Browse the following collections of early slave narratives. Written by runaway slaves and freedmen these narratives share the experiences of having lived in human bondage.
Digital Schomburg Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library
Library of Congress Web Guides
Documenting the American South Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Freedom Narratives: Testimonies of West Africans from the Era of Slavery
During the Great Depression (1929-1939), unemployed folklorists, historians, journalists and writers were hired by the Work Progress Agency to carry out interviews with former slaves. The interviewers traveled throughout seventeen states in the south and Midwest and compiled over 2,300 first-hand accounts of men and women who had been born into slavery. The following collections contain transcripts, photographs and audio recordings compiled from these interviews.
Library of Congress' American Memory Collection
The African American History Experience in Ohio, 1850-1920
University of Virginia, American Studies Hypertext Projects
Photo Credit: Library of Congress
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