The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved Africans, particularly in the Americas. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as separate books or pamphlets. In the United States during the Great Depression (1930s), more than 2,300 additional oral histories on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration, a New Deal program. Most of the 26 audio-recorded interviews are held by the Library of Congress.
Slavery in the colonial history of the United States refers to the institution of slavery as it existed in the European colonies which eventually became part of the United States. In these colonies, slavery developed due to a combination of factors, primarily the labour demands for establishing and maintaining European colonies, which had resulted in the Atlantic slave trade. Slavery existed in every European colony in the Americas during the early modern period, and both Africans and indigenous peoples were victims of enslavement by European colonizers during the era.
The legal institution of human chattel slavery, comprising the enslavement primarily of Africans and African Americans, was prevalent in the United States of America from its founding in 1776 until 1865, predominantly in the South. Slavery was established throughout European colonization in the Americas. From 1526, during the early colonial period, it was practiced in what became Britain's colonies, including the Thirteen Colonies that formed the United States. Under the law, an enslaved person was treated as property that could be bought, sold, or given away. Slavery lasted in about half of U.S. states until abolition. In the decades after the end of Reconstruction, many of slavery's economic and social functions were continued through segregation, sharecropping, and convict leasing.
The Baptist War, also known as the Sam Sharp Rebellion, the Christmas Rebellion, the Christmas Uprising and the Great Jamaican Slave Revolt of 1831–32, was an eleven-day rebellion that started on 25 December 1831 and involved up to 60,000 of the 300,000 slaves in the Colony of Jamaica. The uprising was led by a black Baptist deacon, Samuel Sharpe, and waged largely by his followers. The revolt, though militarily unsuccessful, played a major part in the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire.
In the British colonies in North America and in the United States before the abolition of slavery in 1865, free Negro or free Black described the legal status of African Americans who were not enslaved. The term was applied both to formerly enslaved people (freedmen) and to those who had been born free.
Charles Ball was an enslaved African-American from Maryland, best known for his account as a fugitive slave, Slavery in the United States (1836).
Henry Walton Bibb, was an American author and abolitionist who was born into enslavement. Bibb told his life story in his Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, which included many failed escape attempts followed finally by success when he escaped to Detroit. After leaving Detroit to move to Canada with his family, due to issues with the legality of his assistance in the Underground Railroad, he founded the abolitionist newspaper, Voice of the Fugitive. He lived in Canada until his death.
A house slave was a slave who worked, and often lived, in the house of the slave-owner, performing domestic labor. House slaves performed essentially the same duties as all domestic workers throughout history, such as cooking, cleaning, serving meals, and caring for children; however, their slave status could expose them to more significant abuses, including physical punishments and use as a sexual slave.
The Slave Community: Plantation Life in the Antebellum South is a book written by American historian John W. Blassingame. Published in 1972, it is one of the first historical studies of slavery in the United States to be presented from the perspective of the enslaved. The Slave Community contradicted those historians who had interpreted history to suggest that African-American slaves were docile and submissive "Sambos" who enjoyed the benefits of a paternalistic master–slave relationship on southern plantations. Using psychology, Blassingame analyzes fugitive slave narratives published in the 19th century to conclude that an independent culture developed among the enslaved and that there were a variety of personality types exhibited by slaves.
Peter Hutchins Wood is an American historian and author of Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (1974). It has been described as one of the most influential books on the history of the American South of the past 50 years. He is a professor at Duke University in North Carolina.
The Silver Bluff Baptist Church was founded between 1774-1775 in Beech Island, South Carolina, by several enslaved African Americans who organized under elder David George.
William Henry Singleton gained freedom in North Carolina and served as a sergeant in the United States Colored Troops during the American Civil War. After its end and emancipation, he moved North to New Haven, Connecticut. There he became literate and a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, serving also in Maine and New York.
First Baptist Church was the first Baptist church in Petersburg, Virginia; one of the first African-American Baptist congregations in the United States, and one of the oldest black churches in the nation. It established one of the first local schools for black children in the nation.
Invisible churches among enslaved African Americans in the United States were informal Christian groups where enslaved people listened to preachers that they chose without their slaveholder's knowledge. The Invisible churches taught a different message from white-controlled churches and did not emphasize obedience. Some slaves could not contact invisible churches and others did not agree with an invisible church's message but many slaves were comforted by the invisible churches.
Peter Neilson (1795–1861) was a Scottish author, businessman, and poet. He also proposed some naval inventions.
Rev. Thomas H. Jones was born a slave Wilmington, North Carolina and was a prominent African-American abolitionist in antebellum America. Jones escaped slavery, traveled to Canada and subsequently relocated to Worcester, Massachusetts. Following years of working as an itinerant preacher and lecturer, Jones became a prominent figure within the Colored Conventions Movement. He served as a delegate to the 1859 New England Colored Convention. His narrative, Experience and Personal Narrative of Uncle Tom Jones; Who Was for Forty Years a Slave. Also the Surprising Adventures of Wild Tom, of the Island Retreat, a Fugitive Negro from South Carolina, captures his early life as a slave and his subsequent escape from slavery.
Zamba is both a given name and a surname. Notable people with the name include:
William Grimes was an African American barber and writer who authored what is considered the first narrative of an American ex-slave, Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave, published in 1825, with a second edition published in 1855. Another revised edition was published by one of his descendants in 2008. Grimes escaped slavery by boarding on a ship called Casket, which sailed from Savannah, Georgia to New York City. He then walked to Connecticut from New York City in order to begin his life as a free man. Grimes lived in Stratford, Norwalk, Fairfield, Bridgeport and Stratford Point alongside New Haven and Litchfield, Connecticut following his escape from slavery. New Haven was where Grimes eventually settled in order to live out his final days.
Noah Davis was a Baptist minister, who was a former enslaved person that purchased his and his family members' freedom. He established the Second Colored Baptist Church in Baltimore. He spoke at lectures in the north and published A Narrative of the Life of Rev. Noah Davis, a Colored Man to raise money to free his wife and children.
