Show HN: SlaveryStories.org – Memoirs from American Slaves
slaverystories.org
slaverystories.org
CNN has a good site up on this subject - estimated 20-30 million people work in forced labor around the world today.
http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/category/the-facts...
The fact that slavery persists to this day, despite the known history and aftereffects, is an important subject that needs more awareness.
It contains interviews with slaves that were part of a public-works program geared towards writers/musicians and other white-collar workers during the great depression. It was a particularly fascinating text since lots of the interviewees were in their 90s and thus had experienced both the pre- and post-emancipation eras. The most consistent message I saw was that a group of oppressed people who had not been allowed to acquire any of the skills one needs to survive had been set free and asked to fend for themselves in a very hostile environment (jim crow laws and so on) and thus for most of that generation, it was like trading one problem for another.
Also, there are several statistics compiled where the african-american community features as an outlier. For instance, breast-feeding rates in that community are far lower than the rest of the US [1]. I didn't know that this was a result of what women in the slavery-era went through but learned that from the book.
It is important to read literature from this era. Tells us a lot about how just over a century ago, people employed rhetoric to convince themselves that slavery was really ok (see the talking points of the "overseers" and "speculators").
[1] http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/43/3/1....
It does irritate me a bit when all of these slave stories always come out during black history month as if black peoples entire history consists of slavery and then the civil rights struggle. There are black poets, artists, inventors, scientists and intellectuals that nobody really knows about. It would be cool to put some focus on that aspect or at least let it match the amount of effort put into sharing the chilling truths of slavery in America...
I've been reading the narratives of enslaved people lately, starting with 12 Years a Slave, then Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and started reading Frederick Douglass' narratives. Harrowing reads.
For anyone reading these narratives: it's easy to get caught up in the dynamic of blacks and whites, racism, and the like, but the core issue of American slavery is the depravity of humanity. Focusing on the guilt/non-guilt/whatever of various ethnic groups quite misses the point.
Evils of this type exist across humanity; these enslavement narratives show us the particular context of how this depravity played out in America. They also provides us with some insight into contemporary issues in our society. The tentacles of a 400+ year institution like slavery, and their corroding influence, continue to wrap themselves around hearts and minds open to their venom.
The narratives are very worthwhile reading.
Sidenote: I think the site title might be better termed as Memoirs from American Enslaved People. For so long these people were not acknowledged as human beings, and it seems appropriate to acknowledge the dignity of their humanity.
It is easy to focus on what terrible times slaves had - 'wasn't it terrible' - but the more interesting stories and the bigger picture are elsewhere. For starters, it was not the slaves that freed themselves (Haiti being an exception), the campaign was a Quaker thing, an understanding that God would not have thought it right. Beyond that there was also the economic picture, indentured labour from Bengal (India) was more cost effective.
At least slaves could see their chains. They had to be fed and watered, it wasn't as if they had to find the essentials for staying alive out of a paycheck. Those doing the same toil as indentured labour were living that bit more precariously.
What I find most interesting about the slave trade and slavery is how analogous it is to the arms trade. In the days of slavery members of parliament would own plantations, councillors would have shares in slave-trade related concerns and every aspect of power was corrupted by some link. If you were against slavery it was hard to clothe and feed yourself without buying slavery products. Think of today and if you wanted to avoid things made in China for some ideological reason - near impossible.
So anyway, today's arms trade where all politicians seem to take some back-hander from it is so like the slave trade/slavery in how it corrupts. Equally, nobody thinks or cares about banking with a bank that services the arms companies, or buying something as small as a paperclip from a company that gladly sells to the Pentagon. It was the same in the slavery days. Nobody cared except for some Quakers.
That is not entirely true, a lot of factory operatives in places like Manchester realised their struggle for fair pay for fair work was tied into the slavery thing.
I particularly like stories that challenge the narrative. In the UK during the post war years a lot of people from the Caribbean were invited over to blighty to be cleaners, bus drivers etc. That is what we like to think. However, some did make it over here to be judges, teachers and other professions. These contradictions and the nuances to the story are what make it interesting for me, and, personally, I think that our history regarding slavery deserves to be more thought provoking than the testimonies provided on the slaverystories.org website.
For instance, you are incorrect that no slaves freed themselves--here's an example of a woman who sued for her freedom under the Massachusetts Constitution and won (lawsuits from other enslaved people followed--some won) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Freeman_(slave)
There are plenty of other stories such as this, along with numerous accounts of escaped enslaved people, many of whom were not helped by the Quakers, but by other, unexpected groups.
The tone of your comment is also at turns appallingly dismissive--you write of enslaved people as being "fed and watered" and indicate that they were cared for. But numerous narratives make clear that slaves were often not fed and clothed sufficiently, not to mention that their health and hygiene was neglected. The idea that they were provided for adequately is a foolish and unwarranted assumption. They were treated, often times, worse than animals.
Not to mention the routine sexual assaults that women and men endured--that's in some of the narratives as well. And not merely an assault only from the slave owner, but from his siblings, sons, overseers who worked for him, and the like. A particularly noteworthy account observed that slave owners would interrupt the meals of enslaved families and require the daughters or wives to leave with them to be sexually assaulted and then return the women after they were finished. These would be severe horrors to anyone who had to endure them and can't be ignored because someone doesn't like to hear about them--or thinks something else is more interesting.
These enslaved people were human beings. There is no reason to minimize the suffering portion of the narrative, especially since they lived with those horrors daily and accounted for a significant part of their experiences while enslaved. Again, if you've read some of these narratives, you would know that there are lengthy discussions of their lives after becoming free--everything isn't about their suffering.
There are certainly other perspectives from which we can look at American slavery. The corrupting influence was (and remains) staggering.
Of course people like stories that challenge the narrative of the sufferings of African enslaved people. It is more pleasant not to discuss or even acknowledge the horrors that existed, for a variety of reasons. But these things did happen, and sites like slaverystories.org do a good job of illuminating not only the horrors that existed, but also the variegations of life and humanity.
but I believe Theodores was talking about UK slavery... which may not have had the sort of "chopped off limbs", "lacerated backs" and "bordello plantations" abuses that slavery in the US had.
I really don't think he meant to imply that indentured servants suffer in the same way as sex slaves who take regular beatings with whips.
You're taking offense... but my suspicion is that you MAY be talking about two different things.
For instance, right now we have The War Against Terror. We could put together the stories of those murdered by drone strikes, waterboarded in Guantanamo, raped by soldiers and so on. Yet the canvas is far larger, there are the stories of the soldiers and the perplexing question as to why we all let it go on. Everyone paid their taxes to pay for the war machine and everyone voted for a politician that voted for The War Against Terror (or would have voted for it had they been elected). I know this because, in October 2001, those willing to protest against the war amounted to me and a very small handful of others. Clearly by 2003, and the invasion of Iraq, there were millions more wanting to protest against the conduct of the war, however, October 2001 is where the uncomfortable truth is. By merely focusing on the 'human interest stories', be it in New York or Afghanistan, we avoid this uncomfortable truth aspect of the bigger narrative.
Regarding Elizabeth Freeman, she did not make it to the courtroom on her own. Her male, white lawyer said a few words for her there. His story is interesting because he did own slaves and, once Elizabeth Freeman was free, she became his servant. So how free would she have been without his efforts and, as a servant, how free was she anyway?
As for being 'fed and watered', the thing about owning a slave is that a slave did have to be cared for to a certain extent rather than just worked to death. Meanwhile, an 'indentured servant' could be worked to death' as there was no obligation or expectation to care for them into old age.
Regarding 'routine sexual assaults', I am sure that goes on and has gone on since the beginning of time, regardless of race. Women were property too up until recent times, passed on from father to husband, with surname changing according to ownership. Yet, I like to believe that my great-grand-fathers did more than see their other halves as property, there 24/7 for their sexual gratification.
Not everything need be painted as a wall of horror. Is everyone with some mixed-race ancestry the bastard spawn of some horrific rape? Or, amongst the tide of misery were there some instances where genuine love was able to flourish between Master and his concubine(s)? What about the white lady of the house and the gardener? Did love sometimes flourish there too? Again, the more in depth narrative fascinates whereas your 'it was just beatings and rape' version of the story is a tad trite for me.
The danger of painting the story as 'black and white' with whites evil and persons of colour whiter-than-white is that by understanding the story that way you may come into a situation where you insult someone from a different background to yourself by assuming too much about their heritage.
I contend that American slavery isn't as much about black and white people per se, as it is about human depravity, which we see across societies and cultures. American slavery is a context in which we can see the highs and lows of humanity. There is much we can learn about people from these narratives--if they are reported fully.
The notion that we should focus on narratives which don't include the horrors of slavery--or that they should be minimized--is just silly. Narratives are the stories of enslaved people and the horrors they lived with are part of their experiences. You prefer to gloss over the horrors they experienced and instead seek to romanticize the institution. Ugh.
Ma Bett (Elizabeth Freeman) came up with the idea to sue for her freedom and hired that lawyer who spoke for her. Further, by taking the matter to court, she was not hoping to rely on ethical arguments for her freedom, she was referencing the State Constitution. This is a far cry from approaching the Quakers and seeking help on moral or religious grounds.
Your initial comment seemed to suggest that blacks were not the primary impetus behind their freedom. This narrative (and many others) directly refute that.
Once Ma Bett was freed, she chose to become a servant to that lawyer. It scarcely needs noting that there is a difference between choosing to serve as a domestic and being enslaved.
How did a statue provide more "nuance" to your education? Are you under the impression that a sculpture somehow guarantees accuracy or breadth of education? Here in the US we have thousands of such statues and "grander" commemorations as well. Is that a voucher for the sum quality of our history education?
>> It is easy to focus on what terrible times slaves had - 'wasn't it terrible' - but the more interesting stories and the bigger picture are elsewhere. For starters, it was not the slaves that freed themselves (Haiti being an exception), the campaign was a Quaker thing, an understanding that God would not have thought it right
Your Quaker example is one of the most basic factoids of slavery history. I was taught it in elementary school. It is also a small part of the story that is largely based in religious moral glorification, a major theme in European revisionist slavery history. And do you have an example of a curriculum where it is taught that "slaves freed themselves?" I have never once in my life heard this theory postulated, perhaps it is not as common as you imply? Also, what do you mean by "more interesting stories"? To whom exactly? Perhaps a modifier that indicates --TO YOU-- would be appropriate here?
Have you really been exposed to the tremendous corpus of truly horrifying artifacts, down to paperwork, that came out of the slave trade era? Having been educated in academically-rigorous inner-city public schools, I challenge your schooling in this area, because you seem very blithe about the overwhelming ratio of horror vs. "it-wasn't-so-bad-compared-to-indentured-servitude". Have you really seen the layouts of the most common British and Dutch intercontinental slave ships? Do you know the voyage mortality rate and the way the bodies were disposed of (or left to decompose while attached to other, alive humans)? We are talking hundreds of thousands of recorded cases by the slavers themselves here. And these are just the most common examples. Why is minimization of these facts important to you, in favor of political history? Are the two really mutually exclusive?
As to the rest, why you would go on about all this in the commentary regarding a well-executed website about first-hand accounts of American slave experiences? Does your school's statue and some vague academic factoids somehow invalidate these accounts?
In conculsion, is this really an appropriate place to point out that there is more to the history of slavery than atrocity? Is that fact not entirely self-evident to anyone of HN's mean-intelligence level? What has the contribution to the matter at hand been here?
As to "why" he'd bring it up on this post? Well, I personally like discussing things that are related on a topic, and have come across many fascinating topics and thoughts due to HN generally being ok with that. That's merely my opinion though.
I don't know why, but I was somehow expecting the audio to be analog rips taken directly from 19th century wax cylinders.
I've shared it with the major African American Studies listserv, H-Afro-Am (http://www.h-net.org/~afro-am/)
This is a great project.
1) It would be nice to have pictures, illustrations, and maps to give better context to the stories. It would make them more alive.
Something like this would be nice: http://apps.npr.org/wolves/
There's a nicer example on some railway in Russia but I can't seem to find it.
2) As someone else has already mentioned, it would be great to include modern slavery stories. Sadly, there are a lot more slaves today compared to before Emancipation was passed. People need to know about that.
1) I agree! We'd love to have more rich media within each narrative. One of the reasons we've made the project open-source is to encourage people to contribute additional narratives, including those with additional images and illustrations. Check it out on Github and feel free to contribute!
2) We wanted to focus on historical narratives from American slaves, but certainly acknowledge there's definitely more amazing stories to tell. Hopefully this site can service as inspiration for more sites on the subject and we'll get some interesting contributions.
Sadly, there are still slaves in America today as a result of human trafficking. Slavery in the US hasn't ended.
Why should the African-American experience be minimized so as to not be considered a distinct experience from other differing experiences that have been labeled as "slavery"?
edit: This is not a rhetorical question.
Not every discussion of a subject must be comprehensive--you noted in your comment that the history of slavery is vast. Why is this site owner expected to address all the different instances on his/her site?
There are plenty of sites that discuss the broader history of slavery, or specific instances of it. This one fits in with the mosaic of other sites out there.
This, of course, was the unspoken thought behind your suggestion. You just don't think that the subject is important. American chattel slavery is both unbelievably important and unique in the history of the world. To minimize its importance in the establishment and rise of the US, the history of Africa and Europe, or its importance in world culture is willful ignorance.
Hardly. People have been enslaving each other throughout the entirety of human history. To suggest that America is somehow exceptional in this regard reeks of ethnocentrism. The Arab slave trade is arguably just as important, but somehow I doubt you condemn residents of the Middle East as harshly as you do whites...
If anything, you're trying to 'minimize the importance' of the enslavement of people in practically every civilization on earth, for generations before the US was founded and still continuing today.
At the end of the day though, that's what the site owner wants, I just don't understand your vitriolic responses to people questioning it.
Same principle with 'well, African kingdoms sold us the slaves in the first place', it shifts the focus away from them and their ancestors.
My ancestors first set foot in America in 1930. I do happen to be white though, so I'm curious as to whether you think I'm included in the people responsible for slavery. Or do you think it's only white people whose ancestors were in America more than 149 years ago? I'm just curious if you truly believe people are guilty by racial association or only by ancestral association.
What you are is a beneficiary of it, even if you came over on a boat last year. Just as if you had migrated to apartheid South Africa from Ireland in the 80s.
How am I a beneficiary of something that was outlawed in this country 149 years ago when I have only been alive a small fraction of that time and my ancestors have only been in this country for 84 years?
You make this extraordinary claim without providing extraordinary evidence - or in fact, any evidence. How is what you say true possible? The only way I can imagine is that your logical argument is:
1. Slave owners had an advantage over slaves
2. Descendants of slave owners had an advantage of descendants of slaves
3. An additional 5-6 generations of descendants of slave owners continued to have an advantage over 5-6 generations of descendants of slaves
4. All descendants of slave owners (regardless of how many generations removed they are) are racists that give advantages to whites
5. Therefore, any new immigrants to America instantly inherit these advantages
Is that it? If not, explain how your extraordinary claim is possible.
-Exodus 12:43-44
Jews held slaves and are thus the beneficiaries of slavery. Using your mindset, Jews must be maligned as an entire people for all eternity for the past sins of slavery. Isn't that mindset just another name for defamation, though? If antisemitism is a danger to the Jewish people - requiring the countervailing of an "Anti Defamation League" - why wouldn't tarring all American Anglos as the beneficiaries of slavery be a similar danger to America's founding stock? Why is defamation bad for some and good for others?
>Because it lets white Americans...[shift] the focus away from them and their ancestors.
Not every white American had ancestors that owned slaves. In fact, most white Americans had nothing to do with slavery--much like today, only the top 1.5% (1) or so of Americans enjoyed any of the benefits stereotypically ascribed to "white people." Poor white people were left to scrounge for low income jobs and educational funds, much as they are today.
Blaming all whites for slavery is much like blaming all Muslims for 9/11. From the past to the present, only the rich have benefited from slaves--as can be seen by the fact that the first slave owner in America was actually a rich black man. (2)
1. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_the_Unite...]
2. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Johnson_%28colonist%29]
If they lived in America, they did. It affected the the prices of the goods they purchased and affected the price their labor could bring. It affected who they voted for, and years later where they would live. The fact that simply by virtue of the state of being white, they were immune to being enslaved within a culture of slavery affected their relationships to each other and to free black men.
>only the top 1.5% (1) or so of Americans enjoyed any of the benefits stereotypically ascribed to "white people."
Bullshit. If you can get a cab and a black man can't, you're enjoying "benefits stereotypically ascribed to 'white people.'" If a job application is turned down because a name sounds black, you're enjoying "benefits stereotypically ascribed to 'white people.'" Not recognizing that is just a sense of entitlement.
>Blaming all whites for slavery is much like blaming all Muslims for 9/11.
Muslims didn't get to vote (and take up arms against each other) to support 9/11, thousands of times in thousands of contexts over hundreds of years, and they didn't get the economic boost that comes from a large proportion of the population existing to serve.
I think that is the point. Many (maybe most? I don't know) did not. Only a quarter of my family tree has people living in America before ~1930.
Did they, being white people in a still racist society, benefit from not being black in the 1930s? Sure, of course they did. They didn't have anything to do with American slavery though.
White people were slaves, too. Both in the Americas and elsewhere. In many places, they were treated more harshly and considered less valuable than African slaves.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/the-irish-slave-trade-the-forgo...
>If you can get a cab
If you're poor, you aren't going to be taking a cab no matter what color your skin is.
>Muslims didn't get to...thousands of times in thousands of contexts over hundreds of years...get the economic boost that comes from a large proportion of the population existing to serve.
"During the 8th and 9th centuries of the Fatimid Caliphate, most of the slaves were Europeans (called Saqaliba) captured along European coasts and during wars.[2] Historians estimate that between 650 and 1900, 10 to 18 million peoples were enslaved by Arab slave traders and taken from Africa across the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Sahara desert.[3]
Unlike the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the New World, Arabs supplied African slaves to the Arab world, which at its peak stretched over three continents from the Atlantic to the Far East."
If you want to condemn white people for slavery, you're going to have to condemn everyone else for it, too.
My ancestors spent the 19th century being exploited by the British Empire in Ireland. Nobody in my family had a thing to do with slavery, and there are millions like me.
Oh, that's another 'but but but' excuse I forgot, thanks.
Really nicely designed too :)
Feature request : would be great to have a /all to get the whole story at once, instead of chapter by chapter. Would allow to export to Kindle or Pocket in 2 secs.
Should we not concentrate on the future, and pay attention to the rest of the world and the active slavery that still persists today?
I think Americans are spoiled. I also think that what we say, is comparable to a poop sandwich because everyone wants attention on their own problems instead of living their life and bettering the progress of the world.
Also, I'm glad to see HN didn't let therogerwilco's comment ruin this article submission's comment section. It's been voted to the bottom of the page where it belongs, out of the way of productive conversation.
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/hit...
And a second smart post about the relationship between remembering and moving on:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/01/to-...