I Exist...Honest! Trivia Quiz

Answer: Shadrach Wilkins

Although James Williams mentioned his twin brother Meshech in the narrative, people in the 1830s still argued whether Williams was the same person as Shadrach Wilkins, not noticing that he'd given away the answer. The names Shadrach and Meshech made more sense than James and Meshech because of the Biblical characters Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego.

The famous Frederick Douglass coincidentally escaped to freedom in New York in 1838, the same year as James Williams, though they never met. Jim Thornton was another alias that James Williams used during his many adventures.

Answer: He tried to help poison a neighboring slave owner.

Williams offered to supply poisonous hemlock root to a neighboring enslaved man so he could kill his owner. The other conspiring slaves were caught, tried and banished from Virginia. Though Williams was not tried in court, his owner was too afraid to keep him, so she sold him and his family to Alabama.

In the narrative, Williams says he was sent south to be a driver on another plantation owned by his same master and omits the real reason, which would make him seem less sympathetic.

Answer: Selma

Not even an 1838 newspaper editor in the county where Williams said he was enslaved could identify the neighbors. Most people assumed that if Williams changed anything, he changed names but kept places the same. In fact, he did the opposite, so rather than being enslaved in Greene County, Alabama, he was in Dallas County on a plantation just a few miles north of Selma, and the neighbors are identifiable there by their real names.

Answer: Huckstep

Williams never mentions the first name of his overseer, calling him merely Huckstep. James W. Huckstep cannot be tied to the plantation of Caleb Tate where Williams was enslaved, but he was a resident of Dallas County at about the same time period, based on the 1840 census and his signature on some deeds.

His name provides further evidence that Williams included the real names of Alabama white men in his narrative, except for his owner, Caleb Tate. Williams omitted the real name of his owners in both Virginia and Alabama, as well as the names of almost all his fellow enslaved people.

He did give the real name of his wife Harriet.

Answer: He didn't want to tell abolitionists he lied to and double-crossed white people.

When Williams fled Alabama, he went on a swindling spree with a man named James B. White, who claimed to be an underground railroad operator from Buffalo, New York. In Baltimore, Williams turned White in to the authorities to get revenge for what might have been a misunderstanding. Williams may have feared such a story wouldn't make him look good to New York abolitionists, so he described his escape as a lone trip straight from Alabama to New York, leaving out what would have been some of the most entertaining parts of his life.

He also may not have wanted to publish the real secrets of how he escaped.

Answer: A slave pen in New Orleans

James B. White either sold Williams on purpose or accidentally left him trapped in the Baltimore slave jail of James Purvis. The constable contacted Williams's Alabama owner, Caleb Tate, but Tate didn't want him back and sold him to another Baltimore slave dealer, Hope Slatter. Slatter shipped him down for resale in New Orleans.

Answer: He acted like a waiter, serving meals to passengers.

Williams needed to stay hidden on board the boat for a week or more until he came to a free state, so he had to find a way to get food and water. Working as a waiter gave him a chance to eat and drink, while disappearing into the crowd of the huge steamboat the Henry Clay, one of the largest on the river.

Answer: While the boats were delayed due to the frozen river, a man who boarded recognized him.

Henry F. Peterson, who had watched Williams sold in Baltimore over 500 miles away, boarded the same steamboat on the Mississippi River that Williams was on, while all the boats were delayed due to ice on the river near Louisville. Peterson recognized Williams and told the captain he was an escaped slave, but the captain didn't believe him and Williams got away.

Answer: Cincinnati, Ohio

James Birney lived in Cincinnati, where he was one of the leaders of the anti-slavery movement. He became so well-known that he was offered the position of a corresponding secretary with the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York and he moved there that fall.

It was the organization that published James Williams's narrative the following spring. James Birney never ran into James Williams in Cincinnati, though Williams stayed there after leaving the steamboat and before going to New York.

Answer: Publishers put formerly enslaved authors on lecture tours so readers could ask questions directly.

Future escaped slaves, such as Frederick Douglass or Henry "Box" Brown, combined lectures with books, so audiences could see that they were real and ask questions about their experiences. This gained trust with readers, rather than leaving the author as a unknown quantity like James Williams, who left for England immediately after publication due to fear of recapture.