Moses Roper ( – April 15, 1891) was an African American abolitionist, author and orator. He 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. Early life Roper was born around 1815 in Caswell County, North Carolina. He was born to a Southern planter, Henry Roper, who was also his enslaver; his mother, Nancy, was of African American and indigenous descent who was enslaved by Henry Roper. When his wife discovered that Henry had raped Nancy, she attempted to murder Nancy but was prevented from doing so by Nancy's mother. When Moses was seven years old, he was separated from his mother and both were not reunited for several years. Roper was enslaved by several men in North Carolina and Florida, where after several attempts he successfully managed to escape enslavement. 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. In his slave narrative, he described his method of escaping recapture in Georgia: he encountered a group of farmers who wrote a free pass for him: I pretended to show her my passport, feeling for it everywhere about my coat and hat, and not finding it, I went back a little way, pretending to look for it, but came back, saying, I was very sorry, but I did not know where it was ... [the farmers offered to help and their] lad sat down and wrote what I told him, nearly filling a large sheet of paper for the passport, and another with recommendations. 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. Due to his father being a white man, Roper could pass for being white and for his safety was urged by associates to join the U.S. Army to escape unwanted attention. However, with the help of American abolitionists, Roper instead boarded a ship destined for Great Britain and settled in London. There, he published his slave narrative, Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American