Hammon, Briton

c. 18th century

All that is known about the writer Briton Hammon is gleaned from his publication, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man,—Servant to General Winslow, of Marshfield, in New England; Who Returned to Boston, after Having Been Absent Almost Thirteen Years (Boston, 1760).

Hammon was either a servant or a slave of General Winslow of Marshfield, Massachusetts. In 1747 he sailed, with Winslow's consent, from Plymouth, Massachusetts, to the West Indies. He stayed several weeks in Jamaica, was shipwrecked on the coast of Florida, and was captured by Native Americans. He escaped with a Spanish schooner and was imprisoned in a Spanish dungeon in Havana for almost five years because he refused to serve on board a Spanish ship. Hammon then escaped again and went to England; he signed on a ship bound for Boston and found his former master, General Winslow, also on board. Both returned to Marshfield, where Hammon wrote his account of thirteen years of traveling.

Hammon's narrative has long been considered the first prose work by an African-American writer. Some literary historians credit him with writing the first slave narrative. His status is vague. In the title he used the word servant, and from his description it is not clear whether he was a privileged slave or a servant in a more modern sense. According to Hammon, he was paid to be a cook and to do other jobs. There is no information about the purposes of his travels. In the preface to his Narrative, Hammon explains "To the Reader" that his "capacities and conditions of life are very low" and asks for the reader's understanding.

See also Autobiography, U.S.

Bibliography

Logan, Rayford W., and Michael R. Winston, eds. Dictionary of American Negro Biography. New York: Norton, 1982.

doris dziwas (1996)