Lois Mailou Jones, Initiation, Liberia

"Ain't I a Woman?"

Slavery and Freedom Literature

(Part A)

INDEX

Part A:  Abolitionist and Slavery Literature

• Abolitionist Literature
• Slave Narratives       

Part B:  Neo-Slave / Freedom Literature   

Part C: Resources: History,Theory,Topics 

Abolitionist Fiction

"Am I not a man and a brother?"
(Popular Abolitionist Icon)

Brown, William Wells

Child, Lydia Maria

Harper, Frances Watkins

Melville, Herman

Spofford, Harriet Prescott

Stowe, Harriet Beecher

Wilson, Harriet E.

Other Resources

William Wells Brown

• Brown biography.
• Clotelle; or The Colored Heroine--e-text of novel. Another copy of Clotelle.
• Heath Study Guide for Clotelle--key issues, themes, strategies.
• Clotel and the Historicity of the Anecdote --Schweninger's scholarly article.
• The 'unguarded expressions of the feelings of the negroes': Gender, Slave Resistance, and William Wells Brown's Revisions of 'Clotel' --scholarly article.
• 'Civil' War Wounds: William Wells Brown, Violence, and the Domestic Narrative --scholarly article.

Lydia Maria Child

• The First Woman in the Republic: A Cultural Biography of Lydia Maria Child--good overview of this champion of rights for Indian, Blacks, women, and immigrants.
• Malem Boo. A Brazilian Slave--story published in The Oasis, 1834; more e-text links at bottom of the page.
• Slavery's Pleasant Homes and Other Writings from the Liberty Bell--online texts.
• Quadroons--online text of story.
• Loo Loo: Part I and Loo Loo: Part II--story of inter-racial marriage
• Poor Chloe. A True Story of Massachusetts in the Olden Time--slavery story published in Atlantic Monthly 1866. Another copy of Poor Chloe.

Frances Watkins Harper

• Watkins (Harper) Biography; Harper biography 2
• Two Offers--see my anthology web page for the e-text of this story, published in The Anglo-African, 1859.
• White Slavery, Black Referents, Histotextuality--Foreman's scholarly article on Iola Leroy.
• Sketches of Southern Life --collection of her poems.
• Selected poems; poems; more poems
• Portrayals and Counter Portrayals--excellent essay (Am. Studies Association) on images of black women by Jacobs, Harper, and Hopkins. 
• Racial Hysteria: Female Pathology and Race Politics in Harper's 'Iola Leroy' and W.D. Howells's 'An Imperative Duty' --Birnbaum's scholarly article. 
• Raising Voices, Lifting Shadows: Competing Voice-Paradigms in Harper's Iola Leroy --Christmann's scholarly article.

Herman Melville

• Life and Words--but many of the links do not work
• Benito Cereno--e-text of Melville's story of a slave uprising
• The Amistad Story--click the links at the bottom of the page to read the whole story.
• Black Misery, White Guilt and Amistad (film)--review by Fontenot
• Benito Cereno Study Aid--good commentary on the story; some study questions at the end
• Study Guide for Benito Cereno (Heath)--issues, themes, strategies.
  
  
• Other(ed) Ghosts: Gothicism and the Bonds of Reason in Melville, Chesnutt, and Morrison--scholarly article
• The Paradox of Slave Mutiny in Herman Melville, Charles Johnson, and Frederick Douglass --scholarly article.
• Reconsideration: Teaching in the Multiracial Classroom: Reconsidering Melville's 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.
• Madness and Mastery in Melville's 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.
• The Idea of Nature in 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.
• Dusky Comments of Silence: Language, Race and Herman Melville's 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.
• The Gaze of History in 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.
• Significant Silence of Race: 'La Cousine Bette' and 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.
• Fatal Underestimation--Sue's 'Atar-Gull' and Melville's 'Benito Cereno' --scholarly article.

• Moby Dick--complete e-text of the novel.
• Guide for Moby Dick Beginners--overviews and chapter-by-chapter aids
• Sperm Whales: The Real Moby Dick--good information from PBS
• Wreck of the Whaleship That Spawned Moby-Dick--review of Owen Chases' horrific book about the true story that inspired Moby Dick.
• The Sweet Tongues of Cannibals: The Grotesque Pacific in Moby Dick --scholarly article
• What's Eating Ahab? The Logic of Ingestion and the Performance of Meaning in Moby-Dick--Boren's scholarly article

• Teaching Melville and Style: A Catalogue of Selected Rhetorical Devices --scholarly article.
• 'They but reflect the things': Style and Rhetorical Purpose in Melville's 'The Piazza Tale' --scholarly article.
• Billy Budd and Capital Punishment: A Tale of Three Centuries--Franklin's scholarly article.
• The Machine, the Body, and the Text in Melville's Shorter narratives--scholarly article primarily on "Maids of Tartarus" and "Bartleby, the Scrivener."
• From Wall Street to Astor place--scholarly article historicizing Bartleby

Harriet Prescott Spofford

• Spofford Biography
• Down the River--e-text of this escape-to-freedom story, published in the Atlantic Monthly, 1864. Links to biographies and e-texts at bottom of page.
• The Amber Gods--online text. Links to biographies and e-texts at bottom of the page. Also available in Atlantic Monthly: Part I and Part II.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

• Stowe Home Page; another Stowe biography (Domestic Goddesses site) with many excellent links
• Uncle Tom's Cabin-complete text of novel online
• Another copy of Uncle Tom's Cabin--very nice.
• The Classic Text: Traditions and Interpretations--interesting background information about Uncle Tom's Cabin. Illustrations included.
• Uncle Tom's Cabin: Heath Study Guide--issues, themes, strategies
• Images of Uncle Tom's Cabin--book illustrations, posters, advertisements, handbills for the book and play
• Lecture Notes on Uncle Tom's Cabin--helpful information in semi-outline form
• Uncle Tom and American Culture--excellent multi-site on all aspects of the novel. Supporting material includes illustrations from Uncle Tom, the abolitionist movement, sentimental poets like Sigourney, minstrel shows, Afro-American responses to Uncle Tom, the women's movement, and many more items.
• Sentimental Power: Uncle Tom's Cabin and the Politics of Literary History --Jane Thompkins' classic scholarly article published in Sensational Designs: The Cultural Work of American Fiction 1790-1860.
• Mothers in Uncle Tom's America--selections from the novel focusing on the different mothers; excellent background sections with excerpts from L. Sigourney's poetry, Godey's Ladies Book, Catherine Beecher, and other writings on the subject.
• Between the Rhetoric of Abolition and Feminism--Thornton's scholarly essay on Uncle Tom's Cabin.
• Calvinism Feminized: Divine Matriarchy in Harriet Beecher Stowe--Gatt's scholarly article.
• Poetic Responses to Uncle Tom--by Frances Watkins Harper and Paul Lawrence Dunbar.
• Anti-Tom Novels--excerpts from pro-slavery novels rewriting Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Uncle Tom Onstage & the Minstrel Tradition--scroll down to the names of George Aiken and Ntozake Shange; many minstrel links.

Harriet E. Wilson

• Wilson biography.
• Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of the Free Black (1859)--complete text of novel online. Here is another Our Nig and another Our Nig
• Reworking the Conversion Narrative: Race and Christianity in Our Nig--West's scholarly article.
• Dwelling in the House of Oppression: The Spatial, Racial, and Textual Dynamics of Harriet Wilson's Our Nig--Leveen's scholarly article.
• Speaking of the Body's Pain: Harriet Wilson's 'Our Nig' --scholarly article.

Other Resources

• Review of Carby's Reconstructing Womanhood.

Slave Narratives

                 

Frederick Douglass/Harriet Tubman/Booker T. Washington/Ida B. Wells/W. E. B. DuBois   

"It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder."

(W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black folks, Chapter 1.)

DuBois, W.E.B.

Douglass, Frederick

Equiano, Olaudah

Jacobs, Harriet

Prince, Mary

Slave Narrative Excerpts

Washington, Booker T.

Other Resources

W.E.B. DuBois

• See my Realistic Period page.

Frederick Douglass

• Douglass biography; Douglass biography 2
• Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845)--complete text. Copy 2 of Douglass narrative--very nice.
• Douglass as an American Visionary--beautiful site by National Park Service Museum American Visionaries series: about Douglass and the influence of his ideas.
• Douglass links
• Black Labor--illustrations and questions
• "The Meaning of the 4th of July"--background for famous speech by Douglass; click on link for full text of the speech.
• "An Appeal to Congress"--on suffrage
• "Reconstruction"--another appeal to Congress
• Lincoln, Douglass, and Black Emergence--helpful lesson plan; also covers films like Glory.
  
  
• "The Spirit of Hate" and Frederick Douglass--White's scholarly article
• Picturing the Mother, Claiming Egypt: My Bondage and My Freedom as Auto(bio)ethnography--Chaney's scholarly article
• "The Republic of Letters": Frederick Douglas, Ireland, and the Irish Narratives--Sweeney's scholarly article.
• The Paradox of Slave Mutiny in Herman Melville, Charles Johnson, and Frederick Douglass --scholarly article.
• Counter-Discourses on the Racialization of Theft and Ethics in Douglass's 'Narrative' and Jacobs's 'Incidents' --scholarly article.
• 'He made us laugh some': Frederick Douglass's Humor --scholarly article.

Olaudah Equiano

• Equiano biography
• The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African--e-text. another copy.
• Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Chapter 2. See also Chapter 5 in the second half of Chapters 2 (minus paragraphs 1-16) and Chapter 5 (minus paragraphs 1-15).
• Heath Study Guide for Equiano--issues, themes. strategies.
• Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano (Princeton U)--very helpful commentary with illustrations from and about the time period; three related links: Background, Experiences, Travel--with commentary, maps, pictures of African coast and of slaves; Equiano's Narrative--helpful commentary about the themes of freedom and salvation, power and identity; The Legacy of Equiano--illustrations and other links.
  
  
• The Path Not Taken: Cultural Identity in the Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano--Sabino's scholarly article
• Moses and the Egyptian: Religious Authority in Olaudah Equiano's Interesting Narrative--Elrod's scholarly article.
• Writing from the Center or the Margins? Olaudah Equiano's Writing Life Reassessed--scholarly article.
• Interstices, Hybridity, and Identity: Olaudah Equiano and the Discourse of the African Slave Trade--scholarly article.
• Dominant and Submerged Discourses in 'The Life of Olaudah Equiano'? - or Gustavus Vassa--scholarly article.

Harriet Jacobs

• Jacobs biography; Jacobs biography 2
• Harriet Jacobs Site--has links to photos/drawings illustrating slave life and people/places in her autobiography.
• Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl--complete text. (Alternate source: Jacobs text 2). Recommended chapters:
  • Ch. I Childhood
  • Ch. VI Jealous Mistress
  • Ch. X Perilous Passage
  • Ch. XVI Scenes at the Plantation
  • Ch. XXI Loophole of Retreat
  • Ch. XLI Free at Last
  
  
• Heath Guide to Jacobs--issues, themes, strategies.
• Feminism and Slavery in Incidents--student paper on "true womanhood."
• "The Cult of True Womanhood"--long selection from this classic essay by Barbara Welter.
• Harriet Jacobs and the Sexual Violence of Slavery--illustrations and questions about Incidents.
• Black Sexuality--illustrations and questions.
  
  
• Between the Rock and the Hard Place: Mediating Spaces in 'Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl'--Randle's scholarly article.
• Through Slave Culture's Lens Comes the Abundant Source: Harriet A. Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl--scholarly article.
• Written by Herself--Well's scholarly essay on the failure of ideologies in Incidents
• Portrayals and Counter Portrayals-- excellent essay (Am. Studies Association) on images of black women by Jacobs, Harper, and Hopkins.
• The Laws Were Laid Down to Me Anew: Harriet Jacobs and the Reframing of Legal Fictions--Accomando's scholarly article.
• Literary Influences on Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. . .--Vivanco's scholarly article.
• Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century America--good book review.
• Counter-Discourses on the Racialization of Theft and Ethics in Douglass's 'Narrative' and Jacobs's 'Incidents'
• 'I verily believed myself to be a free woman': Harriet Jacobs's Journey into Capitalism --scholarly article.

Mary Prince

• History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave--e-text.

Slave Narratives (excerpts edited by Steven Mintz)

• The Slave Trade : Memories of Africa
  • John Barbot. "Those sold by the Blacks . . ."
  • Ayuba Suleiman Diallo. "He Was No Common Slave . . ."
  • Olaudah Equiano. "They ...Carry Off As Many as They Can Seize . . ."
  • Venture Smith. "I then had a rope put around my neck . . ."
  
  
• The Middle Passage & West Indies
  • Falconbridge-1. "The Men Negroes . . . are . . . Fasten'd Together . . . by handcuffs . . ."
  • Falconbridge-2. "Various Deceptions are Used in the Disposal of Sick Slaves . . ."
  
  
• Slave Plantations: USA
  • Charles Ball. "I Assisted ...to Inter the Infant," from Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, a Black Man (1837)
  • Peter Randolph. "The Slaves Assemble in the Swamps . . ." from Slave Cabin to the Pulpit (1893)
  • John Brown. "Fixed Bells and Horns on my Head . . . ," from Slave Life in Georgia: A Narrative of the Life, Sufferings, and Escape of John Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Now in England (1855)
  • Lewis Clarke. "There Is But ...Little Scruple Separating Families . . . ," from Interesting Memoirs and Documents Relating to Slavery (1846)
  • Josiah Henson. "The Overseer ... Sent My Mother Away ... to a Retired Spot . . . ," from Uncle Tom's Story of his Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (1872)
  
  
• Resistance & Escapes to Freedom: USA
  • Margaret Ward. "She Would Not Be Whipped, She Would Rather Die . . . ," from Eber Tibbet's Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad (1879)
  • Harriet Tubman. "The Most Remarkable Woman of this Age . . . ," from Commonwealth (1863)
  • Margaret Garner. "She Would Kill Herself . . . Before She would Return to Bondage . . . ," from Levi Coffin's Reminiscences (1876)--woman whose life is fictionalized in Toni Morrison's Beloved
  • Frederick Douglass-1. "A New World Burst upon my Agitated Vision . . . ," from My Bondage and my Freedom (1855)
  • Henry "Box" Brown. "He ... Hit upon a New Invention Altogether. . . ," from William Still, Underground Railroad Records (1872)
  • Women Resisted, selections.
  
  
• Emancipation
  • Jourdon Anderson. "I Thought the Yankees Would Have Hung You Long before this . . .
  • Elias Hill. "They Hit Me With Their Fists . . ."[KKK]
  • Frederick Douglass-2. "The Serfs of Russia . . . Were Given Three Acres of Land'

Booker T. Washington

• See my Realistic Period page.

Other Resources

• Introduction to the Slave Narrative--helpful introduction by William Andrews.
• Our Mothers' Gardens: The Slave Past--covers traditional slave narratives.
• The Slave Narrative--many links to slave narratives; short essay on the genre; helpful list of typical characteristics of a slave narrative.
• Douglass, Booker T., and W.E.B: Black Educational Theories--helpful lesson plan; also covers briefly some contemporary writers like Lorraine Hansberry.
• Black Writers from the Realistic Period in American Literature--go to my Realism web page and scroll down to the writer's name.

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