Louis Hughes was the first published Black author in Milwaukee. His memoir, Thirty Years a Slave: From Bondage to Freedom, was published in 1897 by Milwaukee’s South Side Publishing Co, thirty-three years after gaining his freedom at the end of the Civil War. Chronicling his traumatic upbringing and his pursuit of freedom is now “...considered an essential text for understanding the experience of slavery in western Tennessee.”

Hughes was first sold with his mother and two brothers at the age of six, and was separated from his family a few times until he was sold to a wealthy plantation owner Edward McGee in 1844 at the age of eleven. It was while living on this plantation in Tennessee that he married a free woman who was illegally enslaved, Matilda Tixley. It was here, too, that Hughes would learn about medicine from his enslaver. He would utilize his knowledge in medicine to treat enslaved people within the plantation. Despite having made five attempts to escape enslavement with his wife and friends, he never succeeded in reaching full freedom until after Emancipation in 1863. He then joined the Union Army nursing staff. After the war, Hughes would go on to travel the United States and Canada seeking various jobs until he finally settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Working alongside his wife at the Plankinton House as the coat room and bell stand attendant, Hughes produced his own laundry service in connection to the hotel that would be his main job until he revisited his passion as a nurse. He was able to achieve this through the gracious recommendations by prominent practitioners he knew. As a nurse, Hughes was able to travel across the country and make a living doing something that he loved.

For the rest of his life, Hughes would share the stories of his years in enslavement. Telling his story aloud prompted listeners to encourage him to write and publish his story. Because he decided to learn to read and write in secret while enslaved and to later record his own story and share with others, we now have this incredible first hand account of the brutality of slavery and the resilience of the human spirit for posterity.

You can access more of his story here for free: 

https://docsouth.unc.edu/fpn/hughes/hughes.html

https://archive.org/details/thirtyyearsslavehugh/mode/2up

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This entry is part of an ongoing collaboration between America's Black Holocaust Museum and Forest Home Cemetery & Arboretum. This entry was written by Logan Glembin.

Tanzilo, Bobby. “Louis Hughes,” Louis Hughes. June 19, 2020. On Milwaukee. December 13, 2024. https://onmilwaukee.com/articles/louis-hughes

Hughes, Louis. Thirty Years a Slave (South Side Printing Company, 1897), Accessed through Library of Congress. Accessed December 13, 2024. https://www.loc.gov/item/11021103/.

Milwaukee Independent Journal Staff. “Thirty Years a Slave: Remembering Milwaukee’s first published Black author Louis Hughes.” Milwaukee Independent Journal, Feb 28, 2022. https://www.milwaukeeindependent.com/articles/thirty-years-slave-remembering-milwaukees-first-published-black-author-louis-hughes/#:~:text=Louis%20Hughes%20was%20born%20190,American%20author%20published%20in%20Milwaukee.

"Books and Authors." Milwaukee Journal, 22 Feb. 1897, p. 6. Nineteenth Century U.S. Newspapers, Accessed 5 Apr. 2024. link.gale.com/apps/doc/GT3003243613/NCNP?u=milw97470&sid=bookmark-NCNP&xid=467a9e9a.