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 and 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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