Slave narratives
Slave narratives are first-person accounts by formerly enslaved people describing enslavement, escape, resistance, and the pursuit of freedom.
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Frederick Douglass’s 1845 autobiography recounts his enslavement, escape, and emergence as an abolitionist speaker. Its vivid account of literacy, resistance, and escape became one of the genre’s most influential books.
Abolitionism: A movement to end slavery, expressed through political action, public speaking, organizing, and print. Abolitionist networks promoted many narratives and used them to argue against slavery.
Briton Hammon: A formerly enslaved Black man whose account of captivity and travels was published in Boston in 1760. His narrative is often identified as the first account by a Black person published in colonial America.
Literacy and slavery: The contested access to reading and writing under systems that restricted enslaved people’s education. Accounts of learning to read often present literacy as a tool of resistance and self-determination.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Harriet Jacobs’s 1861 autobiography describes enslavement, sexual coercion, family separation, and escape. Jacobs makes enslaved women’s experiences and strategies of resistance central to the narrative.
Authenticity certificate: A prefatory endorsement by witnesses or editors asserting that a published account is genuine. Publishers used certificates to answer readers’ doubts about Black authorship and truthfulness.
Mary Prince: A Bermudian-born woman whose 1831 dictated autobiography described enslavement in the Caribbean and Britain. Her testimony helped expose the violence of slavery in the British colonies during abolitionist debate.
Testimony: A statement offered as evidence, especially an account of events witnessed or experienced. Narratives presented personal experience as evidence against claims that slavery was benign.
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Olaudah Equiano’s 1789 autobiography recounts his enslavement, maritime life, purchase of freedom, and conversion to Christianity. Its early publication helped establish the autobiographical form as an argument against the slave trade.
Amanuensis: A person who writes down a text dictated by someone else. Some formerly enslaved authors dictated their accounts to collaborators who recorded or edited them.