Slave Narratives
"Fountain Hughes: My name is Fountain Hughes. I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia. My grandfather belong to Thomas Jefferson. My grandfather was a hundred and fifteen years old when he died. And now I am one hundred and, and one year old.
Herman Norwood: When you were a slave, Who did you work for?
Fountain Hughes: Well, I belonged to, uh, B., when I was a slave. My mother belonged to B. But ... we, uh, was all slave children. And after, soon after when we found out that we was free, why then we was, uh, bound out to different people ... And we would run away, and wouldn't stay with them. Why then we'd just go and stay anywheres we could. We had no home, you know ... after freedom, you know, colored people didn't have nothing ... Just like, uh, lot of, uh, wild people, we didn't, we didn't know nothing ... Now I couldn't go from here across the street, or I couldn't go through nobody's house without I have a note, or something from my master. And if I had that pass, that was what we call a pass, if I had that pass, I could go wherever he sent me ... they'd give me a note so there wouldn't nobody interfere with me, and tell who I belong to. And when I come back, why I carry it to my master and give that to him, that'd be all right. But I couldn't just walk away like the people does now, you know. It was what they call, we were slaves. We belonged to people. They'd sell us like they sell horses and cows and hogs and all like that. Have a auction bench, and they'd put you on, up on the bench and bid on you just same as you bidding on cattle you know.
Herman Norwood: Which had you rather be, Uncle Fountain?
Fountain Hughes: Me? Which I'd rather be? [Norwood laughs] You know what I'd rather do? If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun and just end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog. Night never comed out, you had nothing to do. Time to cut tobacco, if they want you to cut all night long out in the field, you cut. And if they want you to hang all night long, you hang, hang tobacco. It didn't matter about your tired, being tired. You're afraid to say you're tired. They just, well [voice fades away]."
(Source: Interview with Fountain Hughes, LOC)
Herman Norwood: When you were a slave, Who did you work for?
Fountain Hughes: Well, I belonged to, uh, B., when I was a slave. My mother belonged to B. But ... we, uh, was all slave children. And after, soon after when we found out that we was free, why then we was, uh, bound out to different people ... And we would run away, and wouldn't stay with them. Why then we'd just go and stay anywheres we could. We had no home, you know ... after freedom, you know, colored people didn't have nothing ... Just like, uh, lot of, uh, wild people, we didn't, we didn't know nothing ... Now I couldn't go from here across the street, or I couldn't go through nobody's house without I have a note, or something from my master. And if I had that pass, that was what we call a pass, if I had that pass, I could go wherever he sent me ... they'd give me a note so there wouldn't nobody interfere with me, and tell who I belong to. And when I come back, why I carry it to my master and give that to him, that'd be all right. But I couldn't just walk away like the people does now, you know. It was what they call, we were slaves. We belonged to people. They'd sell us like they sell horses and cows and hogs and all like that. Have a auction bench, and they'd put you on, up on the bench and bid on you just same as you bidding on cattle you know.
Herman Norwood: Which had you rather be, Uncle Fountain?
Fountain Hughes: Me? Which I'd rather be? [Norwood laughs] You know what I'd rather do? If I thought, had any idea, that I'd ever be a slave again, I'd take a gun and just end it all right away. Because you're nothing but a dog. You're not a thing but a dog. Night never comed out, you had nothing to do. Time to cut tobacco, if they want you to cut all night long out in the field, you cut. And if they want you to hang all night long, you hang, hang tobacco. It didn't matter about your tired, being tired. You're afraid to say you're tired. They just, well [voice fades away]."
(Source: Interview with Fountain Hughes, LOC)
Excerpt from Frederick Douglass's Speech: What to the Slave is the 4th of July?
"What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour." (Basker)
"During these leisure times, those old notions about freedom would steal over me again. When in Mr. Gardner's employment, I was kept in such a perpetual whirl of excitement, I could think of nothing, scarcely, but my life; and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty. I have observed this in my experience of slavery, -- that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom." (Source: Narrative)
I answer: a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy — a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and bloody, than are the people of these United States, at this very hour." (Basker)
"During these leisure times, those old notions about freedom would steal over me again. When in Mr. Gardner's employment, I was kept in such a perpetual whirl of excitement, I could think of nothing, scarcely, but my life; and in thinking of my life, I almost forgot my liberty. I have observed this in my experience of slavery, -- that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom." (Source: Narrative)
The Narrative of the Life of Henry "Box" Brown
"Henry 'Box' Brown was born enslaved in Louisa County, Virginia in 1815….The loss of freedom prevented him from living with his wife... in 1848 he heard.... that his wife and kids were to be sold to a plantation in North Carolina...After months of mourning loss, Henry resolved to escape form slavery" (Walls) |
"I was born about forty-five miles from the city of Richmond, in Louisa County, in the year 1815.
I entered the world a slave--in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty--but had imprinted upon my body no mark which could be made to signify that my destiny was to be that of a bondman. Neither was there any angel stood by, at the hour of my birth, to hand my body over, by the authority of heaven, to be the property of a fellow-man; no, but I was a slave because my countrymen had made it lawful, in utter contempt of the declared will of heaven, for the strong to lay hold of the weak and to buy and to sell them as marketable goods. Thus was I born a slave; tyrants-- remorseless, destitute of religion and every principle of humanity--stood by the couch of my mother and as I entered into the world, before I had done anything to forfeit my right to liberty, and while my soul was yet undefiled by the commission of actual sin, stretched forth their bloody arms and branded me with the mark of bondage, and by such means I became their own property." (Source: Narrative)
I entered the world a slave--in the midst of a country whose most honoured writings declare that all men have a right to liberty--but had imprinted upon my body no mark which could be made to signify that my destiny was to be that of a bondman. Neither was there any angel stood by, at the hour of my birth, to hand my body over, by the authority of heaven, to be the property of a fellow-man; no, but I was a slave because my countrymen had made it lawful, in utter contempt of the declared will of heaven, for the strong to lay hold of the weak and to buy and to sell them as marketable goods. Thus was I born a slave; tyrants-- remorseless, destitute of religion and every principle of humanity--stood by the couch of my mother and as I entered into the world, before I had done anything to forfeit my right to liberty, and while my soul was yet undefiled by the commission of actual sin, stretched forth their bloody arms and branded me with the mark of bondage, and by such means I became their own property." (Source: Narrative)