The Heroic Slave

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual violence, and racism. 

Abolitionist fiction is a literary genre to which “The Heroic Slave” belongs. Within this genre, authors write about enslavement’s horrors. In the 19th century, authors used fictional narratives inspired by the real, violent experiences of enslaved people at the hands of their enslavers. Like abolitionist nonfiction, these fictional accounts were similarly invested in condemning the dehumanizing institution of enslavement and argued that Black people were not morally inferior to white people. The most famous abolitionist novel from Douglass’s time is Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in 1852. Stowe uses Christian morality to persuade white readers that enslavement should be abolished. This can be compared to Douglass’s allusions to the Bible throughout “The Heroic Slave.” Furthermore, Stowe and Douglass were friends, and Stowe, as a white writer, sought out Douglass’s opinion of her work. 

Like “The Heroic Slave,” another book that was published in 1853 was Clotel by William Wells Brown. Like Douglass, Brown also emancipated himself from enslavement. In Clotel, Brown offers a more critical look at the founding fathers. His titular character, Clotel, is the daughter of Thomas Jefferson and one of the people he enslaved. In contrast, Douglass casts Jefferson in a positive light, using a comparison between Madison and Jefferson to illustrate how Madison’s struggle for freedom is morally correct.

One of the earliest abolitionist fiction novels written by a Black woman was Iola Leroy by Frances Harper, published in 1892. It focuses on a woman who can pass for white and is born free. However, because her Black parent was enslaved, she is forced into enslavement. Iola Leroy includes Christian themes like “The Heroic Slave” but is more similar to Clotel in that it focuses on a woman who has one white parent. Both Clotel and Iola Leroy are similar to the play The Octoroon (1859) by Dion Boucicault, which is based on the novel Quadroon (1856) by Thomas Mayne Reid. These titles are references to terms that describe people who have both Black and white ancestors. They refer to the 19th-century concept of “blood quantum,” in which “octoroon” meant that someone was an eighth Black and “quadroon” meant that someone was a quarter Black.