MY NAME IS HENRY BIBB. I WAS BORN A SLAVE. THIS WAS IN SHELBY COUNTY, KENTUCKY, IN 1814. MY MOTHER’S NAME IS MILDRED JACKSON, AND SHE TOO WAS A SLAVE. MY MOTHER HAD SEVEN SONS, ALL OF WHOM WERE FATHERED BY SLAVEHOLDERS. MY FATHER IS JAMES BIBB, A MEMBER OF THE WHITE SLAVEHOLDING CLASS. BUT ALL I GOT FROM HIM WAS HIS NAME AND COMPLEXION.
By the time I was ten I was hired out to various slaveholders, most of whom abused me to the point of near death. Under these regimes of torment, I resolved to escape. I ran away for brief periods but was always found and brought back.
As I grew older I came to understand that slavery was meant to crush its victim, drive him mad,render him a thing incapable of fighting back, and accepting of his lot.
When I became a young man, I married and fathered a daughter. The birth of our child made me realize that the time had come for me to make a bid for liberty. I would escape and then return to free my family.