Boston king biography

KING, BOSTON, Methodist preacher and author; b. c. 1760 near Charleston, S.C.; d. 1802 in Sierra Leone.

Boston King was born a slave on Richard Waring’s plantation near Charleston.

His father, who had been “stolen away from Africa when he was young,” was on good terms with Waring, and his mother also was well treated because of her skills as a nurse and seamstress. King was trained as a house servant but at the age of 16, still under Waring’s control, he was sent to a nearby town to be apprenticed as a carpenter.

The time he spent learning his new trade was far from pleasant, for his employer often beat him “without mercy.” Fortunately, when the American revolution broke out Waring adhered to the rebels, which meant that if King could flee to the British he would gain freedom.

His opportunity came when the British took Charleston in May 1780. Joining a mass movement of runaway slaves to the royal standard, King now “began to feel the happiness of libe