RIVER OF SORROW: WILLIAM WELLS BROWN AND THE SLAVE TRADER.

The article focuses on William Wells Brown, an enslaved man who escaped bondage and became a prominent abolitionist author and lecturer before the Civil War. It details Brown's early life in Kentucky and Missouri, his forced labor assisting William Walker, a notorious Missouri slave trader involved in the interstate slave trade, and the brutal realities of slavery and human trafficking in the region. The narrative also highlights Walker's legal entanglements, including a landmark freedom suit that influenced later cases like Dred Scott's, and his eventual financial and social downfall. Brown's escape to freedom, adoption of the name William Wells Brown, and rise to national prominence as a writer and antislavery advocate are presented as key elements of his life and legacy.