Venture Smith’s courageous journey from slavery to freedom, by Gift Luckson
Venture Smith (1729–1805) was a remarkable African man who survived enslavement and left one of the earliest first-person accounts of slavery in America.
Origin
Venture Smith was born Broteer Furro in present-day Guinea (West Africa) around 1729. At age 6, he was captured during a raid and sold into slavery.
Enslavement
He was transported to Rhode Island and given the name Venture by his enslaver, Captain Smith (hence Venture Smith).
Smith renamed him because he considered purchasing him to be a business “venture”. Venture was bought with four gallons of rum and a piece of calico.
He worked in New England, enduring harsh treatment but showing extraordinary strength and resilience.
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Freedom
Through hard labour, determination, and saving money, Venture Smith eventually purchased his freedom (and later that of his family).
Legacy
In 1798, he dictated his life story: “A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa”.
This autobiography is one of the earliest known examples of an autobiographical narrative in an entirely African American literary veritas, with only about a dozen first-hand accounts of their experiences left behind.
His autobiography gave historians a rare firsthand account of the middle passage and slavery.
In his narrative, Smith describes the people in his native country as generally of great bodily stature, stout, and tall.
And he reports that he personally was well over 6 feet 1+1⁄2 inches (1.87 m) tall, weighed 230 pounds (100 kg), and carried a 9-pound (4.1 kg) axe for felling trees. This is confirmed by the archaeological project in 2007 and the runaway ad from 1754.
Death
Venture Smith died in 1805 and was buried at the First Church of Christ cemetery in East Haddam, Connecticut, now a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.
He is remembered as a symbol of courage, resilience, and self-determination.
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