Briton Hammon

Briton Hammon was a slave of African descent who lived in British North America during the middle of the 18th century.

Hammon and the crew were cast away off the coast of Florida, beginning a series of hardships and adventures that he chronicled in an autobiographical account, A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing [sic] Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man, first published in 1760.

[1][2] On December 25, 1747, Briton Hammon left Marshfield, Massachusetts, on his first expedition with the permission of his owner, General Winslow.

When half of the crew was ashore, they were attacked by a group of 60 indigenous Floridians, who captured and bound them.

After this venture, Hammon lived with Francisco Cajigal de la Vega, the governor of Cuba, in the castle.

He spent a night in jail, then refused to work aboard a Spanish ship and was put in a dungeon, where he remained for almost five years.

Hammon was employed for seven months, along with quite a few other enslaved people, carrying Roman Catholic Bishop Pedro Augustín Morell de Santa Cruz on a litter through the country.