John Jea (original) (raw)

John Jea (1773 – after 1817) was an African-American writer, preacher, abolitionist and sailor, best known for his 1811 autobiography The Life, History, and Unparalleled Sufferings of John Jea, the African Preacher. Jea was enslaved from a young age, and after gaining his freedom in the 1790s, he traveled and preached widely.