1830 to 1850

WORCESTER, Maryland

Antebellum America, Slavery, African American

Imagine starvation. Imagine being permitted a single peck of corn each week to fill a gnawing stomach. Imagine having no food to fuel your weary body, but forced to work twelve-hour days in the Georgia fields under a hot, blistering, sun. Just imagine. The word is slavery: that “non-existence” of being owned by another human being without any chance of personal freedom. Charles Ball, a slave in...

March, 1815 to 1832

MADISON, Kentucky

Slavery, Beatings, Women Slave Holders

As a gift from her parents Mrs. Betsy Banton received Lewis Clarke, as her slave.  Banton had previously feuded with her parents about the treatment of her slaves, Mrs. Banton had been known as an abusive slave holder. This gift was ment to make peace. At seven years old Clarke became her property. Banton chose Clarke since he was the son of her father, in choosing him she could split a family up...

1813 to 1823

FREDERICK, Virginia

Slave Trade, Slavery, fugitive slave

In the year 1813 right outside Fredericksburg, Virginia, a slave was born. The name of the slave was Henry Watson. Henry was born into slavery by his late mother, Letty. Like most slaves he had no recollection of his age, he had heard that the age of a slave is kept by the different seasons of the year. If a child were to ask of their age, the answer would be similar to this quote “this planting...

1841

ST LOUIS, Missouri

Slavery, African American

William Wells Brown’s narrative is not one of common consistency. He was unfortunate enough to be subjected to the harsh realities of chattel slavery through years of being rented out to various owners stretching from Missouri to Mississippi. A great deal of his time was spent aboard steamships, as a hand to take care of slaves or to wait on passengers. Wells recounts that after one particular summer...

1889

PAGE, Virginia

Runaway Slaves, Children, Freedom, Massachusetts, Women, Slavery

Bethany Veney recalls her time as a slave in her autobiography, The Narrative of Bethany Veney: a Slave Woman. Born into slavery Bethany had little memory of her early life, but distinctly remembered being a source of entertainment for her master by singing and dancing. Although Bethany never mentioned feelings of objectification or dehumanization, which Hartman discusses in Scenes of Subjection,...

1846 to 1866

ST LOUIS, Missouri

Women, Slavery, family

Mattie J. Jackson wrote her story down after she has achieved her freedom in her late teenage years and published the booklet in 1866 in Lawrence, MA in order to raise money for her education. She had a restless childhood with many ups and downs due to constant changes of location with and without her family members. Actually it is more her family’s story, which she tells it in a very personal but...

1835 to 1860

CRAVEN, North Carolina

African-Americans, Civil War, Slavery

Born August 10, 1835 in Newbern, North Carolina, William Henry Singleton lived anything but an ordinary life. He was born unto a slave woman by the name of Lettis Singleton and a white man, his master John Singleton’s brother. The Singleton’s owned the largest Plantation in Craven County North Carolina and were a family of high social standing in the community. Having William around created a great...

1813 to 1823

SPOTSYLVANIA, Virginia

Slavery, Slave Trade

Henry Watson woke up one morning by himself. His mother, who had put him to bed the night before, was not next to him. He began to worry; he had never been without his mother before, even a day. After all he was still a child. He scurried out of bed and looked around. He asked several other slaves, who knew his mother well, of her whereabouts. Every single one gave him a blank stare; no one said a...

1842 to 1850

BURLINGTON, New Jersey

New Jersey, Slavery, piety, quamino buccau, 1842

In the last years of his life, Quamino Buccau was a free man in Burlington, New Jersey. He was a noble, warm-hearted soul, always striving simply to live in freedom, never to put another's place in jeopardy for his own ends. Unfortunately, Quamino had been alone for eight years crippled and unable to perform many of the duties required simply to survive. He needed help to live, and he received it,...

1835 to 1853

CHARLESTON, South Carolina

African-Americans, Slavery

Men and women who owned slaves had to constantly emphasize their position of authority and dominance over the people they owned. Some did so through beatings, starvation, and atrocious treatment. Others did through simple words, such as order a slave to perform a task that the owner knew the slave particularly despised. Regardless of how, each slave's day was full of a constant reminder that they were...