Hammon, Briton

Source:

 African American National Biography

Hammon, Briton

(fl. 1747–1760),

slave narrative author, wrote the earliest slave account published in North America. Practically nothing is known about him other than what he stated in the account of his life's events between 1747 and 1760. While living as a slave in New England in 1747, Hammon undertook a-sea voyage that turned out to be a thirteen-year odyssey featuring numerous perils and repeated captures by American Indians and Spaniards. A Narrative, of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing 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, published as a fourteen-page pamphlet, was printed and sold in 1760 by Green and Russell, a Boston publishing firm that was bringing out popular Indian captivity narratives.

This remarkable story of sea adventures, treachery, and multiple captivities is believed to be the first autobiographical slave narrative on record. It is not clear whether Hammon's work was actually written by him. More than likely it was dictated to a writer who faithfully transcribed the slave's spoken tale. The ungrammatical and plain style of the text and the lack of much editorializing in the main body of the account seem to indicate that Briton Hammon's words were written down almost exactly as he delivered them. However, the beginning and ending sections of the narrative do point to the probability that a white recorder stylistically embellished Hammon's work with traditional eighteenth-century religious statements and personal expressions of humility.

Hammon's journey commenced on the “25th Day of December, 1747,” when, with his master's permission, the adventurous slave left Marshfield, Massachusetts, on a sea voyage. The next day he set sail from Plymouth on a ship bound for Jamaica and the “Bay” of Florida. After a month's journey, the ship arrived in Jamaica for a short stay and then sailed up the coast of Florida for the purpose of picking up “log wood.” The vessel left Florida at the end of May, and in the middle of June it ran aground a short distance from shore, off “Cape-Florida.” There, the captain's refusal to unload some of the cargo of wood so as to free the ship proved fatal. In two days' time a large group of Indians in canoes, flying the English colors as a ruse to trick the captain and his crew, attacked and murdered everyone on the ship except Hammon, who saved himself by jumping overboard. But the Indians soon took him out of the water, beat him, and told him they were going to roast him alive. However, much to Hammon's surprise, they treated him fairly well as their prisoner.

Hammon remained with the Indians for five weeks, until he managed to get to Cuba aboard a Spanish vessel whose captain he had previously met in Jamaica. The Indians pursued their escaped captive to Havana and demanded that he be returned to them. The governor of the island refused, but paid the Indians ten dollars to purchase Hammon. After working in the governor's castle for about a year, Hammon met up with a press gang that demanded he serve aboard a ship sailing to Spain. Upon his refusal Hammon was put into a dungeon and held there for four years and seven months, during which time he tried without success to make the governor aware of his imprisonment.

Finally, through the efforts of friends, Hammon's situation came to the attention of the governor, who ordered him released and returned to his service. For the next several years Hammon worked for the governor in his castle and later for the bishop of Havana. During this time the long-suffering prisoner made three attempts to escape, and on the last one he succeeded. After a bit of difficulty he managed to be taken aboard an English ship that was about to sail for Jamaica and then on to London.

Upon his arrival in England, Hammon signed up for service on a succession of British naval vessels, one of which engaged in a battle with a French warship. During this encounter he “was Wounded in the Head by a small Shot.” After serving several months at sea, Hammon was discharged on 12 May 1759 to the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich, England, after “being disabled in the Arm.” Hammon soon recovered, and over the next few months he worked as a cook on several ships. After suffering a bout of fever in London, Hammon signed aboard a vessel sailing for Boston. On the passage over the Atlantic Ocean he became delighted to learn that his-“good Master” General Winslow, who had allowed Hammon to leave New England thirteen years before, was one of the passengers aboard ship. After the happy reunion Winslow remarked that Hammon “was like one arose from the Dead, for he thought I had been Dead a great many Years, having heard nothing of me for almost Thirteen Years” (Hammon, 13).

At the ending of Hammon's narrative, he thanks the “Divine Goodness” for being “miraculously preserved and delivered out of many Dangers,” and attests to the fact that he has “not deviated from Truth” (Hammon, 14). The ending corresponds to the spiritual declaration at the beginning of his narrative, and both sections seem to be tacked on by someone else to give the story a religious framework. These, in addition to the many religious references Hammon himself inserts in his story, impart a spiritual autobiographical character to the work. The title of Hammon's book was similar to those of other published Indian captivity accounts, and at times his text seems to echo the phraseology and religious references of those accounts.

Hammon's work is believed to be the first of thousands of slave narratives written in America. His story follows the pattern of spiritual striving and of escape from physical captivity (in Hammon's case, Indian and Spanish bondage but not American slavery) that is an essential element of the many slave narratives that were published in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. In the immediate decades after Hammon's publication, there appeared several notable slave narratives including those by James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw (1772), Olaudah Equiano (1789), and Broteer (Venture Smith) (1798). All that is known about Hammon's life after his return to New England in 1760 is that his short tale of captivity and escape became a well-known personal account in eighteenth-century America.

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