Prior to the Civil War, William Wells Brown a former mulatto slave and abolitionist creates and publishes the first play ever written, The Escape; Or, a Leap for Freedom (1858). Brown generates a Drama in which the main features are true. Many of the events were drawn from Brown’s own experiences of his eighteen years in the South. He explores the complexities of the United States culture in the late 1850s, an era where tensions between the North and the South were threatening to explode into civil war.
Brown endows us with characters that depict the crisis and hardships that many black enslaves faced when white Americans were slaveholders. Due to the cruelty against the slaves from their oppressors, the slave characters in the play become more aware of their inequality in the United States and appoint to break away from slavery in the south. When Brown fled from slavery he believed heading north was the best solution, especially Canada where slavery did not exist. Harmonizing with Brown’s escape, the slaves in The Escape also head towards Canada through the Underground Railroad. “Canada became the most secure safe-haven for slave fugitives in North America; seen as the "Promised Land" in the slave imagination” (208, Reese). Brown’s struggles of living as a slave and journey to freedom are portrayed throughout this piece of literature as well as his other famous works, such as Clotel.
