Bethany Veney

Bethany Veney (March 19, 1812 – November 16, 1915), was an American writer whose autobiography and slave narrative, Aunt Betty's Story: The Narrative of Bethany Veney, A Slave Woman, was published in 1889. Born into slavery on a farm near Luray, Virginia, as Bethany Johnson, she married twice. Her first husband was an enslaved man, Jerry Fickland, with whom she had a daughter, Charlotte. He was sold away from her and she later married Frank Veney, a free black man. She was sold on an auction block to her final enslaver, George J. Adams, who brought her to Providence, Rhode Island and freed her. After the American Civil War, Veney made four trips to Virginia to move her daughter and her family and 16 additional family members north to New England.

Early life

In 1812, Bethany Johnson was born into slavery on the Pass Run farm, near Luray, in what is now Page County, Virginia. Her parents, Charlotte and Joseph Johnson, had five children,

After the end of the Civil War, Veney collected family members that she missed dearly and brought them to live in New England. She started with her daughter, son-in-law Aaron Jackson, and grandchild, who lived adjacent to her, and then made three more trips to move 16 more relatives north.

Narrative of Bethany Veney, a Slave Woman In 1889, the Narrative of Bethany Veney, a Slave Woman was published. It was dictated to a white woman with the initials M. W. G. Jared Silverstein, author of The Faith of a Woman: a Slave Narrative of Love, Despair, and Atonement said, "Her short yet powerful narrative reveals how her unremitting faith in God empowered her to navigate the most trying of circumstances, from childhood as a slave to adulthood as a woman fighting for her freedom." Veney had a unique approach to writing her narrative. She shared her story of humanity, focusing on her heartache and the morals that she lived by rather than documenting how slavery was horrible. She died at her daughter's house in Worcester on November 16, 1915, and was buried at Hope Cemetery in the same city.

Legacy On July 12, 2003, the Governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney, signed a proclamation honoring Bethany Veney and her life by declaring the day "Bethany Veney Day in Worcester, Massachusetts".