The narrative of African American slavery in the US historical paradigm is rightfully considered one of the most complex and emotionally challenging aspects. Indeed, over the past centuries, major attempts have been made to create an extensive and truthful chronology of the dark age of human exploitation, racism, and neglect of fundamental human rights. The issue with these attempts, however, concerns primarily the fact that the history of slavery was for a long time constructed and appraised from the perspective of white scholars, whose narratives lacked both emotiveness and objectivity. However powerful the stories might have been in terms of hands-on facts and statistics, they were never able to render the scopes of pain, humiliation, and resilience experienced by former slaves and African American community in general.
In order to bridge this gap and look into the issue of slavery from the perspective of the ones living through this experience, the idea of a slave narrative was introduced to African American studies. According to Goddu “the society recognized enslaved people as an important source of information,” as they were able to convey a strong message both with the means of a narrative and their physical appearance. Over the past years, much progress has been made in the journey of revealing the truth and power behind the African American slave stories. However, while people think that a slave narrative is prone to be an emotional story of torture and suffering, the slave narrative, in most cases, is a message of hope and relentlessness.
The first and arguably the most important goal of a slave narrative is to gather and share the firsthand experience of slavery. Thus, in the 1799 message from Ashy, a Barbados slave, a reader may find some shocking facts about the perception of an African American’s life. In her letter, Ashy writes, “and Massah if any of our Grandee people die, den all de head of his servants is cut off, and buryin de same place wid him.” The very idea of sacrificing innocent human lives as a duty to pay respects to one’s master can be considered an epitome of injustice and deliberate eradication of humankind. From such messages that reflect on one’s experiences, the scholars received the majority of information about slavery. Another example of such a valuable primary source is Austin Steward’s memoir about the two decades he spent in slavery. In his book, Steward dwelt not only on his experiences but on the overall description of slavery as a separate social phenomenon. For example, he recalls the patterns of the complicated relationship between field and domestic slaves, or the so-called “unpolished” and “aristocratic” slave groups, pointing out to the existing class hierarchy within the class that existed beyond the American social system. Eventually, this memoir has initiated some major insights into the research on the notion of class within the African American community during slavery. Thus, the overwhelming part of the existing historical facts are based on the real-life reflections and narratives of former slaves, presenting humanity with a better perspective on their life.
However, it seems like it was never the slaves’ intention to create their narratives for their descendants to learn. Primarily, sharing their stories was solely about finding comfort in pouring their despair and rays of hope on paper. In fact, according to Owens, the overall process of creating a slave narrative is a strong therapeutic tool that not only allows people to reflect on their experience while writing but to reach out to the like-minded slaves who familiarize themselves with each other’s experiences. Indeed, there exists research that demonstrates how uncovering prior trauma helps with healing and emotional and physical recovery. According to Mbungang, recalling one’s experiences through memory and sharing is a beneficial tool in terms of processing trauma and perceiving this experience from other perspectives except from anger and other types of strong emotional response. For this reason, there are many examples of slave narratives replete with nostalgia and not anger, as telling their story was about finding hope in their lives.
Undeniably, hope cannot be found through the story overwhelmed with despair, anger, and frustration. A prime example of such a hopeful and powerful message is Aaron’s story of slavery recollections. In his narrative, the author shares Aaron’s real-life stories of execution, torture, and a Stockholm syndrome slaves experience for their masters. However, after sharing the memories of cruelty and dehumanization, the author emphasizes the fact that the slaves never lose hope of feeling as much freedom as they can, even if this freedom is allowing oneself to sing and dance. For the ones confused by the merry behavior of deeply humiliated and dehumanized community, the author outlines that “mirth is often rather the effort of the mind to throw off trouble than the evidence of happiness”.
Another example of the manifestation of hope may be found in another slave narrative by John. In his concise memoir, John recalls always being hopeful about his freedom, as his parents used to encourage him by saying that slavery could not be infinite. John’s recollection of childhood and adolescence memories bears a strong sense of nostalgia, but there is no sign of anger or frustration in his writing tone. Eventually pondering his journey from slavery to freedom, John emphasizes the power of hope and resilience in the face of despair, as waiting for new joys to come encourages people to believe that slavery is the darkest time before the dawn. At the end of his memoir, the man states that he hopes this narrative to resonate with fellow former slaves and African Americans and encourage them to believe in themselves enough not the let the past define their future. It may be concluded based on these narratives that while presenting immense value to the historical studies, the meaning behind slave narratives goes far beyond a plain response to socio-economic conditions.
All the aforementioned narratives reflect the historical journey of slavery that poisoned American society from 1641 till the ratification of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution and beyond. Over these years, slaves lived through an innumerable amount of hardship and pain, with their color defining their past, their present, and the future of their descendants. Over the course of slavery history, slavery has become one of the most paradoxical aspects of American history for a number of reasons. First, while the American land has been long associated with the motherland of freedom and capitalism, Americans themselves managed to cause irreversible harm to millions of people by depriving them of fundamental human rights. Secondly, while driven by the intention to separate human feelings and slavery in order to perceive slaves as nothing but property, slave owners themselves could not ignore the fact they were dealing with human beings. This paradox is visible in various memories of former slaves whose masters grew empathy towards some of their “labor assets.”
The notion of the slave narrative is a significant yet intangible aspect of American history. The past, present, and future of African Americans affected by this page in their history will never be comprehended fully. Thus, sharing the sources of the firsthand slavery experience to the masses is the least historians, and fellow Americans can do to unravel the country’s past and secure its future.
Aaron. The Light and Truth of Slavery. Aaron’s HistoryThe Light and Truth of Slavery. Aaron’s History (North Carolina: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 2000.
Adams, John Quincy. Narrative of the Life of John Quincy Adams, When in Slavery, and Now as a Freeman: Electronic Edition. North Carolina: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999.
Andrews, Willian L. Slavery and Class in the American South: A Generation of Slave Narrative Testimony, 1840-1865. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Goddu, Theresa A. Selling Antislavery: Abolition and Mass Media in Antebellum America. Philadelphia, PA: The University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020.
Handler, Jerome S. “Life Histories of Enslaved Africans in Barbados,” Slavery & Abolition 19, no. 1 (1998): 129- 140.
Mbungang. Derick J. “The Therapeutic Power of Memory Recollection in Toni Morrison and Caryl Phyllips’ Neo-Slave Narratives.” Pilnus Journal of Culture, Literature, and ELT 6 (2021): 133-139.
Owens, William M. “Callirhoe: A Therapeutic Slave Narrative.” Slaves and Masters in the Ancient Novel 23 (2019): 37-53.
Parish, Peter J. Slavery: History and Historians. London, UK: Routledge, 2018.
Steward, Austin. Twenty-Two Years a Slave, and Forty Years a Freeman. Sydney, Australia: ReadHowYouWant, 2008.