Introduction
During the Depression years, the Federal Writer’s Project held out the program that is meant to be influential and represent an extraordinary amount of the materials according to slavery. Despite the significance of scientific researches, works, and observations, personal experience tends to be an extraordinarily emotional and thought-provoking tool that engages people’s attention towards the issue. They collected materials between 1936 and 1938 in several states of the USA. The workers were instructed with specific questions and sent to ask people about their own slavery experience. This assignment will analyze three selected narratives from the project and figure out some controversial issues about it.
Slave Narrative Project
There are several thought-provoking similarities between all narratives. It seems that after all passed years after their awful and terrifying experience of being a slave, only gratitude had left in their hearts. They tried to notice all the positive aspects of this period and remember the warm moments from this life. They also pointed to the common lostness in occasions that happened after the freedom. They all started the new life right from the beginning with all the necessary lessons and discoveries. Their stories are different in the case of the attitude to their masters and their fears. It tends to be that their fears were influenced by the incidents around and frightened them, and these issues differed personally. These narratives reveal all the hardships and distinctions between slaves and free people, showing the enormous gap between their attitudes to life and the course of living.
After freedom, the shock and unwillingness of people tended many of them to live as they used to for a prolonged period. With the help of these stories, it is a lot easier to plunge into the horrible atmosphere of that time and understand how miserable life of a slave can be. Still, in contrast, how strong and brave were those people to have an ability to search for joy and happiness during such hard times. In my opinion, these narratives are trustworthy materials filled with emotions, pieces of evidence, and pieces of the soul from people who had their voices heard finally. There are many additional materials as photos that help illustrate the stories in the brilliant way possible.
John Cameron, Jackson, Mississippi
In John’s narrative, his attitude to his owner immediately catches the reader’s eye. Commonly, at the beginning of the story, people describe their childhood or first memories, but John pointed that the conditions he lived in were relatively acceptable. He said that the slaves were allowed to entertain themselves; they wore warm clothes and ate properly. John described various works held in the place he stayed and again mentioned the possibility to rest and even doing hobbies during his free time, such as fishing and hunting. After the war, many slaves stayed to work with the master, but the consequences influenced them all immensely. His story was surprisingly full of gratitude to his master, maybe in case of his awareness and comparison of how complicated and insufferable was the life of most slaves.
Sarah Allen, El Paso, Texas
Sarah started her story with the remarkable notice that she was born at bondage and not ashamed to talk about it. Like some others, Sarah and her family stayed with their master for a while after the freedom came. The masters treated them well and did not separate families. It was a very significant point for Sarah because she described the horrible examples and incidents of children who were sold apart from their families at an early age.
The slave trade was profitable, and also a good way to punish rebels (Araujo, 2017). She also pointed that many slaves used the opportunity to run after the master’s death, but she never wanted to do so. Sarah’s school experience started after the marriage because her husband was a teacher and never was a slave. This issue in her narrative exceptionally impacts me strongly, by the simpleness she describes that horrible gap between the slave and free person. The rate of the problems, wills, and happiness was creepily different for them.
James V. Deane, Baltimore, Maryland
James’s style of narrative is fundamentally different from them both narrators. He described everything amazingly detailed, and his story is full of facts, but at first seems emotionless, while the facts are terrifying. His masters were not so excellent as Sarah and John described theirs. The positive mentions were connected with a sufficient amount of food and the absence of whipping. James also spoke about slave weddings and horrifying rules; if the wife was from another master, he owned all their children.
His platinum was massive, and they worked hard from sunrise to sunset. Some patrollers kept the peace, getting the required information and negotiating with unspoken leaders. In his story, James showed emotions and warmly remembered how they sang the songs sitting on the bank of the Potomac River. They sang the pieces across the river to the slaves of Virginia, and they sang back to them. That moment in his story is mind-blowing.
Conclusion
In my opinion, this project became an excellent way for people who suffered the dark times in American history to tell their stories and maybe partly release the deep pain in their hearts. And for contemporaries, this collection of solo pieces should be a string and essential remembrance of the human’s valuables and strengths. The life of a human is not a tool for political and economical decisions and problem-solving, it is a gift and property of every person himself, and no one has a right to take it away in any case.
References
Araujo, A.L. (2017). Reparations for slavery and the slave trade: A transnational and comparative history. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Federal Writers’ Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 9, Mississippi, Allen-Young. (1936). Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Web.
Federal Writers’ Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 8, Maryland, Brooks-Williams. (1936). Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Web.
Federal Writers’ Project: Slave Narrative Project, Vol. 16, Texas, Part 1, Adams-Duhon. (1936). Retrieved from the Library of Congress. Web.