Treatment by slaveholders varied. One former slave recounted that one night his mother was taken from her bed and sold without his knowledge.
On another occasion he was tied to a tree and brutally beaten until blood flowed down his back. A woman recalled being publicly flogged after she broke some of the master's dishes. Other plantations owners vehemently opposed physical abuse and refused to divide families through sale. Some owners allowed social outlets for their slaves, such as religious meetings, corn shuckings, and dances; others taught their slaves to read and write. Varied accounts of slave quarters also exist: some were comfortable, others Spartan.
A few freedpeople looked back on slavery with a sense of loss. One woman lamented the absence of slavery's cradle-to-grave care, while a man recalled his mother claiming that "her master was better than other folks. Slave narratives have contributed extensively to African American literary and cultural traditions.
Grade 5: Narratives of Enslaved North Carolinians. North Carolina Civic Education Consortium. Grade 8: Narratives of Enslaved North Carolinians. William L. Andrews, ed. Paul D. George P. Rawick, ed. Also The Covington Family as well as Wilfong. I am trying to find information about the plantation my ancestors were enslaved on.
Autobiography is self-indulgent by definition; as the reconstruction of a personal story it often masks as much as it reveals. The slave narratives were no exception to this trend. But this makes these tales no less authentic as literary works, or as sources for understanding history.
The slave narratives are both an original genre of American literature and a source for reconstructing historical experience. Ex-slaves were constantly under suspicion about the veracity of their stories and the authenticity of their writing. This necessity of endorsement and verification was more a measure of the prejudices of the white reading public than of the literary abilities of former slaves.
Whatever those prejudices, however, slave narratives garnered huge audiences in antebellum America, and most slave narrators wrote their own books. David W. Skip to main navigation Skip to main navigation Skip to search Skip to search Skip to content. Use current location. See all locations. Admin Admin Admin, collapsed. Main navigation Events.
Open search form. Enter search query Clear Text. Saved Searches Advanced Search. Branches Browse Browse, collapsed Browse. By Age Kids Teens Adults. Classic Catalog. Bruce employed a gentleman in New York to enter into negotiations with Mr. He proposed to pay three hundred dollars down, if Mr.
Dodge would sell me, and enter into obligations to relinquish all claim to me or my children forever after. He who called himself my master said he scorned so small an offer for such a valuable servant. The gentleman replied, "You can do as you choose, sir. If you reject this offer you will never get any thing; for the woman has friends who will convey her and her children out of the country.
Dodge concluded that "half a loaf was better than no bread," and he agreed to the proffered terms. By the next mail I received this brief letter from Mrs. Bruce: "I am rejoiced to tell you that the money for your freedom has been paid to Mr. Come home to-morrow. I long to see you and my sweet babe.
My brain reeled as I read these lines. So I was sold at last! A human being sold in the free city of New York! The bill of sale is on record, and future generations will learn from it that women were articles of traffic in New York, late in the nineteenth century of the Christian religion.
It may hereafter prove a useful document to antiquaries, who are seeking to measure the progress of civilization in the United States. I well know the value of that bit of paper; but much as I love freedom, I do not like to look upon it. I am deeply grateful to the generous friend who procured it, but I despise the miscreant who demanded payment for what never rightfully belonged to him or his.
I had objected to having my freedom bought, yet I must confess that when it was done I felt as if a heavy load had been lifted from my weary shoulders. When I rode home in the cars I was no longer afraid to unveil my face and look at people as they passed. I should have been glad to have met Daniel Dodge himself; to have had him seen me and known me, that he might have mourned over the untoward circumstances which compelled him to sell me for three hundred dollars.
When I reached home, the arms of my benefactress were thrown round me, and our tears mingled. You wrote to me as if you thought you were going to be transferred from one owner to another. But I did not buy you for your services. I should have done just the same, if you had been going to sail for California to-morrow. I should, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing that you left me a free woman.
My heart was exceedingly full. I remembered how my poor father had tried to buy me, when I was a small child, and how he had been disappointed. I hoped his spirit was rejoicing over me now. I remembered how my good old grandmother had laid up her earnings to purchase me in later years, and how often her plans had been frustrated. How that faithful, loving old heart would leap for joy, if she could look on me and my children now that we were free!
My relatives had been foiled in all their efforts, but God had raised me up a friend among strangers, who had bestowed on me the precious, long-desired boon. It is a common word, often lightly used. Like other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless handling; but when I speak of Mrs. Bruce as my friend, the word is sacred. My grandmother lived to rejoice in my freedom; but not long after, a letter came with a black seal. She had gone "where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.
Time passed on, and a paper came to me from the south, containing an obituary notice of my uncle Phillip. It was the only case I ever knew of such an honor conferred upon a colored person. It was written by one of his friends, and contained these words: "Now that death has laid him low, they call him a good man and a useful citizen; but what are eulogies to the black man, when the world has faded from his vision? Strange words to be uttered in that region!
Reader, my story ends with freedom; not in the usual way, with marriage. I and my children are now free! We are as free from the power of slaveholders as are the white people of the north; and though that, according to my ideas, is not saying a great deal, it is a vast improvement in my condition.
The dream of my life is not yet realized. I do not sit with my children in a home of my own. I still long for a hearthstone of my own, however humble. But God so orders circumstances as to keep me with my friend Mrs. Love, duty, gratitude, also bind me to her side. It is a privilege to serve her who pities my oppressed people, and who has bestowed the inestimable boon of freedom on me and my children. It has been painful to me, in many ways, to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage.
I would gladly forget them if I could. Yet the retrospection is not altogether without solace; for with those gloomy recollections come tender memories of my good old grandmother, like light, fleecy clouds floating over a dark and troubled sea. I was quite disappointed at the general appearance of things in New Bedford. The impression which I had received respecting the character and condition of the people of the north, I found to be singularly erroneous, I had very strangely supposed, while in slavery, that few of the comforts, and scarcely any of the luxuries, of life were enjoyed at the north, compared with what were enjoyed by the slaveholders of the south.
I probably came to this conclusion from the fact that northern people owned no slaves. I supposed that they were about upon a level with the non-slaveholding population of the south. I knew they were exceedingly poor, and I had been accustomed to regard their poverty as the necessary consequence of their being non-slaveholders.
I had somehow imbibed the opinion that, in the absence of slaves, there could be no wealth, and very little refinement. And upon coming to the north, I expected to meet with a rough, hard-handed, and uncultivated population, living in the most Spartan-like simplicity, knowing nothing of the ease, luxury, pomp, and grandeur of southern slaveholders. Such being my conjectures, any one acquainted with the appearance of New Bedford may very readily infer how palpably I must have seen my mistake.
In the afternoon of the day when I reached New Bedford, I visited the wharves, to take a view of the shipping. Here I found myself surrounded with the strongest proofs of wealth. Lying at the wharves, and riding in the stream, I saw many ships of the finest model, in the best order, and of the largest size.
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