Venture Smith

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Venture Smith (Birth name: Broteer Furro) (c. 1729 – 1805) was an African-American farmer and craftsman. Smith was kidnapped when he was six and a half years old in West Africa and was taken to Anomabo on the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana) to be sold into slavery.^[1] As an adult, he purchased his freedom and that of his family. He documented his life in A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself.^[1] This autobiography is one of the earliest known examples of an autobiographical narrative in an entirely African American literary vericas, only about a dozen left behind first-hand accounts of their experiences.^[2]

Smith was renamed "Venture" by Robinson Mumford, his first white enslaver. Mumford decided to call him "Venture" because he considered purchasing him to be a business venture. Mumford bought Venture with four gallons of rum and a piece of calico.^[3] After regaining his freedom, Smith adopted his last name from Oliver Smith (the last person to enslave him). In his narrative, Smith describes the people in his native country as generally of great bodily stature, stout, and tall. And he reports that he personally was well over 6 feet 1+1⁄2 inches (1.87 m) tall, weighed 230 pounds (100 kg), and carried a 9-pound (4.1 kg) axe for felling trees. This is confirmed by the archaeological project in 2007 and the runaway ad from 1754.^[1]

Venture Smith died in 1805. He is buried at the First Church of Christ cemetery in East Haddam, Connecticut, now a site on the Connecticut Freedom Trail.^[4]