Venture Smith

Venture Smith was an African-American farmer and craftsman. Smith was kidnapped when he was six and a half years old in West Africa and was taken to Anomabo on the Gold Coast to be sold into slavery. As an adult, he purchased his freedom and that of his family. He documented his life in A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself. This autobiography is one of the earliest known examples of an autobiographical narrative in an entirely African American literary vericas, only about a dozen left behind first-hand accounts of their experiences.