Hannah (Bond) Vincent (abt. 1827 - abt. 1902)

Born about 1827 in Bertie, North Carolina, United States

Ancestors

Died about 1902 at about age 75 in Burlington, New Jersey, United States

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Biography

Hannah (Bond) Vincent is a part of US Black heritage.

Hannah Bond was an enslaved African American woman the daughter of Lewis Bond a White Slave owner and Hannah Bond Martin his slave. When Bond died Hannah was left to his daughter Lucendia Bond Bond-12775 Lucinda married Dr Samuel Jordan Wheeler Wheeler-27370 of Murfreesboro. Samuel would later give or sale Hannah to his brother John Hill Wheeler and wife Ellen Sully Wheeler. Hannah was a lady's maid to Ellen. Family lore says that Ellen was not the nicest person to anyone especially Hannah. Ellen had a family reputation as being difficult.

Hannah learned to read from an elderly Quaker couple, and she would help the female college students of ( Herford Female Academy, now Chowan University) that boarded at the Wheeler house with their lessons.

Hannah escaped Slavery from the plantation of John Hill Wheeler in Murfreesboro, North Carolina dressed as a white boy at the age of 23 in clothes given to her by John Hill Wheelers Nephew, after escaping she wrote the earliest known novel written by an African American woman. The unpublished novel was not rediscovered until it was purchased at an auction by Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. in 2001. Published in 2002, it became a New York Times bestseller. A Bondwoman’s Narrative, under the pen name Hannah Crafts. Written between 1855 and 1861, the novel is a description of what being a slave was like in the antebellum south. Hannah’s writing style is unique among the known slave accounts, drawing influences from Charles Dickens' Bleak House (1853), Walter Scott's Rob Roy (1817), and Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (1847).

Research notes

Sources

• Hannah Crafts (Author), Henry Louis Gates Jr. (Editor), The Bondwoman's Narrative, New York: Time-Warner Books, 2002.

• "United States Census, 1860", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MX55-1VQ : Sat Mar 09 22:32:31 UTC 2024), Entry for Thos Vincent and Hannah Vincent, 1860.

• "United States Census, 1870", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MND4-7J9 : Tue Mar 05 10:13:05 UTC 2024), Entry for Thomas Vincent and Hannah Vincent, 1870.

• "United States Census, 1880", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MNZ2-B9S : Sun Mar 10 23:16:37 UTC 2024), Entry for Thomas Vincent and Hannah Vincent, 1880.

• "New Jersey State Census, 1885", , FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6PT3-ZZM : Sun Mar 10 17:40:59 UTC 2024), Entry for Hannah A Vincent and Samuel H Vincent, 1885.