Tom Platt

Tom Platt was a 19th-century African-American man who claimed to have been kidnapped from his free life and enslaved for over a decade. He gained prominence for publishing his autobiography, The Adventures of Tom Platt, Who Was Thirteen Years a Prisoner in Georgia, in 1839. The book details his account of being lured onto a ship in New York City, taken to Georgia, and forced into servitude on a plantation.

Platt's narrative is a significant example of the narratives produced by formerly enslaved or abducted African Americans during the antebellum period. While its veracity has been debated by historians, the book provides a valuable perspective on the experiences of those who claimed to have been illegally enslaved and highlights the anxieties surrounding the precariousness of freedom for Black people in the United States at that time. His story contributed to the broader abolitionist movement and fueled public discourse regarding the abuses of slavery and the vulnerability of free Black communities to kidnapping and enslavement. He remains a figure of interest in the study of American slavery and the history of African American experiences.