Thirty Years a Slave

Originally published in Milwaukee in 1897, Hughes's book is a rare autobiography of a black Milwaukeean. His story, however, does not begin in Wisconsin. Most of the book narrates the story of Hughes's life as a slave. He recounts the emotional pain of being sold away from his mother at about the age of eleven, astutely observes the interactions between slaves and masters, and graphically tells of the physical brutality heaped on him and his fellow slaves. Historians have mined his memoir for what it tells about plantation life, the organization of work, and the interactions between slaves.