Frederick Doglas

&

The Slave Narratives

Slave Narratives as Protest Writing

1.The Abolitionist Movement

2. Slave Narratives as Autobiography

3. Function of Narratives

4. Characteristics of Narratives

5. Gender and Slave Narratives

Abolitionist MovementsBritish Caribbean 1770s-1830s British anti-slavery

activists lobbying British Parliament

Paternalistic Christianity

United States 1830s-1870 Evangelical religious

movements of the 1830s

Active participation of northern blacks and ex-slaves

Sojourner Truth (1851). . . I think that 'twixt the negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here talking about?

That man over there says that women need to be helped into carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man – whenI could get it and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't I a woman?

Minstrel Shows

Olaudah Equiano“By the horrors of that trade was I first torn away from all the tender connections that were naturally dear to my heart; but these, through the mysterious ways of Providence, I ought to regard as infinitely more than compensated by the introduction I have thence obtained in the knowledge of the Christian religion,and of a nation which, by its liberal sentiments, its humanity, its glorious freedom of its government, and its proficiency in arts and sciences, has exalted the dignity of human nature” (Classic Slave Narratives 17).

5 Functions of Slave Narratives

1. To document the conditions of or ”truth”

about slavery;

2. To encourage the abolition of slavery;

3. To provide religious inspiration;

4. To assert the narrator’s personhood; and

5. To challenge stereotypes about blacks.

Henry Louis Gates, Jr.. . . The black slave’s narrative came to be a

communal utterance, a collective tale, rather than merely an individual’s autobiography. Each slave author, in writing about his or her personal life’s experiences, simultaneously wrote on behalf of millions of silent slaves still held captive . . . All blacks would be judged—on their character, integrity, intelligence, manners and morals and their claim to warrant emancipation—on this published evidence produced by one of their number. (Classic Slave Narratives 2)

NARRATIVE

OF THE

LIFEOF

FREDERICK DOUGLASS,AN

AMERICAN SLAVE.

WRITTEN BY HIMSELF.

Frederick Douglass“The overseer’s name was Mr. Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster . . . . No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose” (Classic Slave Narratives 342-343).

Frederick Douglass

“This battle with Mr. Covey was the

turning-point in my career as a slave. It

rekindled the few expiring embers of

freedom, and revived within me a sense

of my own manhood” (Classic Slave

Narratives 394).

Characteristics of Slave Narratives

1. A preface as authenticating material/testimony

2. First sentence begins: “I was born . . .”

3. Details of the first observed whipping

4. An account of a hardworking slave who refuses to

be whipped

5. Details of the quest for literacy

6. Account of a slave auction

7. Description of attempts to escape

8. Appendix of documentary material

Mythological Pattern of Slave Narratives

1. Loss of innocence;

2. Realization of alternatives to bondage and resolve to be free;

3. Escape;

4. Freedom obtained.

Frederick Douglass

“It was a new and special revelation, explaining dark

and mysterious things, with which my youthful

understanding had struggled in vain. I now understood

what had been to me a most perplexing difficulty—to

wit, the white man’s power to enslave the black man.

It was a grand achievement, and I prized it highly.

From that moment, I understood the pathway from

slavery to freedom” (Classic Slave Narratives 364).