John Jea (b. 1773) and George White (1764-c.1830) were two of the earliest African-American autobiographers, writing nearly a half-century before Frederick Douglass published his famous narrative chronicling his experiences as a slave, a freedman, and an ardent abolitionist. Jea and White represent an earlier generation of African-Americans that were born into slavery but granted their freedom shortly after American independence, in the 1780s. Both men chose to fight against slavery from the pulpit, as itinerant Methodist ministers in the North. Methodism's staunch anti-slavery stance,...