Slave Narratives

History

Starting in the late in the eighteenth century, formerly enslaved African Americans who had been freed began publishing the accounts of their time in slavery, either by penning their own stories (if the author had gained literacy) or narrating their stories to literate recorders. The earliest slave narratives, as these documents were called, were printed as pamphlets of less than two dozen pages. The first slave narrative published in book-length form to receive wide distribution was The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, which was published in London in 1789. Olaudah Equiano’s narrative, which depicts his capture in Africa, his sale to American enslavers, his passage aboard a slave ship to America, his life as an enslaved person, and his eventual freedom, set the pattern for more than one hundred subsequent book-length narratives published before the end of the American Civil War (1861–5).

As the abolitionist movement gained strength during the first half of the nineteenth century, more formerly enslaved people began publishing their stories. One of the most popular and influential slave narratives published during this time period was Frederick Douglass’sNarrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, which appeared in 1845. Douglass’ narrative sold more than five thousand copies during its first four months of publication to a readership hungry to learn of the lives of enslaved African Americans. Douglass, who, after gaining his freedom, became an important abolitionist speaker, writer, and publisher, wrote two subsequent autobiographies, My Bondage and My Freedom (1855) and The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881). ’s Narrative of William W. Brown, a Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself (1848) also enjoyed solid sales and propelled its author to a leadership position in the abolitionist movement.

The first slave narrative published under a woman’s name was The History of Mary Prince (1831), which was recorded by a literate friend of Prince and edited for publication by a third party. The only slave narrative known to have actually been written by a woman is Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), which was authored by Harriet Jacobs under the pen name Linda Brent. Jacobs’ narrative provides insights into the lives of enslaved women, a perspective often lacking in slave narratives composed by men.

Slave narratives continued to be published after the end of the Civil War in 1865, though American slavery had been abolished by the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and all enslaved people were emancipated throughout the country. Among the most noteworthy of the post-Civil War slave autobiographies was Booker T. Washington’sUp from Slavery (1901), which chronicled its narrator’s rise from enslavement to a position of national prominence. During the 1930s, an ambitious project sponsored by the Federal Writers’ Project, a program that was part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, collected the oral narratives of hundreds of surviving former slaves. The results of this effort were thousands of pages of testimony collected in forty-one volumes. From the beginning of the eighteenth century through the end of World War II in 1945, more than six thousand formerly enslaved people told their tales of bondage through books, pamphlets, essays, and interviews.

Despite the significant legacy, influence, and historical value of slave narratives, the number of narratives that were actually published was quite small, especially when narratives collected by the Federal Writers' Project are excluded. According to Doc South, an online archive hosted by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, roughly 200 book-length slave narratives were published. Half of these were published by formerly enslaved people after the end of the Civil War.

In 2024 a formerly lost, but recently rediscovered, slave narrative, entitled The United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots and written in 1855, was published for the first time. The text's author, John Swanson Jacobs, was the brother of Harriet Jacobs, who also authored her own slave narrative. Historians noted that the text, which was written while Jacobs was living in Australia, was notable for its harsh criticism of the US government and legal system and the fact that it was written independently without input from the White abolitionist community.

Structure and Themes

The typical slave narrative begins with the words “I was born,” recording from the start the sketchy details of the author's parentage and early childhood years. Most slave narratives include realistic descriptions of plantation life in the southern United States, with vivid depictions of the hardships of bondage, such as whippings, the separation of families, and the sexual exploitation of enslaved women. Also included is a rendering of the enslaved person's gradual intellectual awakening and a subsequent quest for freedom. This quest for freedom is often triggered by the achievement of literacy, which was generally denied to enslaved people by law. Frederick Douglass and others assert that gaining literacy made them aware of the possibility of gaining freedom by escaping to the North.

Slave narratives often conclude with the author's escape from enslavement, which usually involved a dangerous trip under the cloak of secrecy to a northern state. Once in the North, the former slave often describes the attempt to cast off his or her old identity and to assume a new identity as a free man or woman. Douglass articulates this quest for a new identity when he explains to his readers, “You have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.” Frequently, this change of identity is accompanied by a name change, and sometimes this assumption of a new identity parallels a conversion to Christianity. Often slave narratives were published with accompanying documents, including testimonials or prefaces by noteworthy White abolitionists, who authenticate the author's experience, and appendices displaying documents such as bills of sale, newspaper articles, and antislavery speeches.

Legacy

African American literary historians such as and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., have identified the slave narrative as an original genre of American literature, particularly African American literature, whose form has greatly influenced African American autobiography and fiction. Twentieth century autobiographies by , , and others adapt the structure of the slave narrative to twentieth century African American life. Novels such as ’s Flight to Canada (1976), Toni Morrison’sBeloved (1987), and ’s Middle Passage (1990) re-create slaves’ narratives in fictional form.

Bibliography

Davis, Charles T., and Henry Louis Gates, Jr., eds. The Slave’s Narrative. New York: Oxford University Press, 1985.

Foster, Frances Smith. Witnessing Slavery: The Development of Ante-Bellum Slave Narratives. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1979.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. Introduction to The Classic Slave Narratives. New York: New American Library, 1987.

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. "How Many Slave Narratives Were There?" The Root, 24 Feb. 2014, www.theroot.com/how-many-slave-narratives-were-there-1790874721. Accessed 4 Jun. 2024.

Sekora, John, and Darwin T. Turner, eds. The Art of the Slave Narrative. Macomb: Western Illinois University Press, 1982.

Schuessler, Jennifer. "A Furious, Forgotten Slave Narrative Resurfaces After Nearly 170 Years." The New York Times, 23 May 2024, www.nytimes.com/2024/05/23/arts/john-jacobs-slavery-discovery.html. Accessed 4 Jun. 2024.

Starling, Marion Wilson. The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982.