author
Ebenezer Davies
1808–1882
A Welsh-born Congregational minister and abolitionist, he wrote with firsthand urgency about slavery and American life after traveling thousands of miles through the United States. His best-known book blends travel writing, moral argument, and vivid 19th-century observation.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in Ruthin, North Wales, on April 3, 1808, Ebenezer Davies was educated at Rotherham College and became a Congregational minister. In 1838 he settled at Tabernacle Chapel, Stockport, and soon afterward accepted a call from the London Missionary Society to serve in New Amsterdam, Berbice, in British Guiana.
Davies later returned to Britain after years of missionary work and became known as an author as well as a minister. His most notable book, American Scenes, and Christian Slavery (1849), grew out of a long tour through the United States and offered a sharp, morally serious account of the country he saw.
What makes his writing memorable now is its mix of travel narrative and abolitionist conviction. He wrote as someone deeply engaged with the religious and political debates of his time, using personal observation to challenge slavery and the compromises that sustained it.