Fort Mose in Spanish Florida, however, offered refuge to runaway slaves beginning as early as 1687. In the southern colonies, enslaved men and women cultivated sugar, tobacco, and rice in horrific conditions-and white masters regularly raped slave women. Most slaves were shipped to the Caribbean or South America, not the North American colonies-but Charles Town, where Amari is auctioned, was the biggest hub in North America. Once at sea, bound for the colonies, the mortality rate for slaves was high-some estimates put it above 15 percent due to a combination of disease, unsanitary conditions, suicide, or brutality on the part of sailors. Draper has said that she was inspired to write Copper Sun after a visit to one of the slave factories (the buildings where slaves were held on the coast) in West Africa and after crawling through one of the passages of no return, as Amari does in the novel. By the 1730s, when Copper Sun takes place, the English, French, and Dutch had joined the Portuguese as the primary traders of enslaved people.

The Atlantic slave trade began in earnest in the early 16th century as European powers, specifically Portugal and Spain, colonized the coasts of West Africa and shipped abducted Africans to South American colonies. Many of Draper’s books focus on the experience of Black Americans or of racial tensions in the U.S. Several of her books have won local and regional awards as well. She’s won five Coretta Scott King Book Awards (one of which was for Copper Sun) and has had several of her novels listed as ALA Best Books. Over the course of her career, she’s won awards both for her teaching and for her writing. A decade later, Draper retired from teaching to focus on writing instead. The resulting short story, “One Small Torch,” won a writing contest sponsored by Ebony magazine.

In 1990, one of her students challenged her to write something of her own.

Following the completion of her education, she began teaching high school in Cincinnati.

She earned a bachelor’s in English from Pepperdine University and went on to pursue a master’s in English from Miami University of Ohio. She was an avid reader as a child, devouring almost every book in her library’s children’s section by age 11. Draper, the oldest of three children, was born in Cleveland, Ohio.

Copper sun sharon draper