Search - The Bondwoman's Narrative

When Professor Gates saw a modest auction catalog listing for an "Unpublished Original Manuscript" he knew he could be on the verge of a major find. After exhaustive research he found that the handwritten manuscript he had purchased was the only known novel by a female African American slave and possibly the first novel written by a black woman anywhere.
This story tells of a self-educated young house slave who knows all too well slaverys burtal limitations but never suspects that the freedom of her beautiful new mistress is also at risk. -- or that a devastating secret will force them both to flee the South and make a desperate bid for freedom.
This is the day to day experiences of bondwoman thru her fiction.The Bondwoman's Narrative is well worth reading on historical grounds, especially since it was never published. As Gates argues, these pages provide our first "unedited, unaffected, unglossed, unaided" glimpse into the mind and experiences of a fugitive slave.
the new mistress, a woman who seems haunted. In fact, she is hunted: someone who holds proof that her mother is a slave is blackmailing her. Knowing her mistress will be sold if exposed, Hannah encourages her to flee, and flees with her. Thus begins Hannah's journey, as she passes through the hands of prison guard, slave trader, benevolent caretaker, mean and petty masters and finally to freedom. The style is sentimental and effusive, but it is also winning. Crafts's portrayal of the Wheelers--a small-minded but ambitious couple who prefer to "live at the public expense"--is incisive and utterly familiar. Though Gates chose to touch up Crafts's punctuation, he left her spelling as is and included her revisions, which were remarkably few. Crafts clearly understood the needs of her narrative and the conventions of the 19th-century novel in a way that many first novelists (of any century) don't.
This is a wonderful book for enthusiasts of history, African American studies, and genealogy.
It is one thing to read about the injustices of slavery from a historical or even an observer's point of view. It is quite something else to learn of the daily life of a slave in their own voice. Such is the case with "The Bondwoman's Narrative" penned by a female slave in the 1850s.
It is a fascinating and horrifying account Don't be put off by the long introduction. It becomes more significant after reading the narrative itself.
A rare glimpse the lives of the past. Amazing reading.

Asstonishing historical narrative researched by a Harvard historian

Harrowing, thought-provoking.