author
Daniel Drayton
1802–1857
A sailor turned abolitionist, he is remembered for the daring Pearl escape attempt and for the memoir he wrote after years in Washington jail. His story offers a firsthand view of courage, punishment, and the fight against slavery in the United States.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in 1802 in southern New Jersey, Daniel Drayton spent years working on coastal vessels and became deeply opposed to slavery through what he saw on those voyages. He later became known for helping organize the 1848 escape aboard the schooner Pearl, when dozens of enslaved people tried to flee from Washington, D.C.
The attempt failed, and Drayton was arrested and imprisoned for more than four years. After his release, he published Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail, a vivid account of the Pearl voyage, its capture, and his time behind bars.
Drayton died in 1857. Today he is remembered not only as a memoirist, but as a man whose life became part of the larger history of abolition, resistance, and the struggle for freedom before the Civil War.