, he realised the boat was getting too near to the Slave States for his comfort, so returned yet again to Albany, and travelled from there to Vermont, where he met people who were hospitable, kind, and unequivocally opposed to slavery.
In Sudbury, Vermont Roper felt that he could live openly for the first time as a runaway slave and work without fear of being found out and returned to slavery. While wandering the northern states searching for work to make a living and a place to settle in peace, Roper’s spiritual pilgrimage had somewhat been put on hold. But after making his way to Sudbury, Roper writes
During my stay in this town, I thought of the vow I made in
the water, and I became more thoughtful about the salvation of my soul. I
attended the Methodist Chapel, where a Mr. Benton preached, and there I began
to feel that I was a great sinner. During the latter part of my stay here, I
became more anxious about salvation, and I entertained the absurd notion that
religion would come to me in some extraordinary way. With this impression, I
used to go into the woods two hours before daylight to pray, and expected
something would take place, and I should become religious.
The “Damascus Road” experience that Moses sought was not forthcoming; however, a further providential ordering of Roper’s steps was. Some local farmers told Roper that he was not being paid a fair wage, and Roper took it up with his employers. Their anger led Roper to seek advice from local friends, who urged him to leave, in case his employers turned him in as a runaway to get the reward on Roper’s head.
Roper moved to the town of Ludlow, where a kind man provided for Roper’s education. Roper was safe for several weeks, but then was advertised in the newspapers, so had to flee. He found refuge in a community outside of Ludlow, and hospitality with a Baptist deacon, who accommodated Roper for a couple of weeks. Roper would have furthered his education here, but it was increasingly obvious that he was no longer safe in the area. He was, however, blessed by the local Baptist Church.
Whilst in this neighbourhood, I attended the Baptist Meeting,
and trust the preaching of the gospel was much blessed to my soul. As this was
the first time I was ever favoured with any education, I was very intent upon
learning to read the Bible, and in a few weeks I was able, from my own reading,
to repeat by heart the whole of the last chapter of Matthew. I also attended the
prayer and inquiry meetings, where the attendants used to relate their
experience, and I was requested to do the same. I found these meetings a great
blessing, and they were the means, under God, of communicating to my mind a
more clear and distinct knowledge of the way of salvation by Jesus Christ.
Roper’s freedom was continually frustrated by the ever-present threat of recapture, forcing him to live still as something of a fugitive. He eventually made it to Boston, where he found work but still felt unsafe so once more moved out of the city and found work elsewhere. He shaved his head and bought a wig in an attempt to conceal his black identity. Though his neighbours and the military (who issued Roper with a summons to perform military duty once or twice a year or pay a fine) were convinced he was white, ultimately Roper could not fool his employers. He moved back to Boston, but after being warned that someone was looking for him and offering good money, Roper returned to New York. Weary after sixteen months of life on the run, Roper set sail on 11 November, 1835 for England, where he had heard he would be welcomed by Christians that, were we to label them, would now be identified as Protestant Reformed Evangelical Nonconformists – especially Congregationalists and Baptists. Roper carried with him letters of introduction to three such men - London Missionary Society committee members Thomas Raffles of Great George Street Congregational Church in Liverpool and John Morison of Trevor Chapel in Knightsbridge, London, and Alexander Fletcher of Finsbury Chapel, London.
To Roper, England was the true “Land of the Free”. The words of hymn writer and poet William Cowper’s abolitionist poem “The Task” came to mind upon his arrival:
Slaves cannot breathe in England;
If their lungs receive our air, that
moment they are free;
They touch our country, and their
shackles fall.
Roper was welcomed with “the greatest attention and kindness”. He swiftly gained the attention of Britain’s evangelicals, who unlike their southern American counterparts, were leaders in the abolitionist movement and had intentionally developed church cultures committed to both gospel orthodoxy and orthopraxy. Roper was sent to London, where John Scoble, Secretary of the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, arranged housing for him and an ad was placed in a newspaper appealing for assistance with Roper’s education, which was eventually secured at a boarding school in Hackney, London.
Roper began attending the Baptist Church on Mare Street, led by Rev. Dr. Francis Augustus Cox:
which I enjoyed very much, and to which I ascribe the
attainment of clearer views of divine grace than I had before. I had attended
here several months, when I expressed my wish to Dr. Cox to become a member of
his church. I was proposed; and after stating my experience, was admitted,
March 31, 1836.
Roper’s education continued at Hackney, then at Wallingford, until he was able to enrol at the University of London, where he had to withdraw because of ill health.
Very early in his British sojourn, in May 1836, Roper was welcomed by Thomas Price to speak at Devonshire Square Particular Baptist Church in Stoke Newington, London. It was reported in Rev. Cox’s newspaper, The Patriot:
Mr. M. ROPER addressed the meeting, and stated a number of
facts which had come under his own knowledge, demonstrative of the horrors and
cruelties of American slavery. One case which he mentioned, was that of a slave
who occasionally preached to his fellow-bondsmen. His master threatened that if
he ever preached on the Sabbath again, he would give him 500 lashes on the
Monday morning. He disobeyed the order, however, and preached, unknown to his
master. He became alarmed, ran away from Georgia, and crossed the river into
South Carolina, where he took refuge in a barn belonging to a Mr. Garrison.
Mrs. Garrison saw him in the barn, and informed her husband of it. Mr. Garrison
got his rifle and shot at him. The law required that they should call upon a
slave to stop three times before they fired at him; Mr. Garrison called, but he
did not stop. The ball missed him, and Mr. Garrison then struck him with the
gun and knocked him down. The slave wrested it from him. and struck him (Mr.
G.) with it. The slave was taken up for it; his master went after him; Mr.
Garrison purchased him for 500 dollars, and burned him alive.
A few days later, Roper spoke at Finsbury Chapel, where Alexander Fletcher was pastor. Details of that meeting were similarly reported:
Mr. ROPER then stood forward, and observed with considerable
warmth, that Dr. Cox did pay a portion towards his education, but that should
not hinder him from advocating the cause of his mother, brethren, and sisters,
now in bondage. (Loud cheers.) He was grateful to Dr. Cox for that which he was
doing for him; but at the same time his principles were not to be bought.
(Cheers.) There was not a Christian Society in America, which did not hold
slaves, except the Society of Friends. (Cheers.) In Salem, a town in South
Carolina, containing perhaps 20,000 Quakers, there was not a single slave,
though they were surrounded by a slave-holding population. (Cheers.) He had run
away from his master, and was going to see his mother in North Carolina. He had
to pass through the town of Salisbury, where there was a Quaker in gaol who was
to be executed on the following Friday, for having given a slave a free pass.
(Shame, shame.) Mr. Thompson had given them an account of some bad
slaveholders; he (Mr. R.) would tell them of some good ones. A master with whom
he once lived, Mr. Beveridge, in travelling from Apalache to Columbia, having
to pass through the Indian nations, it was necessary for him to take arms. He
was taken exceedingly ill, and could neither stand up nor sit down. He had a
trunk with him containing 20,000 dollars, and he (Mr. R.) took the pistols and
protected his master and his master's property. When he arrived at Columbia,
his master becoming embarrassed in circumstances, sold him on a block; that was
his kindness to him (Mr. R.) for saving his master's life and protecting his
property. Another good master was Colonel M'Gillon, a Scotchman, who held about
300 slaves, and who used to boast that he never flogged them. His mode of
punishing them was to get a rice hogshead, into which several nails were driven
about a quarter of an inch through, and the slave then being fastened in, he
used to roll them down a very steep hill. (Shame, shame.) At one of the Revival
meetings (of which he had heard so much since he came to this country), two
ladies of colour came in and took their seats in the pew for inquirers. Holding
down their heads, they were not observed; but some ladies coming in, and
noticing their colour, left the pew directly. (Hear, hear.)
Aided by his Congregationalist and Baptist friends, Roper became a much sought after abolitionist speaker in churches across the country - indeed, I noted with great interest that he records himself as speaking at a Baptist Chapel in Dunstable, which can only have been the congregation at St. Mary’s Gate, now known as Dunstable Baptist Church, where my own father now serves as pastor.
In 1838, Roper published the first edition of his story, Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery. It is one of the earliest published slave narratives, and with its etchings of slaves being tortured, is perhaps the first graphically illustrated account of an American slave’s life. Tens of thousands of copies would sell in Britain. Through this narrative and lectures across the British Isles, Roper aimed through the powerful testimony of lived experience to challenge the fake history of slavery and America being written by its perpetrators. The Leicestershire Mercury and General Advertiser for the Midland Counties, recorded on 19 May 1838, words from one of his lectures:
You have heard the slave-holders’ story 250 years ago. Now, I
think it is time for the slaves to speak. I have published an account of my
sufferings and escape, and I have sent a copy of that book to every
slave-holder whose name is there mentioned. On the 4th of July, they hoist the
flag of liberty over 3,000,000 slaves, - the greatest burlesque on freedom that
can possibly be. I say these things here, which I dare not say in that
pretended land of liberty. I was sold in that free land by my own father, when
two months old.
Sometimes words and illustrations were not enough. Roper began displaying instruments of slave torture to make his point. Reporting on a December 1842 lecture at the Beverley Guildhall, The Hull Packet and East Riding Times reported that Roper
gave a most harrowing description of slavery, as it at
present exists in the United States, from which it seems that in the ‘land of
the free’ the most horrid cruelties are perpetrated upon nearly three millions
of human creatures, in consequence of having a drop of negro or Indian blood in
their veins, or because they differ from the tyrant republicans in the colour
of their skins. The instruments of torture used for punishing the poor slaves
were exhibited and caused a great sensation. At the close of his address, the
speaker said he had published a narrative of his adventures and escape, and
from the profits arising from its sale he wished to raise a sufficient sum to
purchase the liberty of his mother and eight brothers and sisters, who are now
in bondage. The hall was crowded in every part by a respectable auditory, and
deep interest appeared to be felt by all present, as they listened to the awful
details of the runaway, and happily in this country, freed slave, who spoke
English very fluently, having, we understand, been under instruction at one of
our universities.
Roper wanted very much to trace the whereabouts of his mother and family, to set them free. Towards the conclusion of his Narrative, he writes,
"The Land of the Free" still contains the mother,
the brothers, and the sister of Moses Roper, not enjoying liberty, not the
possessors of like feelings with me, not having even a distant glimpse of
advancing towards freedom, but still slaves!
His efforts to free his mother sadly failed - after writing to her last known owner to see how much he could buy her for, he was told that she had been sold to someone in Alabama and had since died. The news of her death he later discovered was untrue and sent to annoy him.
His longing unrealised, he submitted himself and his family to the sovereignty of God, and concludes his book with a prayerful reflection on America, his friends in England, and thanks to God:
And nothing would contribute so much to my entire happiness,
if the kindness of gracious Providence should ever place me in such favourable
circumstances as to be able to purchase their freedom. But I desire to express
my entire resignation to the will of God. Should that Divine Being who made of
one flesh all the kindreds of the earth, see fit that I should again clasp them
to my breast, and see in them the reality of free men and free women, how shall
I, a poor mortal, be enabled to sing a strain of praise sufficiently appropriate
to such a boon from heaven.
But if the All-wise Disposer of all things should see fit to
keep them still in suffering and bondage, it is a mercy to know that he orders
all things well, that he is still the judge of all the earth, and that under
such dispensations of his providence, he is working out that which shall be
most for the advantage of his creatures.
Whatever I may have experienced in America at the hands of
cruel taskmasters, yet I am unwilling to speak in any but respectful terms of
the land of my birth. It is far from my wish to attempt to degrade America in
the eyes of Britons. I love her institutions in the Free States, her zeal for
Christ; I bear no enmity to the slave-holders, but regret their delusions;
many, I am aware, are deeply sensible of the fault, but some I regret to say
are not, and I could wish to open their eyes to their sin; may the period come,
when God shall wipe off this deep stain from her constitution, and may America
soon be indeed the land of the free.
In conclusion, I thank my dear friends in England for their
affectionate attentions, and may God help me to show by my future walk in life,
that I am not wanting in my acknowledgments of their kindness. But above all,
to the God of all grace, I desire here before his people, that all the way in
which he has led me has been the right way, and as in his mercy and wisdom, he
has led me to this country, where I am allowed to go free, may all my actions
tend to lead me on, through the mercy of God in Christ, in the right way, to a
city of habitation.
Roper married an English woman, Ann S. Price, from Bristol in 1839, and they would eventually move to Canada. Together they would have four daughters. They would return to England a few times, but the publicity Roper and his story received in the mid 1830s and 40s does not seem to have lasted. Roper is mentioned in the 1861 census as living in Cambridge, and is identified as a “Lecturer on Slavery.” His wife, recorded as a “Teacher of a Private School” seems to have lived at the time in Wales. It seems that their marriage fell apart. One online rumour found on Wikipedia and elsewhere is almost certainly false: that one of Moses and Ann’s daughters married an Egyptian Baptist Missionary to Palestine, Youhannah El Karey. While otherwise plausible, given the circles in which Roper ran, the marriage certificate records the bride’s father as “Henry Roper”, a deceased Baptist missionary (not to be confused with Moses’ slave-raping father).
Roper eventually returned to Postbellum America, where he continued lecturing. He died not as a slave, but free, having lived a full life. Sadly though, in old age he found himself unable to sufficiently provide for himself, and had to leave lecturing behind to work as a farm hand. His end tragically lacks the dignity that he had realised while teaching in Britain’s churches and universities a half century before. His obituary in The Sun (New York City) on 17 April 1891 reads:
Moses ROPER died at the City Hospital in Boston on
Wednesday. He was born a slave in
Caswell, N.C. When he was quite young he
escaped from bondage and went to England where he was educated. In after years he became a lecturer, and
travelled all over the world lecturing.
Recently Mr. ROPER left the lecture field, and was working for a man at
Strong, Me. [Maine], but becoming ill, was sent to Boston. He was found at the depot on Saturday,
accompanied by a dog. After the old
man’s death the dog found the mattress upon which he died, lay down upon it,
and refused to leave it. One of the
hospital doctors has taken charge of the faithful beast.
For further reading:
Moses Roper, Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery. With an Appendix, Containing a List of Places Visited by the Author in Great Britain and Ireland and the British Isles, and Other Matter (Berwick upon Tweed, 1848), available online at https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/roper/roper.html
“Speeches by Moses Roper Delivered at Baptist Chapel, Devonshire Square, 26 May 1836 and at Finsbury Chapel, London, England, 30 May 1836” in C. Peter Ripley ed. et al, The Black Abolitionist Papers, Vol. I: The British Isles, 1830-1865, (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1985)
Martha J. Cutter, The Illustrated Slave: Empathy, Graphic Narrative, and the Visual Culture of the Transatlantic Abolition Movement, 1800-1852, (University of Georgia Press, 2017)
F. James Davis, Who is Black? One Nation’s Definition (Pennsylvania State University Press; 10th Anniversary edition, 30 Nov. 2001) – excerpt here: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson/mixed/onedrop.html
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