Annie L. Burton

Annie L. Burton was born into slavery on a plantation in Clayton, AL, on April 20, 1858. Her life’s story is captured in her autobiography “Memories of Childhood’s Slavery Days” written in 1909. In the book she details her life at the end of slavery. During this time African Americans had to not only start a new life, but it was also a time for them to redefine their lives. In the memoir she describes not only one her journey from slavery to freedom but also her journey from a controlled role to the creation of her own free identity. She grew up during the Civil War and remembers her early days on the plantation. 

After all that were enslaved were emancipated, Annie’s mother returned from another plantation in Alabama to retrieve her children. Annie got a job as a nanny who taught her how to read and write. After her mother died, Annie took responsibility for her three younger siblings and moved to Boston in 1879. 

She later moved to Georgia and then Jacksonville, Florida, where she became a famous restaurateur before returning to Boston. She began taking evening classes at the Franklin Evening School, where the headmaster suggested that each student write their life story. It was this suggestion that motivated her to write her autobiography.

Annie’s “Memories of Childhood’s Slavery Days” (1909) is divided into four parts. In the first section, entitled “Recollections of a Happy Life,” Annie details her childhood on the plantation in Alabama and her marriage to Samuel H. Burton. In the second section, “Reminiscences,” she reflects on freedom and the way it changed her life. The third section, “Vision” describes her religious conversion. Fourth, she includes an essay she wrote at the Franklin School on Abraham Lincoln, some shorter compositions she wrote, an essay on the “race question,” several poems, and several hymns.