Lives in Slavery

Slaves lived under a system of severe subjugation and routinely suffered brutal working conditions, violence, and the devastating separation of families (Documents 10.5, 10.6, 10.7, and 10.8). Yet many slaves found ways to resist their bondage and carve out autonomous spaces. They feigned illness, ran away or hid for a few days, and developed a distinctive African American culture (Document 10.9).

A rich body of slave narratives has helped historians understand slave life. During the nineteenth century a few escaped slaves published books about their lives. Often sponsored by white abolitionists, these books highlighted the humanity of blacks and the horrors of slavery. Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Solomon Northup, and Harriet Jacobs all published narratives that revealed hidden aspects of slaves’ experience (Documents 10.5, 10.6, and 10.7). In the twentieth century the Works Progress Administration, a federal program to provide work during the Great Depression of the 1930s, hired mostly white writers to conduct interviews with ex-slaves. Of course, those interviewed were old at the time but had been relatively young while enslaved. Still, the interviews with people such as Mary Reynolds (Document 10.9) offer valuable insight into the lives of slaves who had no way to record their stories during the slave era.

Whites also documented the lives of the enslaved in the nineteenth century. Both abolitionists and planters wrote extensively about slavery, though from opposing perspectives. Many Europeans were fascinated by American slavery, and some captured the institution in books and paintings (Document 10.8). These white-produced sources can be valuable when analyzed in the context of slaves’ stories about their own lives.