Moses Roper 
A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, from American Slavery 

The
Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper can be read as an extended autobiographical meditation on the meaning of race in antebellum America. First published in England, the text documents the life of Moses Roper, beginning with his birth in North Carolina and chronicling his travels through South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Roper was able to obtain employment on a schooner named
The Fox, and in 1834 he made his way to freedom aboard the vessel. Once in Boston, he was quickly recruited as a signatory to the constitution of the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS), but he sailed to England the next year. Roper’s narrative is especially interesting because although it was published after Frederick Douglass’s much-heralded 1845
Narrative, Roper actually preceded Douglass in his involvement in AASS as well as in his travel to the United Kingdom. This text is often cited by literary scholars because of its length, its extensive detail, and its unforgiving portrayal of enslaved life in the ‘land of the free.’



A DOCSOUTH BOOK. This collaboration between UNC Press and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Library brings classic works from the digital library of Documenting the American South back into print. Doc South Books uses the latest digital technologies to make these works available in paperback and e-book formats. Each book contains a short summary and is otherwise unaltered from the original publication. Doc South Books provide affordable and easily accessible editions to a new generation of scholars, students, and general readers.

About the author

Moses Roper was born in 1815 in Caswell County, North Carolina, the son of a white planter (Henry) and his house slave (Nancy). He went on to challenge the racial logic of slavery, and his 1837 autobiography repeatedly sold out, necessitating ten reprintings in the two decades after its publication.