1. Moses Roper wrote an influential narrative of his enslavement in the United States in his Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery and gave thousands of lectures in Great Britain and Ireland to inform the European public about the brutality of American slavery.
Moses Roper was born to a Southern planter, Henry Roper, who was his enslaver; his mother, Nancy, was of African American and indigenous descent who was enslaved by Henry Roper.
When Moses Roper was seven years old, he was separated from his mother and both were not reunited for several years.
Moses Roper was enslaved by several men in North Carolina and Florida, where after several attempts he successfully managed to escape enslavement.
Moses Roper later said he had tried to escape between 16 and 20 times and after each failed attempt, was tortured and abused at the hands of his enslaver.
Moses Roper eventually reached New York and moved to Massachusetts and Vermont for short periods of time as he was fearful of being recognized by slave catchers who were active in the region.
However, with the help of American abolitionists, Moses Roper instead boarded a ship destined for Great Britain and settled in London.
Moses Roper toured the length and breadth of England, as well as several places in Ireland, Scotland and Wales, making the case for the abolition of slavery in the US.
Moses Roper lamented in a feeling manner the fate of his mother, whom he had wished to redeem from slavery, but who is dead.
Moses Roper enlarged on the desolate condition of his brothers and sisters who have been sold to remote states, and from whom he has had no intelligence of late.
Moses Roper stated that he still loved America, that he suffered much from the English climate, yet to be reckoned a British citizen had been his ardent desire, but that legal naturalization was above his pecuniary means.
Moses Roper lectured over 2,000 times across Britain and Ireland in Baptist, Independent, Methodist and Quaker churches and town halls in nearly every county in Britain and was one of the few activists to lecture in the Scottish Highlands.
The sheer extent of Moses Roper's lecturing tour is astounding, particularly when one considers his travels to rural communities in Cornwall and Wales.
The debate raged on the pages of The Patriot newspaper in late 1840 with Price charging Moses Roper with reneging on previous promises to become a missionary in Africa.
Moses Roper faced charges of falsehood during his lecturing tours by some who refused to believe his accounts of the brutality of American slavery.
Moses Roper came from America, which was a land of independence, and he wished to be independent, and avoid the risk of offending any body, which he perhaps might do by some of his observations.
Moses Roper married Ann Stephen Price in Bristol, England, on December 21,1839.
Moses Roper had four daughters: one born in the Atlantic on the way to Canada in about 1844, two born in Quebec and the youngest born in Nova Scotia between 1850 and 1857.
Moses Roper thrice returned to the United Kingdom: first in 1846 to "settle private matters" ; then in 1854 and sometime before 1861, to lecture.
The final time, he brought his wife and daughters back, and the 1861 British Census finds them living with his father-in-law in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales, while Moses Roper is in Cambridge, England, staying in a boarding house.
Several years before his death, Roper wandered through New England taking whatever employment he could find; he was working as a field hand on the farm of James T Skillings in Franklin County, Maine, near the town of Strong when "his strength gave out" in April 1891.
Moses Roper's dog had to be dragged away from his bedside.
Moses Roper was buried in a pauper's grave in Boston, though his obituaries in the American press noted the importance of his abolitionist work in both the USand Europe.