When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection

Norman R. Yetman

Mar 2012 · Courier Corporation

About this ebook

In an effort to provide unemployed writers with work during the Great Depression of the 1930s, the United States Government, through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), funded the Federal Writers' Project. One of the group's most noteworthy and enduring achievements was the Slave Narrative Collection, consisting of more than 2,000 transcripts of interviews with former slaves, who, in blunt, simple words, provided often-startling first-person accounts of their lives in bondage. This book reprints some of the most detailed and engrossing life histories in the collection. Each narrative is complete.
Thirty-four gripping testimonies are included, with all slave occupations represented — from field hand and cook to French tutor and seamstress. Personal treatment reported by these individuals also encompassed a wide range — from the most harsh and exploitative to living and working conditions that were intimate and benevolent.
An illuminating and unique source of information about life in the South before, during, and after the Civil War, these memoirs, most importantly, preserve the opinions and perspective of those who were enslaved. Invaluable to students, teachers, and specialists in Southern history, this compelling book will intrigue anyone interested in the African-American experience.

Ratings and reviews

I was google searching literature (books) about the Arab Slave trade and came across this. I couldn’t stop reading it. I could feel and see it as If I was there, and the energy level was sooo amplified! I really appreciate the sacrifices of theses ancestors, and the countless others who’s voices are heard through the participants in this book. After reading, it helped to to tap in and really appreciate the life and freedom that I am living as an African American woman; free from the worries that my ancestors had. What I don’t understand is how some people from the African Diaspora, and some Europeans can TRY to undermine the trauma within the descendants of the Enslaved. Or, the worst of them all, how some from the Diaspora try to deny their blackness and enslavement during the Black Holocaust. This was the NEGROE AMERICAN (which means “Black” in Spanish) experience of slavery, so it’s obvious that this was how it was globally as well, with some “slaves” having better experiences than others, as vice versa. Great read. Will he utilizing this in my curriculum. Ashe’ Shakimono She who dances with the spirit of our ancestors

Amazing first hand account about life as a Slave. I learned more then ever from this book alone. Recommend to anyone interested about the people who survived slavery.

Read this, even if just the sample. One of the people was over 120 years old, this is history in its rawest form.Not from the perspective of historians but of the people.