The Heroic Slave

Forced labour and slavery
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The Heroic Slave, a Heartwarming Narrative of the Adventures of Madison Washington, in Pursuit of Liberty is a novella written by abolitionist Frederick Douglass. When the Rochester Ladies' Anti Slavery Society asked Douglass for a short story to go in their collection, Autographs for Freedom, Douglass responded with The Heroic Slave. The novella, published in 1852 by John P. Jewett and Company, was Douglass's first and only published work of fiction (though he did publish several autobiographical narratives).

The Heroic Slave was based on the Creole case, in which Madison Washington, an enslaved cook on the brig Creole led a shipboard rebellion of 19 slaves in November 1841. They succeeded in taking control of the ship en route from Virginia to New Orleans (known as the coastwise slave trade), and ordered it sailed to Nassau, Bahamas, a British port. A total of 135 slaves gained freedom there, becoming the largest and most successful slave rebellion in United States history.