Jeffrey Brace

Jeffrey Brace
Born	Boyrereau Brinch c. 1742 West Africa
Died	April 20, 1827(1827-04-20) (aged 84–85) Georgia, Vermont, US
Occupation(s)	Enslaved sailor, soldier, farmer, author
Spouse	Susannah Dublin (Susanna)
Military career
Allegiance	Thirteen Colonies  United States
Service/branch	Royal Navy (1756-1763), Continental Army (1775–1781)
Battles/wars	French and Indian War American Revolutionary War

Part of a series on
Slavery
Contemporary Child labour Child soldiers Conscription Debt Forced marriage Bride buying Child marriage Wife selling Forced prostitution Human trafficking Peonage Penal labour Contemporary Africa 21st-century jihadism Sexual slavery Wage slavery
Historical Antiquity Egypt Babylonia Greece Rome Medieval Europe Ancillae Black Sea slave trade Byzantine Empire Kholop Prague slave trade Serfs History In Russia Emancipation Thrall Venetian slave trade Balkan slave trade Muslim world Slavery in the Abbasid Caliphate Slavery in Al-Andalus ‎ Baqt Contract of manumission Bukhara slave trade Crimean slave trade Khivan slave trade Ottoman Empire Avret Esir Pazarları Barbary Coast slave trade pirates Sack of Baltimore Slave raid of Suðuroy Turkish Abductions Concubinage history Ma malakat aymanukum Avret Esir Pazarları Harem Abbasid harem Ottoman Imperial Harem Safavid harem Qajar harem Jarya/Cariye Odalisque Qiyan Umm walad Circassian slave trade Saqaliba Slavery in the Umayyad Caliphate 21st century Atlantic slave trade Bristol Brazil Database Dutch Middle Passage Nantes New France Panyarring Spanish Empire Slave Coast Thirteen colonies Topics and practice Conscription Ghilman Mamluk Devshirme Blackbirding Coolie Corvée labor Field slaves in the United States Treatment House slaves Saqaliba Slave market Slave raiding Child soldiers White slavery Naval Galley slave Impressment Pirates Shanghaiing Slave ship
By country or region Sub-Saharan Africa Contemporary Africa Trans-Saharan slave trade Red Sea slave trade Indian Ocean slave trade Zanzibar slave trade Angola Chad Comoros Ethiopia Mali Mauritania Niger Nigeria Seychelles Somalia Somali slave trade South Africa Sudan Zanzibar North and South America Pre-Columbian America Aztec Americas indigenous U.S. Natives United States Field slaves female Contemporary maps partus prison labor Slave codes Treatment interregional Human trafficking The Bahamas Canada Caribbean Barbados British Virgin Islands Trinidad Code Noir Latin America Brazil Lei Áurea Colombia Cuba Haiti revolt Restavek (Encomienda) Puerto Rico East, Southeast, and South Asia Human trafficking in Southeast Asia Bhutan China Booi Aha Laogai penal system India Debt bondage Chukri System Japan comfort women Korea Kwalliso Maldives Thailand Yankee princess Vietnam Australia and Oceania Australia Human trafficking Blackbirding Slave raiding in Easter Island Human trafficking in Papua New Guinea Blackbirding in Polynesia Europe and North Asia Sex trafficking in Europe Britain Denmark Dutch Republic Germany in World War II Malta Norway Poland Portugal Romania Russia Spain Sweden North Africa and West Asia Afghanistan Algeria Bahrain Egypt Human trafficking in the Middle East Iran Iraq Jordan Kuwait Lebanon Libya Morocco Oman Palestine Saudi Arabia Syria Tunisia Qatar Yemen United Arab Emirates
Religion Bible Christianity Catholicism Mormonism Islam Judaism Baháʼí Faith
Opposition and resistance 1926 Slavery Convention Abolitionism U.K. U.S. Abolitionists Anglo-Egyptian Slave Trade Convention Anti-Slavery International Blockade of Africa U.K. U.S. Colonization Liberia Sierra Leone Compensated emancipation Freedman manumission Freedom suit Slave Power Underground Railroad songs Slave rebellion Slave Trade Acts International law Third Servile War 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom Abolition of slave trade in Persian gulf [fa]
Related Common law Indentured servitude Unfree labour Fugitive slaves laws Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners last survivors of American slavery Marriage of enslaved people (United States) Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project breeding court cases Washington Jefferson J.Q. Adams Lincoln Emancipation Proclamation 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau Iron bit Emancipation Day
v t e

Jeffrey Brace (born Boyrereau Brinch; c. 1742 – April 20, 1827) was a formerly enslaved person who was taken from West Africa around 1750 and a veteran of the American Revolutionary War. He became the first African-American citizen of Poultney, Vermont.^[1] Brace became blind in his later years. Benjamin Prentiss published his life story as The Blind African Slave or the Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace.

Biography

Brace was born in West Africa circa 1742 with the birth name Boyrereau Brinch. In his memoir, Brace describes growing up in the Christian kingdom of "Bow-Woo" before being kidnapped by slave traders at a young age and taken to the Caribbean. As an enslaved sailor, he served in the privateer ship of Captain Isaac Mills, his enslaver, during the French and Indian War. Afterward, he was brought to New England, where he was eventually bought by the Stiles family of Woodbury, Connecticut. He served under Return Meigs during the American Revolutionary War. After the war, he obtained his freedom from the Stiles family and settled in Poultney, Vermont. In Vermont, he met and married a widow, Susannah Dublin, and had children with her. Jeffrey Brace died on January 31, 1827, in Georgia, Vermont.^[2][3]

Legacy

Brace gave an oral account of his life to an abolitionist publisher, Benjamin Prentiss, who transcribed and published it as The Blind African Slave or the Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace. The Blind African Slave is part of the slave narrative genre.^[2]

The faculty union at the University of Vermont now offers a $500 book award in his name "to students who exemplify academic excellence and an active commitment to achieving social and economic justice."^[4]

A historical marker honoring Brace was erected in 2008 in Poultney.^[5]

References

• Nell, William Cooper. The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution, With Sketches of Several Distinguished Colored Persons: To Which Is Added a Brief Survey of the Condition And Prospects of Colored Americans.

This page was last edited on 15 January 2024, at 20:42