“During the last three decades of legal slavery in America,” writes Lucinda MacKethan at the National Humanities Center, “African American writers perfected one of the nation’s first truly indigenous genres of written literature: the North American slave narrative.” These heavily mediated memoirs were the only real firsthand accounts of slavery most Americans outside the South encountered. Their authors were urged by abolitionist publishers to adopt conventions of the sentimental novel, and to feature showy introductions by white editors to validate their authenticity.
Hear all of the audio interviews with formerly enslaved people at the Library of Congress’s Voices Remembering Slavery project and find resources for teachers here.
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Josh Jones is a writer and musician based in Durham, NC. Follow him at @jdmagness
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