William Wells Brown's novel Clotel shows us just how far the United States was from truly representing freedom in the years before the Civil War. The novel uses the story of Clotel, the slave-born daughter of President Thomas Jefferson and his slave mistress Currer. ... In slavery, Clotel meets a slave named William.

Clotelle; or the Colored Heroine by William Wells Brown (1814 - 1884) was originally printed by the Press of Geo. C Rand and Avery in 1867. This reproduction is reset line-for-line, page-for-page from a copy in the Negro Collection of the Fisk University Library by Jeffrey Young & Associates.

William Wells Brown's Clotel is often considered the first novel by an African-American. When the book was published, Brown himself was legally the property of someone else within the United States, having escaped from slavery in Kentucky when he was younger. In this story President Thomas Jefferson and his former mulatto mistress Currer have had two daughters together: Althesea and Clotel. When their master passes away, their relatively comfortable lives are swept away and Currer and Althesea are bought by the harsh slave trader.

Published in 1867, William Wells Browns Clotelle; or The Colored Heroine confronts racism and Afro-American slavery, which are presented as the foundation of a nation that prides itself on justice and democracy. The events play out in the background of the Civil War. A slave girl, Clotelle, is on a quest to save her daughter, whose father is her previous owner.