Thirty-Five Years in Slavery, and Then Out

By Dan Linke

Typically, when Special Collections acquires a rare book, it is one of several or many surviving copies. While there may be characteristics that make a specific copy unique, such as annotations or its ownership, the printed text usually is not one of them.

That is why a new arrival is so interesting: a 1902 memoir by John Thomas, who was born into slavery and lived through emancipation. To the best that can be determined, no other copy exists—at least none are cataloged anywhere.

“Thirty-Five Years in Slavery, and Then Out” recounts in 29 printed pages what he describes in the subtitle: “In this book I give you a few ideas of my own experience.” His account includes being sold from his mother at age 14, his two enslavers’ cruelties, fleeing to a Union fort during the Civil War to escape bondage (thanks to the Emancipation Proclamation), and then ultimately his free life in Illinois. The book was written when he was 75.

First, in calling to my mind of 1827 and think of a little babe… The whites would come and talk about it the same as a man of this country would talk of his stock, of a horse or cow.

John Thomas, Thirty-Five Years in Slavery, and Then Out

Over 200 slave narratives have been published, with another previously unknown work published just last year. In their book on the genre, authors Charles Twitchell Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., state that through these texts “the black slave first proclaimed himself a human being.”

We plan to digitize and make Thirty-Five Years in Slavery, and Then Out available online soon, so everyone with an internet connection will be able access it around the world. When that is complete, you’ll be able to find the digital images on the Library Catalog entry for the book.