Slave Narratives

Early Slave Narratives

Prior to emancipation, teaching enslaved blacks to read or write was strictly prohibited. Although the experience of people of African descent in the land that would become the United States began in indentured servitude, by the late 17th century, perpetual enslavement became the fate of enslaved Africans and their posterity in the New World. In the years following the Stono Rebellion (1739), South Carolina would be the first of the colonies to outlaw teaching a slave to write or read. Others followed suit, making it illegal to teach an enslaved black to read or write. Harsh penalties were imposed on whites as well, but if an enslaved black was caught learning to read and write without the expressed permission of her or his master, by law the punishment was death. It is well documented in The Narrative of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass how learning to read or write “spoiled” a slave.

First Slave's Autobiography

In 1750, the first account of a former slave's autobiographical story was released in the Gentlemen's Magazine. Ten years later, in 1760, Briton Hammon's A Narrative of Uncommon Sufferings and Surprising Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man—Servant to General Winslow, of Marshfield, in New England; Who Returned to Boston after Having been Absent[Page 1947]Almost Thirteen Years, while not commercially profitable, appealed to a Christian readership and opened the door for future narratives of formerly enslaved blacks.

In 1789, Olaudah Equiano's The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano; or Gustavus Vassa, the African; Written by Himself would be the first profitable and renowned autobiographical account of an enslaved African's journey through slavery into freedom. Since its publication, Equiano's account of his exploits of capture, exchange, slavery, and eventual freedom has been a hotly contested firsthand account of slavery. Venture Smith's A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Venture, a Native of Africa: But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America, as Related by Himself (1798) tells of Smith's capture, and enslavement, the purchase of his freedom (also his family's), and his ascendance as a propertied citizen of Rhode Island. These narratives by Equiano, Smith, and Hammon are as different as night and day in terms of tone, use of language, and other literary elements, but they lay the groundwork for the formulaic nature and appeal of the slave narratives.

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