Born a slave on a Virginia plantation, James Lindsay Smith endured a life of humiliation, and physical and psychological abuse of every sort. Originally published in 1881, this detailed narrative of Smith's long and eventful life is a stirring testament to his very survival under conditions of extreme hardship. Unlike the eloquent rhetoric of Frederick Douglass, Smith's prose is simple and plainspoken.<BR>Smith begins his narrative with stories of his various cruel masters, the many beatings, the heartless separations of family members, and his religious conversion. Trained as a shoemaker, he makes a daring escape to freedom, forging a new life for himself among the abolitionists in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He details life during the Civil War, racism among Union soldiers, heroism of African American troops, reactions to the Emancipation Proclamation and the assassination of Lincoln, and the migration of emancipated slaves to the West. His autobiography concludes with a bittersweet visit to his old homestead in Virginia, celebrations over the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, and his hope for the future.