The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots was written by John Swanson Jacobs, born in Edenton, North Carolina sometime between 1815 and 1817. In 1838 he escaped slavery from his fifth master, Congressman Samuel Sawyer, during a sojourn to New York. Thereafter, Jacobs led an eventful life as a sailor, miner, public lecturer, restaurateur, prominent abolitionist, and bookseller. While in Australia on a mining enterprise, he wrote his narrative that was published in the Empire, a Sydney newspaper.  

The rediscovery and republication of Six Hundred Thousand Despots by Jonathan Schroeder, a lecturer in literature at the Rhode Island School of Design, is a signal scholarly achievement. Given that millions toiled in American slavery until its final, constitutional abolition in 1865, the list of 100 or so surviving works by freed or escaped slaves is regrettably short. Thus, the addition of this work, running 74 pages and containing much material worth pondering, is a rare and exciting event. Adding to the importance of this text’s discovery is that its author lectured with Frederick