author
Henry Clay Bruce
1836–1902
Born into slavery in Virginia and later writing with sharp honesty about bondage and freedom, this memoirist left behind a vivid firsthand account of nineteenth-century Black life in America. His story blends hardship, wit, political awareness, and a determined belief in self-education.
1 Audiobook
The New Man: Twenty-nine years a slave, twenty-nine years a free man
by Henry Clay Bruce
About the author
Born in Prince Edward County, Virginia, in 1836, Henry Clay Bruce was enslaved as a child and was later taken to Missouri. He eventually made his way to freedom in Kansas, and his life spanned both slavery and emancipation in a way that gave his writing unusual range and force.
Bruce is best known for The New Man: Twenty-Nine Years a Slave, Twenty-Nine Years a Free Man, published in 1895. In that memoir, he wrote about the realities of slavery, everyday survival, and the complicated transition into freedom, creating a personal record that also serves as an important historical witness.
He was also the brother of Blanche K. Bruce, who became the first African American to serve a full term in the U.S. Senate. Henry Clay Bruce died in Washington, D.C., in 1902, but his memoir continues to be valued for its direct voice and the detail it preserves about American life before and after the Civil War.