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Enslavement of ethnic African people in the United States up until the final abolishment of slavery in 1865 is a fact of our history. It is not a pleasant fact but it must be faced. The United States was not based on slavery but it was an important part of the social life and economy of the southern US and played a role, mainly before the Revolution but sometimes for several decades after, in the northern colonies. That being said, modern discussions of this institution rarely approach it in a balanced way or try to see the reality in all its complexity. One way to gain some insight into what conditions were actually like for enslaved people is to read their first-hand accounts of their lives. Some enslaved people who escaped to freedom would write accounts of their lives under slavery, once they learned to read and write or with the help of a literate person. In many slave states, it was illegal to teach an enslaved person to read and write. We have many such accounts today. The two reviewed here are Narrative of Sojourner Truth by Sojourner Truth and Narrative of My Escape from Slavery by Moses Roper. Both short books should be read by high school or older readers, mainly because of the unvarnished depictions of some of the harsher realities of the slave’s life, especially slaves who were trying to escape to freedom.
Sojourner Truth was a woman born into slavery in rural New York State in 1797. New York outlawed slavery as of 1827. Her owner in 1826 reneged on a promise to free her one year early, so she fled with her youngest child to New York City before the law changed. She was converted to Christianity and became a forceful speaker for the Gospel, freedom for slaves, women’s rights, and temperance. Her narrative tells about what slavery was like in the northern states, until it was abolished about 35 years before the Civil War. She was a very interesting, strong, and complex person and grew to be a mature Christian woman after many wanderings. She was a popular and flamboyant speaker, with a total audience of many thousands.
Moses Roper was enslaved in the southern states, including North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. His father was Caucasian and the owner of his mother, who was his half-Caucasian slave, but Roper was still classified as a slave and treated as such. In 1834, at age 19, after many escape attempts and resulting harsh punishments, he finally was able to get to freedom in Boston on a schooner. Roper, after his escape, stayed in Boston for a time but, fearful of slave catchers from the south, was aided by abolitionists to migrate to England. In England, Roper was active as a speaker in the slavery abolition movement, travelling all over Great Britain including the wilder rural areas in Cornwall and the Scottish Highlands. His Narrative was published in 1838 and sold many copies over the next ten years. In later years he migrated with his family to Canada.