From Slavery to Freedom –
A Slave Narrative of Aunt Sally Williams
Recorded by Edna Dean Proctor

Storyteller Libby Franck will portray Edna Dean Proctor as an abolitionist who published this slave narrative . Edna, born in Henniker NH and buried in Framingham, spent many years in Brooklyn, NY at the home of Henry Bowen, publisher of The Independent. When Aunt Sally showed up at the offices of the paper in January 1857, Edna was asked to record her story.

After being enslaved on a North Carolina rice plantation, Sally was sold to a more lenient master and was able to work as an independent entrepreneur. But the jealousy of her neighbors, both black and white, forced her back into the cruelties of slavery in Alabama. How Sally’s son bought her freedom through a network of literate slaves, and her delivery to Brooklyn is a tale as compelling today as it was in antebellum days.

Songs of the period will be sung by Adrienne Williams.

Sponsored by the Henniker Historical Society
First Congregational Church – Parish Hall
43 Maple St. Henniker NH 03242

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