John Jea
John Jea (born 1773) was an African-American slave, best known for his 1811 autobiography, The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher.
Biography
John Jea was born in Africa in 1773 near Calabar in the Bight of Biafra.[1] He was sold into slavery in New York with his family, where they worked for a Dutch couple, Oliver and Angelika Triebuen. After learning to read the Bible, he was freed and eventually embarked on a journey to Boston, New Orleans, South America, the Netherlands, France, Germany, Ireland and England, where he worked as a preacher.
He later published his autobiography along with poems, thus being one of the first African-American poets to have written an autobiography.[2]
His autobiography was only rediscovered in 1983.[2]
Bibliography
- The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher, 1811.
References
- ↑ Chambers, Douglas B. (2005). Murder at Montpelier, Pg. 185
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 The Signifying Monkey, by Henry Louis Gates, Jr, Oxford University Press, hardcover, page 158
External links
- The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher. Compiled and Written by Himself. Portsea, England: Author [1811].
- 1773 births
- African-American poets
- African-American writers
- American people of Nigerian descent
- American slaves
- Black British writers
- Nigerian poets
- People from Cross River State
- Year of death unknown
- 18th-century Nigerian people
- Nigerian slaves
- Nigerian emigrants to the United States
- Freedmen
- People who wrote slave narratives
