Silvia Dubois: A Biografy of the Slav Who Whipt Her Mistres and Gand Her Fredom

by C.W. Larison, Jared C. Lobdell (Introduction)

In this extended interview, conducted in 1883 on Sourland Mountain, New Jersey, Sylvia Dubois―then nearly one hundred years old―tells her life story to Dr. Cornelius Wilson Larison. Dr. Larison wrote the original version in his singular phonetic alphabet. The Princeton Recollector published a normalized spelling version in 1980. This volume presents an edited and annotated version of the original text. No one knows for sure whether Dr. Larison's account of Sylvia's life is mostly history or mostly folklore. In either case, it remains a fascinating view of slave life and the life of the uneducated free black in the North during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published April 14, 1988

Reviews

[Sherry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Silvia Dubois is a slave of local renown. Her age is uncertain, but she was born in the late 1700s and died in the late 1800s. Some say she was 116 years old, but all we know for sure is that she was very, VERY old. A local Doctor interviewed her towards the end of her colorful life and recounts those interviews in this book. Luckily, this edition contains both the traditional English version and the doctor's simplification of the English language, his pet project that didn't catch on (and is very hard to read if you are not used to it.). A very interesting look at slave life both before and after emancipation.