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THE NEGRO HISTORY BULLETIN MARCH, 1952

Volame XV Number 6

Published by The Association for the Study of Negro Life and History 1538 Ninth St., N. W., Washington, D. C.

PURPOSE: To inculcate an appre-

ciation of the past of the Negro and

to promote an understanding of his present status.

EprroriaL Boarp Albert N. D. Brooks Edwin B. Henderson David A. Lane Esther Popel Shaw Annie E. Dunean Wilhelmina M. Crosson

The subscription fee of this paper is $2.00 a year, or 25 cents a copy; bulk subscriptions at special rates have been diseontinued. Bound volumes, 12 of = are now available, sell for $3.15

Published monthly except July, August and September, at 1538 Ninth 8t., N. W., Washington, D. O.

Entered as second class matter October $1, 1937, at the Post Office at Washing- = D. C., under the Act of March 3,

CONTENTS

Covmr :

MARIAN ANDERSON—THE SYMBOL OF NE- GRO ACHIEVEMENT IN ART

ArT EXPERIENCES IN THB EDUCATION oF NEGROES

By Delilah Williams Pierce

Suave NARRATIVES By Charles H. Nichols, Jr.

THe SoutH’s BRIGHTER SIDE By Albert N. D. Brooks

A Schoo. IN A JUNIOR Hien ScHoo.

By Charlotte K. Brooks

Acr Two or TuHree Acr PLay: FRep ERICK DOUGLASS

By Helen W. Harris

EDITORIAL: Necro TEACHERS AND INTEGRATION

Tue Necro History BULLETIN

THE SIGNIFICANCE OF ART EXPERIENCES IN THE EDUCATION OF THE NEGRO

By W. Pierce

DUCATION for “our way of life” in “our times”; educa- E tion for “‘all the people” that our way of life might be main-

tained; this we hear and say ever so often and, as Americans, firmly believe. We believe that our security, progress and happiness as a democratic society rests on happy, balanced individuals who are self-supporting and enlightened, and who have the will and ability to maintain and to improve our way of life whenever and wherever necessary. As educators we strive to promote the best possible educa- tion for all—yes, for all—and especially are we interested in the edu- cation of Negroes, that Negroes too may be well-rounded individ- uals, with the highest possible degree of competence and emotional stability; that they may enjoy a “Full Life.”

What do we need? To be sure we need reading, writing, arith- metic, the sciences, the languages, and social studies. Also, we need the technical courses, the business courses and the trades. We need all of them. But, life is not all facts and skills. It is much more; it is related to the satisfaction of basic individual wants. Education is concerned with the student’s inner feeling, attitudes and apprecia- tions, his ability or lack of ability to adjust himself in life, his ability or lack of ability to get along with the group. And for society, of course, there is always the individual’s creative possibilities that make

“him” and that may contribute to man’s storehouse of knowledges’

and treasures. These basic individual needs are most important in our way of life, for what the individual is fundamentally determines what he does or is capable of doing with his accumulated knowledges and skills. More and more in our daily lives the need for funda- mental experiences in the development of our citizens is evidenced. It is a general need, but the general need of our society—because of existing conditions—is a special need of ours as Negroes.

What can be done to meet these needs and to attempt to adjust the lives of our people? In considering this, let us recall some facts about education, formal and informal, in past years, or even in past ages. The individual was taught in the home, the church and the community to live. These experiences usually cared for his emotional and creative self. For example, art was a part of living. Men created pictures and sculpture for the church or their religion and their meet- ing places. They shaped and decorated utensils and useful objects for the home. They created temples, cathedrals and other necessary objects. Thus, they released the inner self and created beauty that was useful. The formal schools cared for the attainment of other knowledges and skills.

(See Art on page 114)

on teel onl alsc , abo rat wh trol fru der sho fou Wt 4 the neg

in lish the rat sus era Al stu nar Sor cou but | late ries Bu ble of but the tho WO) sla } the der

Marcu, 1952

SLAVE NARRATIVES

By Cuaries H. Nicuous, Associate Professor of English

the largest body of literature

produced by American Ne- groes in the early years of the nine- teenth century. These accounts of slaves’ lives are noteworthy not only for their self-portraiture but also for their revelation of the facts about chattel slavery. For the nar- ratives present in stark outlines the whole framework of slavery’s con- trols, disclosing, too, the attitudes, frustrations, fears and the sense of deprivation the Negro suffered. In short, in this literature are to be found the tangled roots of Negro- White adjustment in America. Yet the narratives have been unduly neglected. Appearing as they did in a sentimental period and pub- lished as they were largely under the aegis of abolitionists, slave nar- ratives have been regarded with suspicion.

The period spanned by this lit- erature — from the appearance of A Narrative of the Uncommon Suf- ferings and Surprising Deliverance

Stet narratives constitute

Editor’s Note: This article should help students of history to understand slave narratives as fiction or true history. Some of the stories were actual ac- counts of events, some were fiction, but all described fairly accurately the background setting of the events re- lated. In modern motion picture sto- ries, the warning that characters and events are fictitious does not make the Buick automobile, that is plainly visi- ble, any less real. In like manner, each of these slave narrators may not have had the exact experience described; but this does not make any less real the descriptions of the environment in which the events took place. The au- thor tells how to evaluate the historical worth of these narratives. :

The author of this article has fur- nished an extensive bibliography of slave narratives. It might be quite useful for those who engage in fur- ther study of the period of slavery in this country. By saving this copy of the Necro History BULLETIN the stu- dent will have a handy reference guide available when needed.

Morgan State College

of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man -

in 1760 to Harriet Jacobs’ Inci- dents im the Life of a Slave Girl in 1861—saw the rise of romanti- cism in American letters. The ro- mantic spirit expressed itself not only in the growth of democratic ideals, but also in the implementa- tion of those ideals in the reform- ism of the 1830’s, 40’s, and 50’s. And the romantics made perhaps their most powerful impact on American society in the antislavery movement. For the sentimental re- formers saw in slavery an institu- tion which threatened the sacred, perfectible individual, and, in their optimism, they hoped to wipe this stain from the nation’s escutcheon. The social conscience of the New England romantics lay at the bot- tom of their interest in the slave and his story. The slave himself, even without their tutoring, was ex- posed to the same idealisms. The slave narrative, therefore, as a re- sult of abolitionist editing, as an expression of deeply felt prevailing ideals, and in spite of considerable realism, is a sentimental kind of literature. The narrative appeals to the reader’s sympathy, and in its concern with an individual’s strug- gle for freedom is of the very es- sence of the romantic tradition. Although these simple accounts of slave’s experiences began to ap- pear in the eighteenth century (those of Briton Hammon, John Marrant and Gustavus Vassa being especially noteworthy) the period of their widest currency coincides with the rise of militant abolition- ism—from 1830 to 1861. The ex- tent of abolitionist editing of many of the narratives can only be con- jectured. Some narratives were presented to the public as biogra- phies. This was true of the brief Narrative of Dimmock Charlton, The Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge, and Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. Others, like Charles Ball’s Slavery in the United States (1836), Kate Pickard’s The Kid-

napped and the Ransomed and Frederick Douglass’ The Heroic Slave are fictionalized. Mrs. Emily Pierson’s The Fugitive, like Rich- ard Hildreth’s The Memoirs of Archy Moore (1836), and Mattie Griffith’s Autobiography of a Fe- male Slave are clearly works of fiction. Among those dictated to amanuenses were The Narrative and Writings of Andrew Jackson of Kentucky (1847), The Confes- sion of Nat Turner (1831), The Narrative of Solomon Northup (1857) and The Narrative of James Williams (1838). Williams’ narra- tive, dictated to John Greenleaf Whittier, was alleged by the editor of the Alabama Beacon to be a fraud and was suppressed by the Antislavery Society. Harriet Ja- cobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl was edited and ‘‘ar- ranged’’ by Lydia Maria Child. In general, there seems to be little evi- dence that abolitionists falsely rep- resented the narratives as written by the slaves themselves. There is no doubt that the narratives of Frederick Douglass, -William Wells Brown, James W. C. Pennington, Samuel Ringgold Ward, William and Ellen Craft, William Hayden and Austin Steward are genuine autobiographies. Though few of these accounts have any significant literary quality their historical im- portance can hardly be exagger- ated.

The authenticity of the narra- tives as eyewitness accounts of the slave system can be readily estab- lished by comparing them with contemporary sources of unques- tioned reliability. All the narra-

icf. J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Re- sources of the Southern and Western States (New Orleans: 1852) II., pp. 269- 292 for summary of laws on slavery., Theodore Weld, American As It Is (New York: 1839)., Helen T. Cat- terall, Judicial Cases Coneerning Amert can Slavery and the Negro 5 vols. (Wash- ington, D. C.: 1926-1937)., and John Spencer Bassett, The Southern Planta- tion Overseer as Revealed in His Letters, (Northampton, Mass: 1925).

107 “4 ca- ns, q ess = are ity ver ca- = it . of ae ke in 1es Ja- of 1st cts he ed i et- at ler

108

tives call attention to the separation of families occasioned by the slave trade, the long hours of forced la- bor, the constant infliction of physi- cal punishment and the denial of every opportunity for the Negroes’ improvement. They insist that scant provisions were made for the slaves’ food, clothing, shelter and medical care. According to the nar- ratives there was considerable mis- cegenation among the people of the South, and masters, mistresses and overseers are presented in a rather unfavorable light by the ex-slaves who dwell upon the carousing, drunkenness and violence common among the whites.

Frederick Douglass, for exam- ple, was born in Talbot County, on the Eastern Shore of Maryland —a small district ‘‘thinly populat- ed and remarkable for nothing that I know of,’’ he wrote, ‘‘more than for the worn out, sandy, desert- like appearance of its soil, the gen- eral dilapidation of its farms and fences, the indigent and spiritless character of its inhabitants, and the prevalence of ague and fever.’”” Most of the narrators seem to have worked on isolated, run-down plan- tations where they lived in rude frontier surroundings. Many main- tain that their masters were con- stantly in debt. William Hayden, auctioned off to pay one master’s debts, was sold to another man in Lincoln County, Kentucky. ‘‘Mr. surdet was poor,’’ he writes, ‘owning naught of this world’s wear, save me...’ By and large, the narratives give the lie to the idea that slavery made possible a gracious and cultivated society in the plantation South.

That the traffic in Negro slaves was a widespread and _ profitable business is made clear in the narra- tives. John Brown was confined in the slave pen of the notorious The- ophilus Freeman* and Northup, after he was kidnapped in Wash- ington, D. C., was sold through the slave-trading establishment of

‘

*My Bondage and My Freedom, p. 33.

3Narrative of William Hayden, p. 22.

4Cf. Bancroft, Slave Trading in the Old South,

Price, Burch and Co. Theophilus Freeman’s establishment, accord- ing to John Brown, had three tiers of rooms with heavily barred win- dows. On the top floor of the build- ing was a ‘‘flogging room’’ in which obstreperous articles of property might be subdued. Young, handsome female slaves were given a separate room, for they were to be sold for use as concubines. The other slaves were quartered indis- criminately. The building stood in a large, fenced-in yard in which the Negroes were compelled to take exercise from time to time. When slaves were transported in large numbers they were chained in cof- fles and walked great distances on foot. Most of the narratives e- scribe these chain gangs. Evident- ly, the use of irons, collars, chains and bells as means of restraining slaves was widespread. John Brown had a ‘‘cirele of iron, having a hinge behind with a staple and pad- lock before, which hang under the chin’’ fastened around his neck.* Bibb wore a similar iron collar with bells for six weeks. To pre- vent his running away he was forced to sleep with his feet in stocks or ‘‘be chained with a large log chain to a log overnight, with no bed or bedding to rest my wea- ried limbs on after toiling all day in the cotton field.’’® The fugitive Moses Roper, after he was pursued and brought back, was chained by the neck to his master’s chaise. ‘‘In this manner he took me to his home at MeDaniel’s Ferry . . . a distance of fifteen miles.’

There was considerable activity in the market and slaves were al- ways changing hands. At auctions, traders insisted that their merchan- dise would not run away, and buy- ers minutely examined the Negroes who were for sale. Writes Brown:

I dare not—for decency’s sake—de- tail the various expedients that were resorted to by dealers to test the sonnd- ness of a male or a female slave. When I say that they are handled in the

*Twelve Years a Slave, pp. 42-43.

®6Slave Life in Georgia, Chap. XII.

TSlave Life in Georgia, p. 88.

SNarrative of Bibb, p. 134. Narrative of Moses Roper, p. 11.

Tue Necro History BULLETIN

grossest manner, and inspected with the most elaborate and disgusting mi- nuteness, I have said enough for the most obtuse understanding to fill up the outline of the horrible picture.!°

The majority of the slave narra- tors were brought to work as field hands on cotton plantations. Some few were trained to be skilled work- men (carpenters, coopers, black- smiths) or house servants. No doubt they worked hard, but these skilled workers had a just pride in the value of their services, often earned enough to buy their free- dom, and seem not to have been often mistreated. But the great mass of workers, the field hands, were driven like oxen day after day. According to the slaves’ ac- count, they were roused before dawn by the overseer or driver and taken to the fields to work until it was too dark to see. Other chores were expected of them after dark, so that except for a pause or two for meals, they labored as many as sixteen or eighteen hours a day. John Brown claims that one of the masters compelled the slaves to burn brush or spin cotton after dark. ‘‘We worked from four in the morning until twelve before we broke our fast, and from that time till eleven or twelve at night.’’! The slave then had to prepare his own meal—grinding his allowance of corn and making ‘‘hoe cakes.’’ Northup insists that when the moon was full the slave was forced to work until the middle of the night. He was compelled, too, to feed the farm animals and chop wood after his work in the fields.!”

Men and women laborers were given definite tasks to perform. Slaves were expected to pick a stip- ulated number of pounds of cotton and were whipped if they failed to bring in a bag of sufficient weight. The amount expected of slaves va- ried according to their ability and from plantation to plantation. On a Louisiana plantation, Northup tells us, an ordinary day’s picking was two hundred pounds per slave,

10Slave Life in Georgia, pp. 116-117. 11Slave Life in Georgia, pp. 10-11. 12Twelve Years a Slave, p. 167.

w m p fe h sl b le d ¢ t : ] )

Marcu, 1952

whereas John Brown’s Georgia master expected only a hundred pounds of each hand. Usually the fastest pickers were placed at the head of the row and the others were urged to keep up. That the slave women were sometimes better pickers than the men is attested to by the narrators and by overseers’ letters.1* But the labor of women caused the neglect of small chil- dren and made impossible the little comforts of family life.

Holidays, gifts, opportunities to work for wages, religious training, the hope of freedom—all served to make slaves more contented and controllable. But to a considerable extent the master depended on physical controls—the driver’s or overseer’s whip, the patrols and the law. Unpaid labor had to be con- stantly supervised and forced to work. The lash was, therefore, an indispensable aid to the system’s

13Cf, Bassett, The Southern Plantation Overseer as Revealed in His Letters.

functioning. Nearly all the narra- tors report that they were whipped at some time during their enslave- ment, and many displayed scarred and striped backs to amazed audi- ences at abolitionist meetings. Both men and women were whipped. Usually on these isolated planta- tions the overseer was judge, jury, prosecutor and executioner, and he wielded his power like a medieval monarch. No slave could testify against any white person anywhere in the South so that no brutal act of an overseer could be brought be- fore the courts unless it had been witnessed by a white person. Northup writes of the overseers: These gentlemen ride into the field on horseback, without exception, to my knowledge, armed with pistols, bowie knife, whip and accompanied by sev- eral dogs. . . . It is his business to pro- duce large crops, and if that is accom- plished, no matter what amount of suffering it may have cost. The pres- ence of the dogs are (sic) necessary to overhaul a fugitive who may take to his heels. . . . The pistols are re-

109

served for any dangerous emergency. . Goaded into uncontrollable mad- ness, even the slave will sometimes turn upon his oppressor.!# These punishments — whipping, chaining, shooting — were legal and customary, but laws designed to protect the property of owners and court cases’® show that the mu- tilation, burning, smothering and torture alleged by slaves were not unknown. The fear of servile re- bellion prompted the slave states to make more and more stringent laws in regard to the Negro. The slaves’ activities were sharply proscribed and the superordinate group en- forced the caste etiquette with con- siderable rigor.

14Twelve Years a ‘Slave, pp. 223-224.

15Cf, J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Re- sources of the Southern and Western States (New Orleans: 1852) II., pp. 269- 292 for summary of laws on slavery. Also: Theodore Weld, American Slavery As It Fs (New York: 1839).

16Cf, Helen T. Catterall, Judicial Cases Concerning American Slavery and the Negro, 5 vols. (Washington, D. C. 1926- 1937).

Library of Congress Photograph

PHOTOGRAPH OF THE SLAVE CELLS IN THE FRANKLIN AND ARMFIELD SLAVE TRADING ESTABLISHMENT IN WASHINGTON, D. C. THIS PHOTO TAKEN IN THE EARLY DAYS OF THE CIVIL WAR SHOWS THE SORDID ENVIRONMENT FROM WHICH FUGITIVE SLAVES FLED.

“he with 4 mi- r the up arra- some york- lack- No hese le in alae ften rree- been reat fter ac- fore and il it ores two | lay.

110

How did the slaves react to their enslavement? A wide reading of the narratives establishes the fact that there was a wide range of re- actions among the Negroes con- cerned. It is difficult to find among the narrators any who were at all times cooperative and loyal slaves. But Noah Davis, William Boen, Lunsford Lane, William Hayden, Josiah Henson, Elizabeth Keckle- and Peter Still were extraordinan- ly loyal for the greater part of the time they were slaves. Significant- ly, nearly all these men and women enjoyed a fairly stable childhood with their parents (who were privi- leged slaves) and themselves held favorable positions with their mas- ters. The most loyal of the slaves were the house servants, drivers and artisans. Clearly slave loyalty was given to owners in return for definite rewards. Yet even the most faithful slave was often disingenu- ous. The caste etiquette and fear of physical punishment encouraged the slave to develop ‘‘stage pres- ence’’—that is, the capacity to play his role convincingly before the master, even while he sabotaged the effort in actuality.

By far the greater number of the slaves seem to have shown in- direct or covert aggression. Neg- lected in early childhood and cruel- ly treated, they were resentful and uncooperative. For the field hands were largely excluded from the privileges enjoyed by the house servants and had less incentive to please their owners. Their protest took on many forms, from laziness, inefficiency, feigned illness and ma- lingering, to stealing, striking (re- fusing to work) and sabotage. Sol- omon Bayley and Moses Grandy even dared to sue in the courts for their freedom. Frequently slaves ran off to the woods or swamps ‘‘on strike’’ until their demands were met.!7 The slaves’ protest also ex- pressed itself in their religion and in the songs and spirituals they created. (Many narratives contain such songs.) It was easy for the slaves to associate themselves with the children of Israel—God’s peo-

17Cf. Narrative of Moses Grandy, p. 5.

ple enslaved by the wicked Egyp- tians. The high and mighty white race was, to the Negroes, like those men of Sodom and Gomorrah, merely awaiting the sure judgment of God.

Yet narratives published between 1836 and 1865 are, for the most part, those of fugitive slaves. Many of these men refused to be whipped and, turning on their oppressors, assaulted them violently. John Thompson beat and choked his mas- ter when the latter sought to sub- due him with the lash.’*. North- up’ flogged his master and Doug- lass resisted a ‘‘Negro-breaker’s’’ attempt to whip him. Solomon Northup and other slaves plotted armed rebellion and Nat Turner directed a bloody uprising. In desperate circumstances, such Ne- groes sought some means of escape from slavery—running away, re- bellion or death. The slaveholders did not succeed in creating a uni- formly meek body of slaves devoted to their masters’ interests and en- tertaining no ideas inconsistent with their status. But slavery pro- duced in all the narrators consid- erable fear, hate, aggression and feelings of guilt. Often the slave owner succeeded in disorganizing the slave’s personality.

That many fugitives adjusted themselves to life in the free states, acquired property and influence is certainly remarkable. Lewis and Milton Clarke, William Wells Brown, Henry Bibb, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and many others found jobs, acquired some education and aided other fugitives in their escape from slav- ery. William Wells Brown and Frederick Douglass were stalwarts in the abolitionist cause both in America and in Great Britain Austin Steward and Josiah Henson helped in the setting up of colo- nies for fugitives in Canada. Not the least service performed by these ex-slaves was in leaving to their posterity a record of their lives in slavery. Hundreds of these narra- tives are extant.”° Antislavery pub-

18Life of John Thompson, p. 35. 19Twelve Years a Slave, pp. 110-111. 20For two complete studies of narra-

Tue Neoro History BULLETIN

lications were always eager to get accounts of slaves’ experiences and the general public seems to have read them avidly. The Interesting Narratives of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, The African (1789) went into at least ten editions by 1837; a Dutch and a German edition are still extant. By 1856 The Narratie of Moses Roper’s Adventures and Escape from American Slavery, first pub- lished in 1837, had reached ten editions and had been translated into Celtic. Even so trivial a vol- ume as The Life of James Mars (1865) saw eleven editions by 1872. Josiah Henson’s narrative reached its sixth thousand in 1852, having been published in England as well as here in America. By May 28, 1858 advanced orders for the ‘*Stowe edition’’ of Henson’s book alone totalled 5,000 copies.” In the 1878 edition it is claimed that 100,- 000 copies of the book had been sold. Indeed a Dutch translation appeared in 1877 and a French edi- tion the following year. Within two years after its publication in 1853, Twelve Years a Slave: The Narrative of Solomon Northup had sold 27,000 copies. The narra- tive of William Wells Brown sold 8,000 copies (four editions) by 1849, and by the same year The Narrative of Frederick Douglass (1845) had passed through seven editions ‘‘in this country alone.’’”?

There is no doubt that the time- liness of the narratives made them popular reading in the days before the Civil War. The experiences of Henry Bibb, Lewis Clarke and Frederick Douglass furnished de- tails for Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin™ and Nat Turn- er’s rebellion inspired Dred, A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp. Recently Edmund Fuller and Shir- ley Graham have produced fiction-

tives see: Marion Wilson Starling, The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American Literary History, Unpublished Ph.D. The- sis, N. Y. U., 1946; Charles H. Nichols, A Study of the Slave Narrative, Unpub- lished Ph.D. Thesis, Brown University, 1948.

21Cf. Starling, p. 341.

22Ephraim Peabody, Christian Ezxam- iner, vol. 47 (July, 1849), p. 64.

28Cf. Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin.

Mi ali: Do ter Ht Br Ga Wi Be for Mz ies an th ly lin th ha Jo ar de ily et ha re ur ta be in 4 in 3 q in b U E t 0 4 t

Marcu, 1952

alized biographies of Frederick Douglass, Earl Conrad has writ- ten of Harriet Tubman, Arthur Huff Fauset of Sojourner Truth, Brion Gysin of Josiah Henson. Gamaliel Bradford in his book Wives found Elizabeth Keckley’s Behind the Scenes his best source for details on the personality of Mary Todd Lincoln. In their stud- ies of slavery Frederic Bancroft** and Herbert Aptheker”® have used the slave narratives discriminating- ly as source materials. E. Frank- lin Frazier’s The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: 1939) has employed the narratives of John Brown, Andrew Jackson, Frederick Douglass, Austin Stew- ard, Lewis Clarke and others for details concerning the Negro fam- ily in slavery. Similarly, Henri- etta Henkle’s Let My People Go has made use of the narratives in relation to her discussion of the underground railroad. The impor- tance of slave narratives as valua- ble records of slavery is, therefore, being increasingly recognized. Dur- ing the 1930’s the W.P.A. writers interviewed living ex-slaves and collected 17 volumes of data now in the Congressional library.”®

BIBLIOGRAPHY

The largest collection of slave narratives is found in the Schom- burg Collection of the New York Public Library. Collections of nar- ratives also are found in the Brown University Library, the Boston Public Library, the Providence Publie Library and the libraries of Harvard, Oberlin, Cornell, Hamp- ton Institute and Howard Univer- sity.

(Dates are not necessarily those of first editions, but are those of the editions I have used.)

I. Suave NARRATIVES

Adams, John Quincy. arratives of John Quincy Adams, When in

24Slave Trading in the Old South (Bal- timore: 1931).

25 American Negro Slave Revolts (New York, 1943).

26For a published collection of these interviews see: Ben A. Botkin’s, Lay My Burden Down (Chicago: 1945).

Slavery and Now as a Freeman, Harrisburg, 1872.

Allen, Richard and Jones, Absalom. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People during the Late Awful Calamity in Phila- delphia in the Year 1793, Phila- delphia, 1794.

Allen, Richard. The Life, Experi- ences and Gospel Labors of the Right Reverend Richard Allen, Philadelphia, 1833.

Anderson, William. Life and Nar- rative of William Anderson or Dark Deeds of American Slav- ery, Chicago, 1857.

Ball, Charles. Slavery in the United States. A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, A Black Man, Pittsburgh, 1853.

Bayley, Solomon. Narrative of Some Remarkable Incidents in the Life of Solomon Bayley, for- merly a Slave in the State of Del- aware, North America, Written by Himself, second edition, Lon- don, 1825.

Bibb, Henry. Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, Written by Himself, New York, 1849.

Black, Leonard. Life and Suffer- ings of Leonard Black, a Fugi- tive from Slavery, Written by Himself, New York, 1847.

Boen, William. Anecdotes and Memoirs of William Boen, a Col- ored Man who Lived and Died near Mount Holly, New Jersey, Philadelphia, 1834.

Brown, Henry Box. Narrative of the Life of Henry Box Brown, Written by Himself, First Eng- lish Edition, Manchester, 1851.

Brown, Jane. Narrative of the Life of Jane Brown and Her Two Children, Related to Rev. G. W. Offley, Hartford, 1860.

Brown, John. Slave Life in Geor- gia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings and Escape of John Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Now in England, Edited by L. A. Chamerovzow, London, 1855.

Brown, William J. The Life of William J. Brown of Providence, R. I., Providence, 1883.

Brown, William Wells. Narrative

of the Life of William W. Brown,

111

A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, Boston, 1848.

Bruce, Henry Clay. The New Man: Twenty-nine Years a Slave, Twenty-nine Years a Free Man. Recollections of H. C. Bruce, York, Pa., 1895.

Burton, Annie L. Memoirs of Childhood’s Slavery Days, Bos- ton, 1919.

Campbell, Israel. Bond and Free; or Yearnings for Freedom from My Green Brier House; Being the Story of My Life in Bondage and My Life in Freedom, Phila- delphia, 1861.

Charlton, Dimmock. Narrative of Dimmock Charlton, A British Subject, Taken from the Brig ‘‘Peacock’’ by the U. 8S. Sloop ‘‘Hornet,’’ Enslaved While a Prisoner of War, and Retained Forty-Five Years in Bondage, N.p., n.d.

Clarke, Lewis and Milton. Narra- tives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the Revolution Dur- ing a Captivity of More than Twenty Years among Slavehold- ers of Kentucky, one of the so- called Christian States of North America, Dictated by themselves, Boston, 1846.

Cooper, Thomas. Narrative of the Life of Thomas Cooper, New York, 1832.

Craft, William. Running a Thou- sand Miles for Freedom; or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery, London, 1860.

Davis, Noah. A Narrative of the Life of Reverend Noah Davis, A Colored Man, Written by Him- self, Baltimore, 1859.

Douglass, Frederick. Narratives of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, Boston, 1845.

. My Bondage and My Freedom, Part I — Life as 6 Slave, Part II — Life as a Free- man, New York, 1855.

————.. Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Written by Himself, Hartford, 1882.

Eldridge, Elleanor. Memoirs of Elleanor Eldridge, Providence, 1838.

3 Be, | : L | g ‘4

112

Equiano, Olaudah. The Interest- ing Narrative of the Life of Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, London, 1789.

. The Interesting Nar- rative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, Leeds, 1814.

Grandy, Moses. Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy, Late a Slave in the United States of America, Second American from the last London edition, Boston, 1844°

Green, J. D. Narrative of the Life of J. D. Green, A Runaway Slave from Kentucky, Eight thousand, Huddersfield, 1864.

Green, William. Narrative of Events of the Life of William Green (Formerly a Slave), Writ- ten by Himself. Springfield, 1853.

Grimes, William. Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, Written by Himself, New York, 1825.

Gronniosaw, James A. U. A Nar- rative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince, As Related by Himself, Leeds, 1814.

Hammon, Briton. A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man, Boston, 1760.

Ilammon, Jupiter. An Address to the Negroes of the State of New York, New York, 1787.

Hayden, William. Narrative of William Hayden Containing a Faithful Account of His Travels for a Number of Years Whilst a Slave in the South, Written by Himself, Cincinnati, 1846.

Henson, Josiah. The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Nar- rated by Himself to Samuel Eliot, Boston, 1849.

Truth Stranger than Fiction, Father Henson’s Story of His Own Life with an Intro- duction by Mrs. Harriet B. Stowe, Boston, 1858.

. An Autobiography of

the Rev. Josiah Henson (Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s ‘‘Uncle Tom’’) From 1789-1879 with Preface by Mrs. Harriet B. Stowe, Introductory Notes by Wendell Phillips and John G. Whittier, Boston, 1879.

Jackson, Andrew. Narrative and Writings of Andrew Jackson of Kentucky Containing an Ac- count of His Birth and Twenty- Six Years of His Life While a Slave, Narrated by Himself, Written by a Friend, Syracuse, 1847,

(Jacobs, Harriet.) Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Written by Herself, Edited by L. Maria Child, Boston, 1861.

(Joanna.) Narrative of Joanna, an Emancipated Slave of Surinam, (From Stedman’s Narrative of Five Years’ Expedition Against the Revolted Negroes of Suri- nam), Boston, 1838.

Jones, Thomas. The Experience of Thomas Jones who was a Slave for Forty-three Years, Written by a Friend as Given to Him by Brother Jones, Boston, 1850.

Keckley, Elizabeth. Behind the Scenes by Elizabeth Keckley, Formerly a Slave, But more Re- cently Modiste and Friend to Mrs. Abraham Lincoln or Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House, Buffalo, 1931, (reprinted from first edition 1868).

Lane, Lunsford. The Narrative of Lunsford Lane, Formerly of Raleigh, N. C., Published by Himself, Boston, 1842.

Lunsford Lane; or Another Helper from North Carolina, by the Rev. William G. Hawkins, Boston, 1863.

Loguen, Jermain W. The Rev. J. W. Loguen as a Slave and as a Freeman, A Narrative of Real Life, Syracuse, 1859.

Marrant, John. A Narrative of the Lord’s Wonderful Dealings with John Marrant, a Black, . . . Tak- en Down from His Own Relation

. by the Rev. Mr. Aldridge, London, 1785.

Mars, James. Life of James Mars, a Slave Born and Sold in Con-

Tue Necro History BULLETIN

necticut, Written by Himself, Hartford, 1866.

. Life of James Mars, a Slave Born and Sold in Connec- ticut, Written by Himself, Eleventh edition, Hartford, 1872.

Mason, Isaac. Life of Isaac Mason, as a Slave, Worcester, 1893.

Northup, Solomon. Twelve Years a Slave, Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New York, Kidnapped in Washington City in 1841 and Rescued in 1853, from a Cotton Plantation near the Red River in Louisiana, Dictated to David Wilson, New York, 1857.

Offley, G. W. A Narrative of the Life and Labors of the Rev. G. W. Offley, a Colored Man and Local Preacher, Who Lived Twenty-seven Years at the South and Twenty-four at the North, Written by Himself, Hartford, 1860.

Parker, Jamie. Jamie Parker, The Fugitive by Mrs. Emily Cath- erine Pierson, Hartford, 1851.

Parker, William. ‘‘The Freed- man’s Story’’ in Two Parts, At- lantic Monthly, vol. XVII, Part I (February, 1866) pp. 152-160, Part II (March, 1866) pp. 276- 295.

Pennington, James W. C. The Fu- gitive Blacksmith, or Events in the History of James W. C. Pen- nington, Pastor of a Presbyteri- an Church, New York, Formerly a Slave in the State of Maryland, United States, second edition, London, 1849.

Platt, Rev. S. H. The Martyrs and the Fugitive, or a Narrative of the Captivity, Sufferings and Death of an African Family and the Escape of their Son, New York, 1859.

Prinee, Mary. The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, Related by Herself, With a Sup- plement by the Editor, To Which is Added the Narrative of Asa- Asa, a Captured African, Lon- don, 1831.

Randolph, Peter. From Slave Cab- in to the Pulpit, The Autobiog- raphy of Rev. Peter Randolph: The Southern Question Illustrat-

]

4 (

Marcu, 1952

ed and Sketches of Slave Life,

Boston, 1893.

Roberts, Ralph. ‘‘ A Slave’s Story’’ Putnam’s Monthly Magazine vol. IX (June, 1857) pp. 614-620.

Roper, Moses. A Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper from American Slavery, third edition, London, 1839.

Aunt Sally, or the Cross the Way to Freedom, A Narrative of the Slave Life and Purchase of the Mother of Rev. Isaac Williams of Detroit, Michigan, Cincinnati, 1858.

(Smith,) Venture. A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Ven- ture, a Native of Africa, But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America, Related by Himself, New Lon- don, 1835.

Steward, Austin. Twenty-Two Years a Slave and Forty Years a Freeman, Embracing a Corre- spondence of Several Years While President of Wilberforce Colony, London, Canada West, Second Edition, Rochester, 1859.

(Still,) Peter. The Kidnapped and the Ransomed Being the Person- al Recollections of Peter Still and His Wife, Vina, after Forty Years of Slavery, Written by Kate Pickard, Syracuse, 1856.

Stroyer, Jacob. Sketches of My Life in the South, Part I, Salem, 1879.

Thompson, John. The Life of John Thompson, A Fugitive Slave, Containing His History of Twen- ty-five Years in Bondage and His Providential Escape, Written by Himself, Worcester, 1856.

Tilmon, Levin. A Brief Miscellane- ous Narrative of the More Early Part of the Life of L. Tilmon, Written by Himself, Jersey City, 1853.

Truth, Sojourner, Narrative of So- journer Truth, A Northern Slave, Emancipated from Bodily Servitude by the State of New York in 1828, Boston, 1850.

Tubman, Harriet. Scenes in the

life of Harriet Tubman, as Told

by Sarah Bradford, New York,

1869.

. Harriet, the Moses of

Her People, Written by Sarah

Bradford, New York, 1886.

Turner, Nat. The Confession, Trial and Execution of Nat Turner, The Negro Insurrectionist ; also

a List of Persons Murdered in the Insurrection in Southampton County, Virginia, on the 21st and 22nd of August, 1831, with Introductory Remarks by T. R. Gray, Petersburg, Virginia, 1881 (reprinted from first edition, 1831).

Veney, Bethany. The Narrative of Bethany Veney, A Slave Woman, Second Edition, Worcester, 1890.

Voorhis, Robert. Life