A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis, a Colored Man

Noah Davis (March 1804-April 7, 1867) was born into slavery in Virginia. He purchased his own freedom for $500. Davis purchased freedom for his wife and their two youngest children in 1851, and several years later for another daughter and son who were in danger of being sold. When their other three enslaved children faced the auction block in 1858, Davis again toured the North to raise money and succeeded in freeing his daughter. Hoping to earn enough money to free his two sons and to provide funds for his struggling church, he published his memoirs, A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis, a Colored Man (1859). In the Narrative, Davis described his life in slavery, his religious conversion, his efforts to secure his family's freedom, and his work as a minister. Davis's health soon began to fail, possibly as a consequence of having worked tirelessly for almost fifteen years to raise more than $4,000 to rescue most of his family from slavery.