Narratives
I enjoyed studying the slave narratives because I have always been very comfortable with this style of writing. Within the depths of the narratives were competing voices, ideologies, and discourses that were just waiting to be discovered by an attentive reader. The narratives emphasized the issues of authority and authenticity not only with the texts themselves but with introductions and prefaces. I enjoyed Harriet Jacobs narrative the most, but also found Sojourner Truth's speeches the most challenging to analyze. Frederick Douglass was an amazing man, and his narrative was the easiest to read. He obviously had a lot of control with his text, more so than most of the other narratives we read in class. However, the fact that so many people praise Frederick Douglass as one of the first authentic slave narratives troubles me. Too many people emphasis Douglass because he is the simplest to read; why bother trying to sort through the various transcriptions of Truth's speeches when you can read Douglass and get similar information? An important fact that is not emphasized about Douglass is the time he spent editing and releasing different versions of his narrative. This fact implies that there is more to Douglass's words than meets the eye, and his narrative must be as closely scrutinized as any other.
In researching other possible slave narratives, I came across Ida B. Wells. Although she was born of slave parents, she, herself was never a slave. Despite the fact that she did not necessarily fit into the category of slave narratives, I thought it was important to look at her as a figure in history and literature because of the many amazing tasks she did throughout her life. She fought furiously against laws after slaves were supposedly emancipated, and is best known for her work against ending lynching. She was a more contemporary look at how slavery was still prevalent in the laws even when it was supposedly eradicated. My only regret with including her was that I could not find any free versions of her autobiography, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells , online to include with this web page.
Ida B. Wells (1862-1931)
Ida B. Wells was born in Holly Springs, Mississippi, months before the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. She was the oldest of eight children. When her parents died in 1880 as a result of a yellow fever plague in Holly Springs, Wells took it upon herself to become a teacher in Holly Springs in order to support her younger siblings. In spite of hardship, Wells was able to complete her studies at Rust College and in 1888 became a teacher in Memphis, Tennessee.
While living in Memphis, Wells became an editor and co-owner of a local black newspaper called "The Free Speech and Headlight." She wrote her editorials under the pen-name "Iola." When a respected black store owner and friend of Barnett was lynched in 1892, Wells used her paper to attack the evils of lynching and encouraged the black townsmen of Memphis to go west.
While attending an editor's convention in New York, Wells received word not to return to Memphis because her life would be in danger. Wells took her cause to England to gain support and earned a reputation as a fiery orator and courageous leader of her people. Upon returning to the United States, she settled in Chicago and formed the Women's Era Club, the first civic organization for African-American women. The name was later changed to the Ida B. Wells Club in honor of its founder.
In June of 1895 she married Ferdinand Barnett, a prominent Chicago attorney. Wells-Barnett kept active until the birth of her second son, Herman. She resigned as president of the Ida B. Wells Club and devoted her time to raising her two young sons and subsequently her two daughters. However, by the start of the 20th century the racial strife in the country was disturbing. Lynching and race riots abounded across the nation.
In 1909, Barnett was asked to be a member of the "Committee of 40." This committee established the groundwork for the organization now known as the NAACP, the oldest civil rights organization in the country. Wells-Barnett continued her tireless crusade for equal rights for African-Americans until her death in 1931.
Narrative Texts
Information
Frederick Douglass
Frederick Douglass was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland near Hillsborough, 12 miles from Easton. He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey, when he was still an infant. She died when Douglass was nine years old. Douglass never knew anything about the identity of his father, other than that he was a white man.
When Douglass was thirteen, Hugh Auld's wife, Sophia, broke the law by teaching him to read. Mr. Auld disapproved, saying that if a slave learns to read, he would become dissatisfied with his condition and desire freedom; Douglass later referred to this as the first abolitionist speech he had ever heard.
During this period, Douglass became attached to a deeply religious man known to us as "Uncle Lawson", who became a spiritual father to Douglass. Young Douglass took every opportunity to be with Lawson, who told him that it was possible for him to be delivered from bondage. Douglass fervently prayed to God that it should so transpire.
In 1834, Hugh Auld rented Douglass out to a farmer named Edward Covey, a "slave breaker" of extraordinary cruelty. 15-year-old Douglass was indeed nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal under Covey, but finally rebelled the beatings and fought back. Covey lost in a confrontation with Douglass and never tried to beat him again.
In 1837, Douglass joined the East Baltimore Mental Improvement Society, a debating club of free blacks. Through the society, he met a free African-American housekeeper, Anna Murray. Anna Murray sold a poster bed to buy sailor's papers needed for Frederick Douglass's escape. On September 3, 1838 Douglass boarded a train in Maryland on his way to freedom from slavery, dressed in a sailor's uniform and carrying identification papers provided by a free black seaman.
Douglass continued reading. He joined various organizations in New Bedford, including a black church. He regularly attended Abolitionist meetings. He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's weekly journal, the Liberator, and in 1841, he heard Garrison speak at the Bristol Anti-Slavery Society's annual meeting. Several days later, Douglass gave his first speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention in Nantucket Island.
Douglass later became the publisher of a series of newspapers: "The North Star", "Frederick Douglass Weekly", "Frederick Douglass' Paper", "Douglass' Monthly" and "New National Era". The motto of "The North Star" was "Right is of no sex--Truth is of no color--God is the Father of us all, and we are all Brethren".
In 1851, Douglass merged the North Star with Gerrit Smith's Liberty Party Paper to form Frederick Douglass' Paper, which was published until 1860. Douglass came to agree with Smith and Lysander Spooner that the United States Constitution is an anti-slavery document, reversing his earlier belief that it was pro-slavery, a view he had shared with William Lloyd Garrison. Garrison had publicly demonstrated his opinion of the Constitution by burning copies of it. Douglass' change of position on the Constitution was one of the most notable incidents of a division that emerged in the abolitionist movement after the publication of Spooner's book The Unconstitutionality of Slavery in 1846. This shift in opinion, as well as some other political differences, create a rift between Douglass and Garrison. Douglass further angered Garrison by saying that the Constitution could and should be used as an instrument in the fight against slavery. With this, Douglass began to assert his independence in the Garrisonians. Garrison saw the North Star as being in competition with the National Anti-Slavery Standard and Marius Robinson's Anti-slavery Bugle.
On February 20, 1895, Douglass attended a meeting of the National Council of Women in Washington, D.C.. During that meeting, he was brought to the platform and given a standing ovation by the audience. Shortly after he returned home, Frederick Douglass died of a massive heart attack or stroke in his adopted hometown of Washington D.C.. He is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY.
Narrative Texts
- Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (Courtesy of UC Berkeley)
- The Frederick Douglass Papers
Information
Additional Sources
Although time constraints allowed time to only research two people, I wanted to include information about others that I was interested in. There are many slave narratives available for research, some are just more well-known then others. It would be interesting to compare some of the more well-known narratives with those that are not well-known to see if there are any commonalities that set the popular narratives apart from the others.