Jul 08, 2018
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Chapter 1
Main Idea: Slave narratives
varied before and after the Civil
War. Read through the chapter to
analyze the differences.
SLAVERY DURING
ANTEBELLUM AND POSTBELLUM ERA
Significance: Written accounts of
first-hand experience as slaves
changed the way Americans
viewed it as an institution and
catalyzed the abolitionist
movement.
Key terms: Frederick Douglass,
Harriet Jacobs, slave narratives,
antebellum, post-bellum, Civil
War
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Slave and ex-slave narratives are what helped define
African-American history and literature. These primary sources
were critical in understanding the invaluable first-hand experi-
ence of slavery during the last two centuries. They were sold in
exponential amounts, many of which became best-sellers. But
more importantly, they opened to the academia of U.S. history,
the complexities of the dialogue between whites and blacks. Nar-
ratives by fugitive slaves recorded the disparities between Amer-
ica’s ideal of freedom and the reality of racism in the so-called
“free-states” (“The North American Slave Narratives”). After
the Civil War, documentation of slave experiences continued as
a reminder of the lingering threat that had difficulty dying off
in American society.
Slave narratives, during the antebellum period, have been
examined by scholars and literary analysts in order to determine
common themes and characteristics. Most narratives portrayed
a purpose of opening dialogue between blacks and whites about
slavery and freedom, topics that were feared to discuss in person
between the two races. These written works served as an indirect
medium to avoid confrontation and risk of any form of rebel-
FOCUS QUESTIONS
! What were some of the differences in treatment of slaves before and after the Civil War?
! How did the narrative styles in these accounts compare?
! What were the reasons that contributed to the differences in slave narratives during the antebellum
and post-bellum period?
2
Introduction
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lion by slaves because they simply informed readers on the
slave experience in a literary manner. This was an important
spark that helped ignite the abolitionist movement because it
increased awareness of racism to many Americans and chal-
lenged their conservative
views. Most of these narra-
tives were written in a linear
structure, by creating the
story of an individual’s jour-
ney from enslavement to free-
dom. The individual estab-
lishes his or her identity and
then describes life as a slave
filled with emotional lan-
guage detailing the horrors
of family separation, the sex-
ual abuse of black women,
the inhuman workload, the
brutality of flogging, and the
severe living conditions of
slave life (“Publishers’ Bind-
ings Online: Slave Narra-
tives”).
After the Civil War, the enthusiasm for the slave narra-
tive waned. The antebellum narrative served as a disclosure
on the horrors of the “peculiar institution,” but after the
Civil War settled the issue of slavery, the sympathy and enthu-
siasm elicited by former writers such as Frederick Douglass
and Harriet Jacobs seemed to decline. However, former
slaves continued to record their experiences to prevent the dis-
sipation of painful memories from the American public. In
addition, narratives produced post-bellum were meager in
number compared to the plethora of antebellum narratives.
Themes differed between the two as well. The narratives now
were more exclusive to nostalgic feelings and use of vivid im-
agery deteriorated as stories told simply became reaffirma-
tions of past life. There was an attempt to use such nostalgic
memories as a form of validation in conquering the hard-
ships endured by many African Americans. Ultimately, post-
bellum slave narratives became an argument on the readiness
of the freedman and freedwoman for full participation in the
post-Civil War social and economic order (“North American
Slave Narratives”).
3
The original book cover of “Narrative of the
Life of Frederick Douglass”. (Douglsass,
1999)
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During the first half of the nineteenth century, Freder-
ick Douglass was one of the most influential slave narrative
authors in the crusade for abolition. As a former slave, he de-
tails the origins of his life and describes events that recounts
the horrors of slavery in many of his written memoirs and
narratives
Douglass was born into a life of slavery in Talbot
county, Maryland. He was the son of a slave mother and a
white man, whom might have been his first owner. Through-
out his youth, he labored on farms. Some of his tasks in-
volved “driving up the cows at evening, keeping the fowls out
of the garden, keeping the front yard clean, and running er-
rands for his old master’s daughter” ( Douglass, 26 ). As Doug-
lass grew older, his daily tasks expanded to a variety of jobs
including labor on a plantation field, work as a house servant,
and a skilled craftsman in a Baltimore shipyard. And in his
spare time, Douglass learned how to read and write with the
help of his owner’s wife and local white children ( Foner, 395 ).
He took an opportunity to escape north around the age of
twenty and settled in New Bedford, Massachusetts where he
took advantage of his liter-
acy to become one of the
greatest advocates of racial
equality. Douglass, an active
member in reform move-
ments, published “Narrative of the Life of Frederick
Douglass” that describes a
vivid imagery of slavery and
the condemnation of ra-
cism.
In “Narrative of the Life
of Frederick Douglass”, this
slave narrative focuses on
the conflict between African
Americans and the oppres-
4
Frederick Douglass: Antebellum slave narrative
A mistress is reading to slave children
around the mid-nineteenth century.
(Adams, 2004).
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sive social order in the South during the antebellum era.
Many aspects of daily life, treatment, and insights of slaves before the Civil War can be found in this work. Douglass
notes the coerced separation between slave mothers and their
children that was a common custom in Maryland. “Before
the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken
from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance
off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman,
too old for field labor”, says Douglass (2). The reasons for
separation is not concrete but he claims that it is most likely
to hinder the development of the child’s affection towards its
mother. Douglass adds that he only saw her mother no more
than four or five times and each visit was very short . This is
only the beginning regarding the type of treatment received
by slaves at the time. Douglass goes on to describe some of
the violence and physical hardships encountered by typical
slaves from cruel masters and overseers. Many were whipped
for mere pleasure and Douglass accounts one permanently
engraved memory on the torture received by his aunt. “I
have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most
heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he sued
to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was
literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers,
from his gory victim seemed to move his torn heart from its
bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he
whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped
longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip
her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue,
would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.” (Doug-
lass, 6). Not only his aunt but also many others were perse-
cuted with this level of physical abuse under a vast majority of Southern masters and overseers.
Douglass writes about the living conditions of many
slaves as well. He informs his audience that their was a
monthly allowance of food and yearly clothing distributed to
slaves but it was incredibly inadequate to live on. A typical al-
lowance of monthly food included “eight pounds of pork, or
5
A sketch of Frederick Douglass from “Narrative of
the Life of F