My Name is Henry Bibb: A Story of Slavery and Freedom

My Name is Henry Bibb and My Name is Phillis Wheatley both share the sub-title A Story of Slavery and Freedom. Written by Afua Cooper and first published in 2009, they remain valuable fictional descriptions of life in slavery told through the lens of historic personalities. The republication of My Name is Henry Bibb as a paperback in 2023 allows a new generation of readers to discover this engaging tale of a child born into slavery who escaped bondage more than once. Bibb eventually became one of the most acclaimed Black Abolitionists active in the northern United States, and, after Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, he continued his advocacy from Canada. The fictionalized autobiography covers Bibb’s early life and young manhood to the time that he jumped the broom or married his first wife, sired a child and then escaped to a free state for the first time. Bibb’s later life is briefly recounted in the author’s epilogue. It is interesting to note that Cooper’s doctoral dissertation (University of Toronto, 2000) focuses upon Henry Bibb’s work as a Black abolitionist and civil rights activist from 1842 to 1854 in the United States and Canada.

As a work of fiction, the novel uses imagined dialogue, and the author creates storylines and characters that are not present in Bibb’s own autobiography Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, an American Slave that he first self-published in 1849 (not 1848 as stated in the epilogue). The fictional nature of the book becomes apparent from the start when Bibb’s story begins in the womb where he hears stories of enslaved African people walking on water and, later, tales of flying, both allusions to escaping bondage when slaves made the perilous break for freedom. Cooper’s statement that Bibb was born on 14 May 1814 is either a careless mistake or a deliberate fictionalization of his birth that Bibb, himself, gives as May 1815, a month and year corroborated in the entry for Bibb in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography online. It is unfortunate that a fictionalized autobiography introduces errors that make one wonder how much of the rest of the story is purely fiction and how much is based on fact. Regardless, My Name is Henry Bibb provides a lot of information about conditions of children, women and men in slavery and dreams of flight to freedom, with help along the way, to a place where humanity is recognized and a person is no one’s chattel.

Henry Bibb was born in Kentucky to a teenaged enslaved mulatto woman named Mildred. Thus, he was born into slavery, despite being fathered by a free white man named Bibb. Henry was Mildred’s first son. Henry’s light complexion later helped him during at least one of his escapes as he could pass as white. He first learned to be a child household domestic but later was hired out by his owner. Treatment at the hands of the “employers” was often as bad as might be received while slaving on an “owner’s” estate or plantation. Descriptions of the social life of the enslaved are very informative. The inhumane separation of parents and children, spouses and lovers at the whims of so-called owners remained looming threats too often realized. The sexual abuse of women by white men is also part of the story, but it is told in a way appropriate for young readers. As shown by the excerpt, the narrative uses archaic language that reflects the manner of speech and writing of the mid-nineteenth century. Some readers may find this challenging, but others may relish this as quaint.

Given the modern trend to alerting readers to challenging content and use of words that were used openly in the historic time period but are recognized today as racist and inappropriate, it is not surprising that My Name is Henry Bibb has a publisher’s warning on the verso of the title page:

This work of historical fiction contains graphic content, including depictions of and references to brutality, racism, racial slurs and violence.

Cooper adds three footnotes that explain the historical use of two racist and offensive terms that contain the N-word, and the fact that the historical word “negro” that was used to denote Black people of African descent is considered offensive by many today and largely dropped out of use.