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I Was Born a Slave

Author: Yuval Taylor
Publisher: Chicago Review Press
ISBN: 1613742053
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 832

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Book Description
Between 1760 and 1902, more than 200 book-length autobiographies of ex-slaves were published; together they form the basis for all subsequent African American literature. I Was Born a Slave collects the 20 most significant &“slave narratives.&” They describe whippings, torture, starvation, resistance, and hairbreadth escapes; slave auctions, kidnappings, and murders; sexual abuse, religious confusion, the struggle of learning to read and write; and the triumphs and difficulties of life as free men and women. Many of the narratives—such as those of Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs—have achieved reputations as masterpieces; but some of the lesser-known narratives are equally brilliant. This unprecedented anthology presents them unabridged, providing each one with helpful introductions and annotations, to form the most comprehensive volume ever assembled on the lives and writings of the slaves. Volume One (1770-1849) includes the narratives of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, Olaudah Equiano (Gustavus Vassa), William Grimes, Nat Turner, Charles Ball, Moses Roper, Frederick Douglass, Lewis & Milton Clarke, William Wells Brown, and Josiah Henson.

Born in Bondage

Author: Marie Jenkins Schwartz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674043343
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Each time a child was born in bondage, the system of slavery began anew. Although raised by their parents or by surrogates in the slave community, children were ultimately subject to the rule of their owners. Following the life cycle of a child from birth through youth to young adulthood, Marie Jenkins Schwartz explores the daunting world of slave children, a world governed by the dual authority of parent and owner, each with conflicting agendas. Despite the constant threats of separation and the necessity of submission to the slaveowner, slave families managed to pass on essential lessons about enduring bondage with human dignity. Schwartz counters the commonly held vision of the paternalistic slaveholder who determines the life and welfare of his passive chattel, showing instead how slaves struggled to give their children a sense of self and belonging that denied the owner complete control. Born in Bondage gives us an unsurpassed look at what it meant to grow up as a slave in the antebellum South. Schwartz recreates the experiences of these bound but resilient young people as they learned to negotiate between acts of submission and selfhood, between the worlds of commodity and community.

Born a Child of Freedom, Yet a Slave

Author: Norrece T. Jones, Jr.
Publisher: Wesleyan
ISBN: 9780819562463
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 344

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Book Description
Born a Child of Freedom, Yet a Slave explores the diverse strategies employed by Southern slaveholders to keep their slaves under control—from threats of sale, shackles, screw box, or treadmill, to a peck of corn a week, a dram of whiskey, a pound of tobacco, the bribe of freedom, and the promise of heaven. It explores also the counterdefensive strategies employed by the slaves to resist control—among them, arson, theft, poison, subterfuge, murder, escape, and rebellion. Norrece Jones, himself a descendent of South Carolina slaves, has written a powerful book based on intensive research in the archives of antebellum South Carolina. He has studied slave testimony, legal records, folklore, spirituals, autobiographies of whites and blacks, newspaper accounts, church records, and many other sources. He challenges views of slavery as an interdependent paternalistic system; he sees it instead as a harsh and unceasing conflict, with most slaves refusing to accept their masters’ dictates and most slave owners struggling to keep slaves servile and devoted. Means of control were both subtle and brutal. For example, there were festive holidays and gifts of liquor but also sadistic punishment: recalcitrant slaves—men and women alike— were staked to the ground or trussed from rafters with “nigger cord” to be whipped; some were branded; others were hanged or torched. Many of the same masters who provided a sick room for slaves also maintained a private jail. But of all the means of control, the most sinister and the most effective was the threat of sale and separation from family. Troublemakers were routinely sold. The weak, the sick, the malingering, the disobedient, the impudent, the “incorrigible” were disposed of on the block. Slaves often aided and abetted runaways, although some, in hope of favor, were informants—every antebellum conspiracy in South Carolina was betrayed. Yet self-respect and pride survived nonetheless. “You no holy,” slaves told one mistress, “We holy.”

Memoir of Pierre Toussaint, Born a Slave in St. Domingo

Author: Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
Biography of Pierre Toussaint, born in 1766 on the island of St. Domingo, portrays his experiences in slavery as peaceful and happy. In addition to Toussaint's life in St. Domingo, the author also provides information about St. Domingo's economy, political climate, and a brief account of Toussaint L'Ouverture, a former slave who rose to prominence on the island. During a period of unrest, Toussaint, his sister, Rosalie and their master, John Bérard, moved to New York, where Toussaint was trained as a hairdresser, and soon developed a growing clientele. Following the death of his master, Toussaint cared for his mistress by paying her debts and buying her luxuries out of his savings and employment. Toussaint was freed from slavery upon the death of his mistress and he purchased the freedom of his sister and his future wife. Nevertheless, when asked about Emancipation he refused to participate or claim to be an Abolitionist saying that they had not seen blood shed as he had, and they did not know what they were doing. Much of the remainder of the narrative describes his most meaningful relationships, particularly with his wife, Juliette, and his niece, Euphemia, and details various charitable ventures he was involved in. Written in third person, a large part of the narrative is related through Toussaint's correspondence with various relatives and acquaintances. A short appendix relays his death announcements that appeared in New York newspapers.

Behind the Scenes, Or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House

Author: Elizabeth Keckley
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195052596
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 408

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Book Description
Part slave narrative, part memoir, and part sentimental fiction Behind the Scenes depicts Elizabeth Keckley's years as a salve and subsequent four years in Abraham Lincoln's White House during the Civil War. Through the eyes of this black woman, we see a wide range of historical figures and events of the antebellum South, the Washington of the Civil War years, and the final stages of the war.

Born a Slave

Author: Marian Hoefnagel
Publisher: 14 - The Time of Your Life
ISBN: 9781783226252
Category : Slavery
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Their grandmother is a slave, their mother is a slave. And the 14 year-old twins Kwasi and Maisa are also slaves. In this this book, three generations talk about experiencing slavery as a teenager. Their stories are of misery, sorrow, and pain--but also of courage, love, and family.

Birthing a Slave

Author: Marie Jenkins Schwartz
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674034929
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 414

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Book Description
The deprivations and cruelty of slavery have overshadowed our understanding of the institution's most human dimension: birth. We often don't realize that after the United States stopped importing slaves in 1808, births were more important than ever; slavery and the southern way of life could continue only through babies born in bondage. In the antebellum South, slaveholders' interest in slave women was matched by physicians struggling to assert their own professional authority over childbirth, and the two began to work together to increase the number of infants born in the slave quarter. In unprecedented ways, doctors tried to manage the health of enslaved women from puberty through the reproductive years, attempting to foster pregnancy, cure infertility, and resolve gynecological problems, including cancer. Black women, however, proved an unruly force, distrustful of both the slaveholders and their doctors. With their own healing traditions, emphasizing the power of roots and herbs and the critical roles of family and community, enslaved women struggled to take charge of their own health in a system that did not respect their social circumstances, customs, or values. Birthing a Slave depicts the competing approaches to reproductive health that evolved on plantations, as both black women and white men sought to enhance the health of enslaved mothers--in very different ways and for entirely different reasons. Birthing a Slave is the first book to focus exclusively on the health care of enslaved women, and it argues convincingly for the critical role of reproductive medicine in the slave system of antebellum America.

Slave Life in Georgia

Author: Brown
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 266

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Book Description

The Experience of Thomas H. Jones, who was a Slave for Forty-three Years

Author: Thomas H. Jones
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Enslaved persons
Languages : en
Pages : 52

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Book Description

The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina. [Edited by W. M. S.]

Author: John Andrew Jackson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 62

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Book Description
The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina by John Andrew Jackson, first published in 1862, is a rare manuscript, the original residing in one of the great libraries of the world. This book is a reproduction of that original, which has been scanned and cleaned by state-of-the-art publishing tools for better readability and enhanced appreciation. Restoration Editors' mission is to bring long out of print manuscripts back to life. Some smudges, annotations or unclear text may still exist, due to permanent damage to the original work. We believe the literary significance of the text justifies offering this reproduction, allowing a new generation to appreciate it.