Slave Narratives
The oral tradition that captives brought with them from Africa persisted in their communities in the American colonies. Stories and song generally revolved around African themes and subjects. However, the mid-to-late eighteenth century saw the birth of a new genre, the slave narrative.
Briton Hammon's 1760 autobiography was the first. With it, attention shifted to what would become, and remain, a central theme in African-American writing: the social condition of the African-American people.
The 20-year period between 1840 and 1860 saw the publication of the narratives of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave; Henry Bibb, An American Slave; Solomon Northtrup, Twelve Years a Slave; Austin Steward, Twenty-Two Years a Slave; and two individuals who would become household names, Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth.
On the March
Frederick Douglass's writings emphasized autonomy, self-sufficiency, and education, and his writings show a firm moral sense that is unafraid to challenge social conventions. He once wrote of his time as a slave, “I prayed for twenty years, but received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”
To learn more about Frederick Douglass, visit the website “American Visionaries: Frederick Douglass,” maintained by the Museum Management Program and the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site: www.cr.nps.gov/museum/exhibits
/douglass/.
Frederick Douglass's narrative appeared in 1845 with a preface by New England abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator. Garrison had noticed the escaped slave, who had managed to make his way to an anti-slavery meeting in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Garrison spotted the young man's verbal gifts early on and recruited him as a speaker for the cause.
Douglass went on to become a stirring orator, an important leader in the abolitionist movement, an adviser to presidents, and one of the great figures in American letters. After the Civil War, he focused his efforts on the struggle for equal opportunity and education for African-Americans.
Frederick Douglass was, for most of his public life, a prominent and outspoken supporter of women's rights. He attended the historic Women's Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848.
Immeasurable Distance
I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity and independence, bequeathed by your fathers, is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you, has brought stripes and death to me. This Fourth [of] July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? If so, there is a parallel to your conduct. And let me warn you that it is dangerous to copy the example of a nation whose crimes, lowering up to heaven, were thrown down by the breath of the Almighty, burying that nation in irrecoverable ruin!—Frederick Douglass's 1852 Independence Day address, “What to a Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
Sojourner Truth's Narrative appeared five years after Douglass's print debut. Her volume was “as told to” abolitionist Olive Gilbert. The detailed story told how Truth, born Isabella Baumfree, survived and escaped slavery to become a New England preacher, and, later, an abolitionist.
To learn more about slave narratives, visit “American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography” at www.slavenarratives.com—the excellent site sponsored by Greenwood Publishing Group.
Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to African-American History © 2003 by Melba J. Duncan. All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. Used by arrangement with Alpha Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
To order this book visit the Idiot's Guide web site or call 1-800-253-6476.
