Dr. Norrece Jones - Slave Narratives

Dr. Norrece Jones Slave Narratives

Dr. Norrece Jones from Virginia Commonwealth University spoke abut the problems with dealing with slavery and race in the classroom or museum setting. He urged us not to let this deter us from this important conversation. To understand slavery, we must understand race, and dealing with race is very controversial. The slave narratives are good materials to bring an exciting body of investigation into the learning situation that will involve the student.

There are over 6,000 accounts in existence from slaves and ex-slaves. About half come from before the Civil War and about half after the war. African American scholars began to gather stories from blacks who lived around historically black institutions, but the bulk of the narratives came from the Works Progress Administration project in the 1930's. John Blassingame’s 1972 Slave Community used these narratives. George Rawrick placed these narratives in 40 volumes between 1972-1979.

The slave narratives are best source we have to study enslaved Americans. No group of bond people in the world has left such a record of their bondage. They provide a balance to the distortions of slavery by white scholars in the post-slavery era.

All historical sources have problems, but black sources seem to have their legitimacy questioned more than white.

The narratives do present a set of issues, and they need to be noted when studying:

Post-war narrative problems

Most of the interviewers were white males in a very racist time.
Often the African Americans interviewed would be living on the property of their former owners.
These were aged people at the time of the interview.
The editing is questionable.
Some subjects, such as sexual violence, are taboo and left out or edited/dismissed.
Women are underrepresented.
The sample is geographically misrepresentative.

Ante-bellum narrative problems

Illiterates dictated stories to white abolitionists who then edited and published them.
Abolitionist could often be anti-black as well as anti-slavery.
Feminization of men in abolitionist literature.

One of the narratives discussed was The Life of a Slave Girl by Linda Brent/Harriet Jacobs. Dr. Jones used it to discuss the way to have our students evaluate manuscripts.

Who is interviewing?
When?
Why?
What were the circumstances?
Written by slaves or ghost writer?
For the abolitionist press or popular press?
Who edited?
To what extent?
Is what is not said as revealing as what is said?

Sources

Born a Child of Freedom, Yet a Slave by Norrece T. Jones
Slavery and Anti Slavery: Critical Topics in American History by Norrece Jones (Hardcover - December 2002)
W.E.B. DuBois Black Reconstruction - Traces the distortion of causes and nature of the Civil War by scholars.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
The Life of a Slave Girl - Linda Brent/Harriet Jacobs
American Slavery: A Composite Autobiography The authoritative collection of WPA slave narratives on the Web.
American Slave Narratives: An Online Anthology A sample of the WPA narratives, and some of the photographs taken at the time of the interviews.
African-American Women On-line Archival Collections , Duke University Historical Letters and memoirs by African-American women in the nineteenth-century.
John Blassingame - Slave Community.
William W. Brown - An American Slave (1847)
Sam and Louisa Everett - The American Slave : A Composite Autobiography "Florida Narratives" - Volume 17
Africans in America - A companion to Africans in America, a six-hour public television series.