Slavery Time When I Was Chillun

by Belinda Hurmence

Twelve oral histories of former slaves selected from the more than 2000 interviewed as part of the Slave Narratives of the Library of Congress for the Works Progess Administration in 1936

Genres: Nonfiction

112 pages, Paperback

First published December 29, 1997

Reviews

[Micah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a weird one. It's a decent book, but it has some failures in curation and in tone. The academic intent of this book holds it back in places, I think. Sometimes the captioning of stories has a wildly different interpretation than what I got from reading this. But I think the author may be too close to the subject in the way some historians are.
The personal narratives are great to read, I question exactly why the author chose exactly which ones she did.

[Mrs. Sittig · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting reading former slaves speak kindly about their masters and how much harder it was for them after they were free.

[Reader · Rating 1 out of 5]

DID YOU NOT STEAL THIS TITLE FROM THE OWNERS OF IT? BEEHIVE PUBLISHING?

[Theshiney · Rating 2 out of 5]

listen, if you want to learn about slavery or slave culture then you really ought to go to the source. though this collection of slave narratives doesn't hit the mark it is still brilliant because of what it is. i don't care what political side you are on, if only for this, the W.P.A. was a good thing.

[Carman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book describes what life was for slave children. The passages are actual accounts from people who were children during the time of slavery. Great for multiple perspectives.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This April I read Slavery Time: When I Was a Chillun by Belinda Hurmence.

This book is a collection of interviews of former slaves. The interviews were taken in the 1930s. They give you a small glimpse of what it was like for these 12 ex-slaves. They tell us of their childhood, family, masters, working, and the war. This book helps you understand what it was really like during the civil war era. Each interviewee tells you their life story. They tell you how different it was to be free opposed to enslaved.

If you are currently learning about the civil war or want to learn about the civil war and slavery in America, read this. It helps you understand what actually happened. Before I read this, I thought that all slaves were treated like animals. Some were, but not all of them. It lets you know not everyone was tortured and gives you a slight sense of peace. It also lets you know that "masters" helped their ex-slaves after the war. This book let me see what things were really like, not what a history book tells you.

The theme of this book is things aren't always as they seem. People expect to hear a horror story when talking about slavery, but most of the ex-slaves interviewed remembered their "owners" fondly. Many slaves also expected freedom to be great, but most people interviewed in this book said that they were worse off once they were freed. People also expect former owners to have been cruel to the newly freed slaves, but several shared cropped or employed thief former slaves. This just show that things aren't always as we're told.