Books about slavery?

[AlexBell]

There are three of the autobiographies of Frederick Douglass in ePub format on the MobileRead library, and another called 'Run a Thousand Miles for Freedom' by William and Ellen Craft - all first hand accounts of slaves who gained their freedom.

Regards,

[KenJackson]

Originally Posted by MV64

There was an excellent project done in the early 1930s in which government employees went around interviewing the living ex-slaves and writing down their narratives, as well. I think it was simply called "Slave Narratives."

Living ex-slaves in the 1930's? From 1865 to 1930 is 65 years. Slaves who were only 10 years old when they were freed would be 75 years old at the start of the 1930s. I wonder how good their memories were.

[WillAdams]

Surprisingly good. Remember, tension and stress and repetition tend to engrave things into one's memory and for a slave, that's what life was full of.

William
(who was taught how to skin a squirrel, plow and plant a field by a sharecropper (working on the same farm as my grandfather --- my great-grandfather's) who was the grandson of a freed slave and had many stories of his grandfather to share, as well as stories of my antecedents on my father's mother's side (who were one of the few large land-holders in the county who didn't own slaves))

[KenJackson]

Surprisingly good? A ten-year-old hadn't endured much before freedom and a 20-year-old would be at least 85.
These were probably lives lived without much, if any, medical care.

But obviously they found some.

[DreamWriter]

Originally Posted by queentess

First one that comes to mind:
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Ann Jacobs

+1

I'm reading this book right now. First published in 1861, this is a well-written, first-person narrative which details one woman's experience of slavery.

[ATDrake]

If you're okay with fiction, in Barbara Hambly's Benjamin January series of historical detective novels, the eponymous character is an ex-slave freed in childhood and trained as a surgeon and musician, who regularly goes "undercover" on plantations and such to solve cases in antebellum New Orleans.

It's a very good series which has garnered a fair amount of praise, not to mention being one of my personal favourites, and there's plenty of character perspectives on slavery, freedom, and the shifting ground between both as it relates to societal conventions and constraints of the time, as well as on universal principles.

Also, if you'd prefer to read stuff in e-book format (only the 4th to 8th available, but Die Upon a Kiss is a pretty decent place to start and each book is standalone as far as the main story goes, though they pick up on personal developments in previous books), these are published by Random House, so there's no Agency pricing involved and you'll be able to use discount coupons if your usual store offers them.

[WillAdams]

Ken Jackson, I meant that the accuracy of their memories was surprisingly good (in direct response to your asking ``I wonder how good their memories were.'' which I assumed was regarding compleatness and correctness of what was recalled) --- while some of the stories had a folksy charm, many others bordered on the horrific (and I'm certain there were many others which I was not told which were horrible).

William