Early Years
Cook was born into slavery in King William County. The names of his parents and the name of the family who owned him are not known, nor is it clear when or under what circumstances he acquired or took his surname. He was described several times as being of mixed-race ancestry. On January 23, 1847, Fields, as he then identified himself, began writing a narrative of his life, one of the longest manuscripts known to have been composed by an enslaved Virginian. The first thirty-two pages of the memoir survive and in 1902 were deposited in the Library of Congress. He recorded that he spent his youth in the Virginia countryside, where his relationship with his master’s family was close and complex. His dearest boyhood companion, the son of his master, delivered the most cutting blow of his young life when he abruptly began treating Fields as a slave. Years later the two reconciled and the white boy gave him two priceless gifts, an introduction to Christianity and literacy. F
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