What do you think?
Rate this book
I Belong to South Carolina: South Carolina Slave Narratives
2010 Choice Outstanding Academic Title
Out of the hundreds of published slave narratives, only a handful exist specific to South Carolina, and most of these are not readily available to modern readers. This collection restores to print seven slave narratives documenting the lived realities of slavery as it existed across the Palmetto State's upcountry, midlands, and lowcountry, from plantation culture to urban servitude. First published between the late eighteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth, these richly detailed firsthand accounts present a representative cross section of slave experiences, from religious awakenings and artisan apprenticeships to sexual exploitations and harrowing escapes. In their distinctive individual voices, narrators celebrate and mourn the lives of fellow slaves, contemplate the meaning of freedom, and share insights into the social patterns and cultural controls exercised during a turbulent period in American history. Each narrative is preceded by an introduction to place its content and publication history in historical context. The volume also features an afterword surveying other significant slave narratives and related historical documents on South Carolina. I Belong to South Carolina reinserts a chorus of powerful voices of the dispossessed into South Carolina's public history, reminding us of the cruelties of the past and the need for vigilant guardianship of liberty in the present and future.I Belong to South Carolina is edited and introduced by Susanna Ashton with the assistance of Robyn E. Adams, Maximilien Blanton, Laura V. Bridges, E. Langston Culler, Cooper Leigh Hill, Deanna L. Panetta, and Kelly E. Riddle.
Out of the hundreds of published slave narratives, only a handful exist specific to South Carolina, and most of these are not readily available to modern readers. This collection restores to print seven slave narratives documenting the lived realities of slavery as it existed across the Palmetto State's upcountry, midlands, and lowcountry, from plantation culture to urban servitude. First published between the late eighteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth, these richly detailed firsthand accounts present a representative cross section of slave experiences, from religious awakenings and artisan apprenticeships to sexual exploitations and harrowing escapes. In their distinctive individual voices, narrators celebrate and mourn the lives of fellow slaves, contemplate the meaning of freedom, and share insights into the social patterns and cultural controls exercised during a turbulent period in American history. Each narrative is preceded by an introduction to place its content and publication history in historical context. The volume also features an afterword surveying other significant slave narratives and related historical documents on South Carolina. I Belong to South Carolina reinserts a chorus of powerful voices of the dispossessed into South Carolina's public history, reminding us of the cruelties of the past and the need for vigilant guardianship of liberty in the present and future.I Belong to South Carolina is edited and introduced by Susanna Ashton with the assistance of Robyn E. Adams, Maximilien Blanton, Laura V. Bridges, E. Langston Culler, Cooper Leigh Hill, Deanna L. Panetta, and Kelly E. Riddle.
- GenresHistoryNonfictionRace
328 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2010
4 people are currently reading
57 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
March 22, 2021
This collection brings together seven very different, fairly obscure, narratives of black South Carolinians who lived during the eighteen and nineteenth centuries. (It’s even possible one of the narrators, “Clarinda,” was not a slave at all.) As would be expected of any collection reflecting so many voices, disparate in time and experience, these accounts vary in their depth and interest.
Personally, I find it difficult to read multiple stories, one after another, that emphasize man’s inhumanity to man; so my favorite narratives were those of the final two authors, I. E. Lowery and “Sam Aleckson” (Sam Williams). These men come across as more rounded people, and their somewhat longer narratives also convey more rounded views of slavery, which by their day was a dying memory rather than a present evil. Both seem to support the weight Eugene Genovese placed on the way slaves made use of slaveowner paternalism.
It’s difficult to describe anything distinctively South Carolinian about these seven accounts. What is remarkable is the interweaving of religion in them all. Indeed, for some of the narrators, their accounts are less about freedom from human bondage than about freedom from personal sin—an emphasis that could hardly be more alien to 21st century prejudices and predispositions.
Personally, I find it difficult to read multiple stories, one after another, that emphasize man’s inhumanity to man; so my favorite narratives were those of the final two authors, I. E. Lowery and “Sam Aleckson” (Sam Williams). These men come across as more rounded people, and their somewhat longer narratives also convey more rounded views of slavery, which by their day was a dying memory rather than a present evil. Both seem to support the weight Eugene Genovese placed on the way slaves made use of slaveowner paternalism.
It’s difficult to describe anything distinctively South Carolinian about these seven accounts. What is remarkable is the interweaving of religion in them all. Indeed, for some of the narrators, their accounts are less about freedom from human bondage than about freedom from personal sin—an emphasis that could hardly be more alien to 21st century prejudices and predispositions.
Displaying 1 of 1 review