The Self-Emancipation of Kentucky slave William Gibson

Non-fiction. Writing an extraordinary Black man back into our histories.

Born a slave in Kentucky, William Gibson served in both the famous 54th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry during the American Civil War under his alias John Saunders and as a Buffalo Soldier with the 10th United States Cavalry. As a boy, he self-emancipated and took the Underground Railroad to freedom and relative safety from the Refugee Slave Act of 1850 in Chatham, Canada West. He was the only member of his family to successfully seek freedom before the war.

Hoping this non-fiction piece will inspire some excellent historical fiction. Please share with me if you get inspired!

Footnotes:
* My antiracist pro-Black vocabulary is a work in progress; feedback always appreciated!
* Much gratitude is owed to American Origins, LLC who retrieved and photographed the military pension files that bring William and his family's words back to life, and to an anonymous friend who provided the fee for that work.
* Cross-published to Academia.edu, Medium.com and Wattpad.com.
* Black is capitalized throughout to denote the Black American ethnic group which exists due to the forced breeding and sexual violence of chattel slavery that blends ethnic identities from Africa, Indigenous American tribes, Europe, etc.