Add to this the fact that John P. Parker was an African-American of mixed parents (free white father, slave mother) and was not born but sold into slavery, and you have a unique, if sad, American story.
John P. Parker was born in 1827 in Norfolk, Virginia, to an apparently wealthy white father and a slave mother. At eight years old he was sold, chained to other slaves, and made to walk ragged and barefoot from his original home in Virginia to Mobile, Alabama. The injustice of this action made him bitter and he vowed to fight this wicked institution. It is likely his own father sold him, adding to the heartbreak.
Fate stepped in and much like the patriarch Joseph in Egypt, John Parker was purchased by a Mobile doctor. Parker was used as a household slave and was taught by the doctor, or the doctor's sons, to read. This was a bold move, since teaching "coloreds" was illegal in those days! In 1843 Parker assisted one of the physician's sons to college in the North. John was 16 at the time. However, fear of John's escape prompted Parker's return to Mobile.
Not that Parker didn't try to escape. Parker made multiple daring attempts at escape, but was always returned to Mobile. His last 'owner' allowed him to purchase his freedom in 1845 by earning extra money at a foundry.
In Mobile Parker was apprenticed to a series of craftsmen in the foundry and iron manufactures and learned the trade of a plasterer. He once again attempted to escape to New Orleans when one of the plasterers he was apprenticed to beat him. Parker was discovered as a riverboat stowaway and returned to the physician. Back in Mobile again, Parker was apprenticed to a molder at a local iron foundry. Parker had a talent for this work and became a competent molder. But his skill as a mold-maker caused ill will with his fellow workers. Parker then was transferred to a New Orleans foundry and his productive zeal again alienated his co-workers. Parker was dismissed from the New Orleans foundry. Parker feared that he would become a field hand, so he worked for two years at a foundry and the New Orleans docks as a stevedore and purchased his freedom from his earnings.
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