The Personal Story Behind A Slavery Biography

By Roger Wagner


With the onset of yet another era in what appears a major issue with racial equality, it is more important than ever to understand the past when it comes to this issue. While personal experience remains limited, there are some publications which were written by actual slaves. One of these publications reflects the slavery biography of a Slave which describes the experience of the Reverend Charles Thompson as a child during slavery in the American south.

The biography was published in 1875 and is often used by professors and scholars when studying or teaching on the topic. In the book, the Reverend explains the time and experiences as a young boy in detail. In fact, the book has often been referred to as being as close to the text of a witness that one could get in what is only a few documented experiences provided directly by anyone from the period.

Born into slavery, Charles has a great number of stories to tell. In most cases, the stories refer to experiences the boy had with an owner. The slave master and owner, Mr. Kirkwood owned multiple slaves and plantations. As such, when the owner passed away, the slaves were separated in an attempt to avoid escape and rebellion.

After the mother of the boy died at age 37, an uncle hid from slave owners in order to remain with a wife. In fact, Ben, the uncle, evaded the blood hounds and slave owners. While this is the case, Ben ultimately surrendered when the man was informed that the couple could remain together and work on a different plantation. At which time, Charles describes becoming an adult, then being hired out to other owners while attempting to teach Christianity to other slaves.

In order to gain insight to the life and times of the uncle and the author, there are a few movies and a mini-series which reflect the incidents in great detail. The first, and most likely the most infamous is that of Roots, a mini-series which aired in the 1970s. More recently, Twelve Years A Slave and Django Unchained have portrayed the atrocities and incidents of the time on a personal basis.

In most cases, during the slave trade, slaves were considered personal property who could be owned, sold and traded by plantation owners and slave masters. While entire families may have been sold into the system, many were later sold separately and families destroyed. Whereas, those whom refused to do assigned chores, attempted to escape or rebelled, were often punished severely.

Once owned by a Master or Slave owner, the individuals were required to perform chores and work without pay. In most cases, slaves lived in quarters which were less than acceptable. Whereas, most had to do extra chores for room and board as required by owners.

One of the saddest aspects of slavery is that of rape. For, there were numerous owners who would take female and male slaves at will for sexual gratification. In fact, there are a number of descendants of slaves now living whom are children, grandchildren and great grandchildren which have no idea of how the line started.




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