PREFACE
When I first published this Narrative, the public had no evidence whatever that I had been a slave, except my own story. As soon as the work came from the press, I sent several copies to slaveholders residing at the South, with whom I was acquainted; and among others, one to Mr. Enoch Price, the man who claims my body and soul as his property, and from whom I had run away. A few weeks after the Narrative was sent, Edmund Quincy, Esq., received the following letter from Mr. Price. It tells its own story, and forever settles the question of my having been a slave. Here is the letter:
Sir:—I received a pamphlet, or a Narrative, so called on the title-page, of the Life of William W Brown, a fugitive slave, purporting to have been written by himself; and in his book I see a letter from you to said William W Brown. This said Brown is named Sanford; he is a slave belonging to me, and ran away from me the first day of January, 1834. Now I see many things in his book that are not true, and a part of
