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Setting out to correct the inadequacies of many written accounts of slavery, teacher and social activist Octavia Albert added her own incisive commentary to the personal narratives of former slaves. Her early interviews, like many antebellum slave narratives, depict cruel punishments, divided ...

Setting out to correct the inadequacies of many written accounts of slavery, teacher and social activist Octavia Albert added her own incisive commentary to the personal narratives of former slaves. Her early interviews, like many antebellum slave narratives, depict cruel punishments, divided families, and debilitating labour. Seeing herself as a public advocate for social change, Albert called for every Christian's personal acceptance of responsibility for slavery's legacies and lessons. As well as its historical value, the book has many merits as a work of literature, using dialogue and experiments with dialect, and incorporating songs and poems in the text.

From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their ...

From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their plantations whenever they could. For generations, important aspects about slave life on the plantations of the American South have remained shrouded. Historians thought, for instance, that slaves were generally pliant and resigned to their roles as human chattel, and that racial violence on the plantation was an aberration. In this precedent setting book, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, significant numbers of slaves did in fact frequently rebel against their masters and struggled to attain their freedom. By surveying a wealth of documents, such as planters' records, petitions to county courts and state legislatures, and local newspapers, this book shows how slaves resisted, when, where, and how they escaped, where they fled to, how long they remained in hiding, and how they survived away from the plantation. Of equal importance, it examines the reactions of the white slaveholding class, revealing how they marshaled considerable effort to prevent runaways, meted out severe punishments, and established patrols to hunt down escaped slaves. Reflecting a lifetime of thought by our leading authority in African American history, this book provides the key to truly understanding the relationship between slaveholders and the runaways who challenged the system--illuminating as never before the true nature of the South's "most peculiar institution."

In 1803, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British imperial government conquered the Dutch colony of Berbice and took over the management of presumed governmental slaves. These consisted of persons on four estates and artisans in New Amsterdam, the colony's capital, which comprised a group known as ...

In 1803, during the Napoleonic Wars, the British imperial government conquered the Dutch colony of Berbice and took over the management of presumed governmental slaves. These consisted of persons on four estates and artisans in New Amsterdam, the colony's capital, which comprised a group known as winkel (shop) slaves. The British efforts to generate a profit from these slaves caused conflict and engendered resistance.

This study is important because it illustrates that the imperial government arrived at the general abolition of slavery throughout its colonies in a rather ad hoc and piecemeal fashion. The study also raises important questions about the government's commitment to general abolition, noting that the crown slaves were hardly treated better than the majority of privately owned slaves. Thompson uses a wealth of archival sources and makes a significant contribution by utilizing primary material so that the slaves themselves recount their individual experiences. The major strength of this work is that it deals with state slaves, a study that has never been done before in the historiography of slavery in the Americas.