A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture by Venture Smith

In this account Venture Smith dictates his life story from his youth in Africa to his enslavement in New England to his purchase of freedom for himself and his family and his entrance into the slave-holding economy. This narrative is intriguing in part because it helps defamiliarize typical narratives (Venture remembers his past in Africa, unlike most slaves who write in the 19th century, after the legal slave trade had been abolished, he never learned to read or write, he never lived in the US South, and, after buying his freedom, engaged in the system of slave-ownership himself), and in part because it gives a fascinating account of a highly capable man's ability to market himself--an early example of extreme self-possession.