Born of enslaved parents in Canaan, Connecticut, in 1790, James Mars was intimately familiar with the world of slavery. In the late 1860s, he recognized that his children and especially his grandchildren had little awareness of slavery's past in Connecticut. Determined not to allow the memory of slavery in the state to be erased, he wrote his autobiography to help preserve it. His story is filled with whippings, threats, fear and the uncertainties of life as a slave. 

Image: James Mars, Life of James Mars: A Slave Born and Sold in Connecticut, 1864. Courtesy Mr. Craig Kelly.