Austin Steward was born in William County, Virginia, in 1793. Steward belonged to a family of four under the ownership of a slave master named Capt. William Helm. Steward did not begin plantation work until he was the age of seven years old. Living his early life as a legal piece of property did not stop the young Steward from teaching himself how to read, at which he became rather excellent. Reading may have played a role in Steward's escape from bondage in 1814 at 24, where he fled and became acquainted with Dennis Comstock, president of the Manumission Society. Steward continued to advance his education at this time. His work with and knowledge acquired under Comstock's watch led Steward to the Wilberforce Colony in 1831. He devoted himself to aiding fugitive runaway slaves fleeing to this colony in southern Ontario in the pursuit of liberty, similar to Steward's story. This colony gave so much of his soul to ultimately failed due to embezzlement by the colony's fundraisers. Though Steward tried valiantly to stop this corruption, in the end, it resulted in several assassination attempts and ultimately going back to Rochester, N.Y., a much poorer man. After this chapter, Steward essentially creates a slave narrative in his book Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman (1857), which was popular amongst those who sympathized with the abolition movement the North. Steward lived his life with a robust evangelical approach and possessed a linear view of life, which naturally accompanies the Christian religion practices. Steward taught at the sabbath school in Canandaigua. His long and prosperous life after escaping bondage was epic. Still, it conclusively came to an end on February 15, 1869, when he died of typhoid fever and is laid to rest in Canandaigua, N.Y.