gorillakitty

Like this taste test?

I'm going to preface this by saying I think slavery was absolutely horrible and I believe in human rights no matter what someone's race, sex, age, etc are. A few months ago I read random slave narratives that were collected as part of a WPA project in the 30's. While there were certainly horrific stories, I was surprised how many ex-slaves looked back at their time in slavery with a certain amount of fondness.

I suspect this was because they were out of the frying pan and into the fire, so to speak. I imagine there weren't many opportunities for ex-slaves and life could have been extremely difficult. One thing they often commented on was that food was more available when they were slaves. Another factor could be that many of these people were children when they were freed, so they possibly hadn't seen the worst of slavery.

My question is: what was life like for ex-slaves? What kinds of jobs, assistance, education, etc. were available to them? How often did slaves elect to stay as paid workers on the plantations they were freed from (I didn't read about any that stayed)?

Again, I'm not insinuating that the slaves didn't have it rough, even the "good" stories I read didn't sound like a good time to me; quite the opposite. Thanks for doing this AMA and for combating ignorance and prejudice every day.

Thanks, I'll check out his book, I read his sample chapter and I'm horrified (link for the lazy).

You raise some great points about the different ways the narratives could be skewed. I didn't get the impression any of the interviewees wanted to go back to slavery, and I think most fled the plantations they were enslaved in as soon as they could.

I know you've signed off, but if you come back, I would love to learn more about what happened immediately after the slaves were freed. I mean, where are they going to go? They've got no money, no housing, no food, no transportation.

I probably should have been a little more clear, I don't think anyone wanted to go back to the slave days and I think they were all glad to be free. It seemed like there were certain aspects of it that invoked somewhat good -- perhaps romanticized -- memories, like thinking about their youth or remembering family members that had since died. Their idea of "kind" slave owners were things like: we only got whipped occasionally or they let me visit my young children on a neighboring plantation.