Clotel; Or, The President's Daughter

by William Wells Brown

"Clotel; Or, The President's Daughter" by William Wells Brown is a novel published in 1853. This groundbreaking work tells the story of Clotel and her sister, fictional enslaved daughters of Thomas Jefferson. After Jefferson's death, the women and their mother are sold into slavery, facing separation, exploitation, and desperate choices. Through their intertwined fates, Brown explores slavery's devastating impact on African-American families and the precarious existence of mixed-race people in antebellum America. The novel follows their heroic but tragic struggles for freedom and dignity.