Slavery was a reality in the American Colonies from early on, and even with the creation of the new nation, the system of slavery continued to play a large role in the make-up of the country and it’s economy and culture. The resources bellow are meant to help students and parents further understand the history and legacy of slavery in America. There are links to many sites and resources, and also there is a collection of Slave Narratives and Pro-Slavery testimonies that I selected to help students understand both sides of the slavery experience.
Resources:
WPA Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology
Uncle Tom’s Cabin – Related Primary Documents and others
Report on the African connection to the slave trade
This report of NPR talks about the connection between European slave traders and the African people who sold many of them to them. It has interesting ideas about how some African people also participated in the trade.
http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=1833314
Weblinks on Slavery and the history of a slave revolt in 1830 by Nat Turner and followers
A very interesting report on a little known slave revolt in the state of Virginia in 1830 and the leader of this revolt, Nat Turner, himself a slave. We do not often read about slaves trying to free themselves and not accepting their status, but this report and documents that accompany it are very enlightening on the subject. Also, there are great links to more topics that relate to slavery.
http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1667325
PBS Production on the History of Slavery: Africans in america Series
An excellent web collection of documents, histories, and narratives that illustrates the history os Slavery in America and the subsequent treatment (legal and social) of Africans in America into the 20th century.
Slave Narratives
Solomon Northrup
Solomon Northrup was a free black who was kidnapped in New York and sold into slavery for twelve years. He was finally returned to freedom through the efforts of New York’s governor. In the following selection he describes how cotton was raised on his Louisiana plantation.
The day’s work over in the field, the baskets are “toted,” or in other words, carried to the gin- house, where the cotton is weighed. No matter how fatigued and weary he may be- – no matter how much he longs for sleep and rest- – a slave never approaches the gin- house with his basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weight- – if he has not performed the full task appointed him, he knows that he must suffer. And if he has exceeded it by ten or twenty pounds, in all probability his master will measure the next day’s task accordingly. So, whether he has two little or too much, his approach to the gin- house is always with fear and trembling. Most frequently they have too little, and therefore it is they are are not anxious to leave the field. After weighing, follow the whippings; and then the baskets are carried to the cotton house, and their contents stored away like hay, all hands being sent in to tramp it down. If the cotton is not dry, instead of taking it to the gin- house at once, it is laid upon platforms, two feet high, and some three times as wide, covered with boards or plank, with narrow walks running between
them.
Source: (Mintz, Steven, ed. http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm. University of Houston. February 9, 2000.)
Josiah Henson
Josiah Henson spent thirty years on a plantation in Montgomery County, Maryland before he escaped slavery and became a Methodist preacher, abolitionist, lecturer, and founder of a cooperative colony of former slaves in Canada. His memoirs, published in 1849, provided Harriet Beecher Stowe with her model of Uncle Tom.
We lodged in log huts, and on the bare ground. Wooden floors were an unknown luxury. In a single room were huddled, like cattle, ten or a dozen persons, men, women, and children. All ideas of refinement and decency were, of course, out of the question. We had neither bedsteads, nor furniture of any description. Our beds were collections of straw and old rags, thrown down in the corners and boxed in with boards; a single blanket the only covering. Our favourite way of sleeping, however, was on a plank, our heads raised on an old jacket and our feet toasting before the smouldering fire. The wind whistled and the rain and snow blew in through the cracks, and the damp earth soaked in the moisture till the floor was miry as a pig- sty. Such were our houses. In these wretched hovels were we penned at night, and fed by day; here were the children born and the sick-neglected.
Source: (Mintz, Steven, ed. http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm. University of Houston. February 9, 2000.)
Francis Henderson
Francis Henderson was 19 when he managed to escape from a slave plantation outside of Washington, D.C., in 1841. Here, he describes conditions on his plantation.
Our allowance was given weekly- – a peck of sifted corn meal, a dozen and a half herrings, two and a half pounds of pork. Some of the boys would eat this up in three days- – then they had to steal, or they could not perform their daily tasks. They would visit the hog- pen, sheep- pen, and granaries. I do not remember one slave but who stole some things- – they were driven to it as a matter of necessity. I myself did this- – many a time have I, with others, run among the stumps in chase of a sheep, that we might have something to eat….In regard to cooking, sometimes many have to cook at one fire, and before all could get to the fire to bake hoe cakes, the overseer’s horn would sound: then they must go at any rate. Many a time I have gone along eating a piece of bread and meat, or herring broiled on the coals- – I never sat down at a table to eat except at harvest time, all the time I was a slave. In harvest time, the cooking is done at the great house, as the hands they have are wanted in the field. This was more like people, and we liked it, for we sat down then at meals. In the summer we had one pair of linen trousers given us- – nothing else; every fall, one pair of woolen pantaloons, one woolen jacket, and two cotton shirts.
Source: (Mintz, Steven, ed. http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm. University of Houston. February 9, 2000.)
Lunsford Lane
Lunsford Lane, who grew up on a plantation near Raleigh, North Carolina, manufactured pipes and tobacco and succeeded in saving enough money to buy his own freedom and purchase his wife and seven children. Here, he describes his experiences as a slave child.
When I began to work, I discovered the difference between myself and my master’s white children. They began to order me about, and were told to do so by my master and mistress. I found, too, that they had learned to read, while I was not permitted to have a book in my hand. To be in possession of anything written or printed, was regarded as an offence. And then there was the fear that I might be sold away from those who were dear to me, and conveyed to the far South. I had learned that being a slave I was subject to the worst (to us) of all calamities; and I knew of others in similar situations to myself, thus sold away. My friends were not numerous; but in proportion as they were few they were dear; and the thought that I might be separated from them forever, was like that of having the heart wrenched from its socket; while the idea of being conveyed to the far South,
seemed infinitely worse than the terrors of death.
Source: (Mintz, Steven, ed. http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm. University of Houston. February 9, 2000.)
Fredrick Douglass
Perhaps the nineteenth century’s staunchest advocate of equal rights, Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on Maryland’s eastern shore in 1818, the son of a slave woman and an unknown white man. While toiling as a ship’s caulker, he taught himself to read. After he escaped from slavery at the age of 1820, he became the abolitionist movement’s most effective orator and published an influential anti- slavery newspaper, The North Star. In this excerpt from one of his three autobiographies, he describes the circumstances that prompted slaveowners to whip slaves.
A mere look, word, or motion,- – a mistake, accident, or want of power,- – are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time. Does a slave look dissatisfied? It is said, he has the devil in him, and it must be whipped out. Does he speak loudly when spoken to by his master? Then he is getting high- minded, and should be taken down a button-hole lower. Does he forget to pull off his hat at the approach of a white person? Then he is wanting in reverence, and should be whipped for it. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when censured for it? Then he is guilty of impudence,- – one of the greatest crimes of which a slave can be guilty. Does he ever venture to suggest a different mode of doing things from that pointed out by his master? He is indeed presumptuous, and getting above himself….
Source: (Mintz, Steven, ed. http://vi.uh.edu/pages/mintz/primary.htm. University of Houston. February 9, 2000.)
Pro-Slavery Testimony
George Fitzhugh
But the chief and far most important enquiry is, how does slavery affect the condition of the slave? We provide for each slave, in old age and in infancy, in sickness and in health, not according to his labor, but according to his wants. The master’s wants are more costly and refined, and he therefore gets a larger share of of the profits. A southern farm is the beau ideal of Communism; it is a joint concern, in which the slave consumes more than the master, of the coarse products, and is far happier, because although the concern may fail, he is always sure of a support; he is only transferred to another master to participate in the profits of another concern; he marries when he pleases, because he knows he will have to work no more with a family than without one, and whether he live or die, that family will be taken care of; he exhibits all the pride of ownership, despises a partner in a smaller concern, “a poor man’s negro,” boasts of “our crops, horses, fields and cattle;” and is as happy a human being can-be. And why should he not? He enjoys as much of the fruits of the farm as he is capable of doing, and the wealthiest can do no more.
(Source:McKitrick, Eric L., ed. Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.)
George Fitzhugh (#2)
His [the slaveholder] whole life is spent in providing for the minutest wants of others, in taking care of them in sickness and in health. Hence he is the least selfish of men. Is not the old bachelor who retires to seclusion, always selfish? Is not the head of a large family almost always kind and benevolent? And is not the slaveholder the head of the largest family? Nature compels master and slaves to be friends; nature makes employers and free laborers enemies. Every social structure must have its substratum. In free society this substratum, the weak, poor and ignorant, is borne down upon and oppressed with continually increasing weight by all above. The slaves are the substratum, and the master’s feelings and interests alike prevent him from bearing-down upon and oppressing them.
(Source:McKitrick, Eric L., ed. Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.)
Thornton Stringfellow
I Propose…..to examine the sacred volume briefly, and if I am not greatly mistaken, I shall be able to make it appear that the institution-of slavery has received in the first place,
1st. The sanction of the Almighty in the Patriarchal age.
2d. That it was incorporated into the only National Constitution which ever emanated from God.
3d. That its legality was recognized, and its relative duties regulated, by Jesus Christ in his kingdom…..
The first recorded language which was ever uttered in relation to slavery, is the inspired language of Noah. In God’s stead he says, “Cursed be Canaan;” a servant of servants shall he be to his brethren.” Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servants.”
(Source:McKitrick, Eric L., ed. Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.)
David Christy
KING COTTON cares not whether he employs slaves or freemen. It is the cotton, not the slaves, upon which his throne is based. Let freemen do his work as well, and he will not object to the change. Thus far the experiments in this respect have failed, and they will not soon be renewed. The efforts of this most powerful ally, Great Britain, to promote that object, have already cost her people many hundreds of millions of dollars: with total failure as a reward for her zeal. One-sixth of the colored people of the United States are free; but they shun the cotton regions, and have been instructed to detest emigration to Liberia. Their improvement has not been such as was anticipated; and their more rapid advancement cannot be expected, while they remain in the country.
(Source:McKitrick, Eric L., ed. Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.)
Samuel Cartwright
Negro children and white children are alike at birth in one remarkable particular — they are both born white, and so much alike, as far as color is concerned, as scarcely to be distinguished from each other. In a very short time, however, the skin of the negro infant begins to darken and continues to grow darker until it becomes of a shining black color, provided the child be healthy. The skin will become black whether exposed to the air and light or not. The blackness is not of as deep a shade during the first years of life, as afterward. The black color is not so deep in the female as in the male, nor in the feeble, sickly negro as in the robust and healthy.
The typical negroes themselves are more or less superior or inferior to one another precisely as they approximate to or recede from the typical standard in color and form, due allowance being made for age and sex. The standard is an oily, shining black…the negro approximates the monkey anatomically more than he does the true Caucasian….
(Source:McKitrick, Eric L., ed. Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.)
Link of a letter sent to a past master by a past slave in 1865
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/01/to-my-old-master.html