American slave narratives as autoethnographic paradigm

Authorial and authentic passages

American slave narratives disclose the narrators’ state of mind regarding being enslaved. Therefore, it is crucial to understand through the narrative the narrator’s self and his or her view of the others qua others. At first glance that should be easy, since the authors and witnesses talk about themselves. The texts may simply be qualified as a type of autobiography, which by definition talks about the self, or so we would think. But two literary features interfere with that evaluation. The first is that the slave-narrator does not always intend to speak about the first person but about the suffering, injustice, and structure of the slavery predicament. (Andrews, 1986; Bland, 2001 vol. I, pp. 1-22; Davis & Gates Jr., 1990; Stepto, 1997; Blum, 2016, 2013; Ernest, 2014). That is to say, the narrators frequently speak in an authorial voice that objectifies the experience. ^[1] The second problem with almost all slave narratives is the interference of the abolitionist agenda. This agenda may obscure the self-perception of the human being as it transpires from the autobiographic recollection. A paradigmatic case is the Narrative of Moses Roper (1838). As the modern editor states, “Moses Roper creates a narrative that authoritatively depicts a sadistically cruel slaveholder (implicitly representative of all slaveholders) […]” (Bland, 2001, vol. I, p. 48). For instance, Roper asserts about lashes sustained during a flogging, “This may appear incredible, but the marks which they left, at present remain on my body, a standing testimony to the truth of this statement of his [the master’s] severity.” A few sentences below, he commented that the master intended “to make me the slave of his horse, and thus to degrade me” by forcing him to drag a harrow (Roper, 2001, p. 56). We have no reason to doubt the facts and the depiction is meant to be evocative. However, as the text caters to the expectations of the readership and the objective of denouncing the practice of slavery, the lifeworld of the victim remains closed.

An example of the interlacing of authorial and subjective writing can be found in an early work of autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano or Gustavus Vassa, the African. Written by Himself (1789). In chapter III the author tells what it was like when he had to take care of his master, who was ill. We should pay attention to how, in the first person, the narrator remains authorial and yet reveals the mind of the observer when he reports:

While he was fast asleep I indulged myself a great deal in looking about the room, which to me appeared very fine and curious. The first object that engaged my attention was a watch which hung on the chimney, and was goin3 I was quite surprised at the noise it made, and was afraid it would tell the gentleman any thing I might do amiss: and when I immediately after observed a picture hanging in the room, which appeared constantly to look at me, I was still more affrighted, having never seen such things as these before. At one time I thought it was something relative to magic […]. In this state of anxiety I remained till my master awoke, when I was dismissed out of the room, to my no small satisfaction and relief; for I thought that these people were all made up of wonders. In this place I was called Jacob; but on board the African Snow I was called Michael. (Equiano, 1987, p. 39)

The passage narrates in a clear authorial style how the young man ascribes something unknown to magic, in such a way that he, Equiano, is referred to in first person but still observed from outside. The story would not at all change if it were in third person, like so, “[he] was afraid it would tell the gentleman any thing [he] might do amiss.” The scene is interesting but does not convey the speaker’s self. This changes with the last sentence when the names of the author are suddenly mentioned. The narrative shifts from the musings about magic and wonders to the name, which is utterly personal. The very lack of logical connection to the preceding description turns the terse statement into a personal testimony. In fact, the reflection about naming resumes about one page later, after some plain objective information about further events, when the origin of his new name Gustavus Vassa is told in objective terms, although the feeling of the African about the imposition is reported.

Just one more example from the same chapter, this time without reference to the personal feelings of the speaker:

A lieutenant of the Princess Amelia, who, as well as my master, superintended the landing, was giving the word of command, and while his mouth was open a musquet ball went through it, and passed out at his cheek. I had that day in my hand the scalp of an Indian king, who was killed in the engagement: the scalp had been taken off by an Highlander. I saw this king’s ornaments too, which were very curious, and made of feathers. (Equiano, 1987, p. 48)

Nothing emotional; instead, the dry sequence of events (the landing, the injury, the Indian scalp, the feather ornaments) testifies to the authenticity of the things that are being told. From the lack of any attempt to make the facts plausible or embellishment we can gather that Equiano is narrating about what he himself experienced unfiltered. Whereas in the first example the author tries to explain feelings in an objective tone and eventually lapses into unfiltered narrating, in the second case he does not even try to make the facts plausible, and thus he reveals his experience to the modern reader. What we as readers learn about the person of Equiano is, inter alia, his estrangement from his environment, so that a clock, a painting, and a musket ball are of the same importance as his being strangely named and an Indian being scalped.

Here we have one clue to identify the state of mind of the narrating victim: instead of focusing on the reported facts we need to pay attention to the style of narration. Most authors—and more so with more educated authors—tend to objectify their predicament as well as their emotions and reasoning. In the case of Equiano, that has led to doubts about the authenticity of the work (Equiano, 1987, pp. 5–9, “Preface”, dated 1814), a doubt that he must have anticipated, because he added “written by himself” to the very title of his Narrative. Authentic is that which is surprising for the reader but not for the author. In other words, when the author objectifies subjectivity he foregoes it. Equiano frequently operates with the trope of inexpressibility. ^[2] Whenever he applies it, he does not seriously mean that he lacks words but that he expects the readers to struggle imagining the scene and calls for empathy. On the other hand, whenever he tells his story to the unsolicited effect that the reader is puzzled, as in the examples above, the author reveals his own experience, which is subjective and therefore authentic.

Redactions of the note takers or re-narrators

Many of the slave narratives that are available have been written down by literate and politically motivated note takers, as for instance the testimony of Sojourner Truth and the stories collected by Octavia Albert. A few examples may suffice to demonstrate this and show how it is possible to ‘filter’ the self-conception of the victims from the editorial agenda of the supporters.

Mary Prince from Bermuda recounted her history to Thomas Pringle who published it in London in 1831. The explicit intent of the publication was to combat slavery in English public opinion through a report on its cruelty. In the first two pages, Mary Prince talks about the abuse of her mistress by her master:

My poor mistress bore his ill-treatment with great patience, and all her slaves loved and pitied her. I was truly attached to her, and, next to my own mother, loved her better than any creature in the world. My obedience to her commands was cheerfully given: it sprung solely from the affection I felt for her, and not from fear of the power which the white people’s law had given her ver me. (Prince & Pringle, 1831, pp. 1–2; reprinted in Andrews, 1988)

Needless to say, all the qualifiers (poor, with great patience, etc.) are most likely ornamentation supplied by the note taker Pringle. But two facts are surprising, namely, the opening of the story of her own suffering with that of her mistress and the affection of the young girl for the woman that transgresses the reader’s expectations in a slave story. The attention paid to the cruelty of the slaveholder is diverted from the narrator towards another victim, who is not a slave but the master’s wife. Thus Mary Prince contextualizes the cruelty of slavery in the selfishness and brutality of the Captain. This can be perceived as a view into the mind of Mary Prince. However, the concluding remark about power and “the white people’s law” is most likely a comment made by Pringle because it assumes the position of a white abolitionist. What is even more important in the quoted passage is that the narrator slightly subverts the abolitionist agenda of her amanuensis. A little earlier, she had said her time with the Captain’s family (when he was absent) was “the happiest period of my life,” to which the recorder added: “for I was too young to understand rightly my condition as a slave.” So, in addition to what we would expect (the horror of slavery and its details), we learn something quite interesting about the slave girl’s worldview. She was able to be cheerful and happy, and she socialized and empathized with the slaveholder’s family, which teaches us that, in her recollection, being enslaved comes after the human condition of bonding and loving.

Later in her narrative, Mary Prince reports that she was ordered to wash her then master while he was naked. There is no explicit sexual reference, so for the narrator, harassment by the master is not the message, here. The narrator states: “Sometimes when he called me to wash him I would not come, my eyes were so full of shame” (Prince & Pringle, 1831, p. 13). And after mentioning a few other cases of his misbehavior she resolves to go away. Much of the language on this page is legal and moral musing by the note taker, but the actions themselves speak of the woman’s moral stance and agency. The latter could amount to resistance and flight, and this is what is important to know about the world of a slave then and there.

Immediately after describing the behavior of her master, the narrator tells of her success in making money, her scheme to be sold to another owner, and her success in the scheme with the intervention of the future owner’s wife. All this is told without much rhetoric: “it was my own fault that I came under him, I was so anxious to go.” What emerged was a person with self-esteem and prudence, which becomes even more clear when she quotes her previous master demanding “that I should not be sold to any one that would treat me ill,” which she finds strange after “he had treated me so ill himself” (Prince & Pringle, 1831, p. 14). Although the transfer to the new master was a “fault,” as it was not a happy position to obtain, the author owns her actions. She not only knows her own strength, she also sees through the faint attempts of the slaveholder to conceal his failure. None of this is perturbed by the editor’s agenda.

This is an interesting confirmation of the self-reliance of enslaved women that might surpass expectations of readers who would see women, especially in the state of slavery, to be mere victims (Fulton, 2014). It is the act of narration, as we can see, that belies such prejudices. The narrator tells acts of self-reliance and performs it in the narration. Which is visible if we separate the obvious agenda from the story as it is being told.

A singular case of first-person narrative and recording by a note taker is the Story of Mattie J. Jackson (1866), which was written down, as the title page says, by L[ucy] Thompson. The writer was also a woman of African descent, and it appears she did not interfere at all with the narrative, neither interpreting nor embellishing it. Notable is the episode when Mattie was supposed to be beaten with a switch and “not pleased with the idea of a whipping I bent the switch in the shape of W, which was the first letter of his name, and after I had attended to the dining room my fellow servant and myself walked away and stopped with an aunt of mine during the night” (Jackson, 2010, pp. 109–110). ^[3] Amanuensis and storyteller appear in total synchrony of laconic statement of fact. The ironies of this moment are left to the reader to enjoy: ‘not to be pleased with whipping,’ bending the tool of torture to the initial of the torturer, and simply walking away. Walking away or escaping is the major theme of this narrative. What is normal to the narrator must startle the listener. In the same terse style Jackson reports how her little brother died: he was confined from birth to a box by command of the mistress and died at two years old. The mistress’ reason was that she disliked kids crawling on the floor. That’s all. Well, not quite: “When [my mistress] found he was dead she ordered grave clothes to be brought and gave my mother time to bury him” (Jackson, 2010, p. 107). Instead of raging about the brutality of the woman, the story exposes her duplicity and fake emotions. The stamina of the victim and the despicability of the mistress come to the foreground by means of plain narration.

Evidently, the cooperation of Mattie Jackson and Lucy Thompson is proof that writing slave narratives without pressing an agenda was possible and, therefore, this text sets a standard by which is it possible to analyze the first-person perspective of slave narratives for the sake of understanding the frame in which the authors perceived themselves and their oppressors. This standard warrants the search for a tool of interpretation, which may be termed the silent charge. “But the half cannot be told.”

Frederick Douglass explained that songs were a customary means for the slaves to deal with their suffering. Songs obviously contained spiritual consolation, created community, conveyed messages, and—most importantly—addressed the slaveholder culture in the hope – and even the certainty—that they would not to be heard. “They would compose and sing as they went along, consulting neither time nor tune. The thought that came up, came out if not in the word, in the sound; and as frequently in the one as in the other.” (Douglass, 1847, chapter II, 13-15)

To the slaveholders the songs sounded merry, meanwhile the singers quasi silently charged them. For our purposes it is enlightening that Douglass acknowledged the authenticity of the unprepared uttering. It is well known, then, that songs were community building (Webber, 1978, Chapter 16; Ramey, 2008, Chapter 4).

From Octavia Rogers Albert (1890), we have a story that is comparable to the death of the baby boy in Mattie Jackson. One Uncle John recollects when his mother once hurried home to look after her two-year-old little Jim during a heavy storm; the child had already been washed away from their cabin and was found a quarter of a mile away near a creek (Chapter IX in Albert, 1988, pp. 63–64) . ^[4] Again, the heart wrenching neglect of a child is the issue at hand. The narrator refrains from any commentary and lets her interviewee tell his story because both were confident that this “thrilling account” spoke for itself. In the context of a Georgian plantation, there was no need to bring verbose charges against the owner, who is not even mentioned. We as critical readers are encouraged, far more than the abolitionists of the 19th century, to focus on the apparent normalcy of slave life in order to connect with the state of mind of the witnesses.

Octavia Albert’s rendering of Aunt Charlotte’s autobiographical stories closes enigmatically with the words: “But the half cannot be told.” ^[5] For the present-day interpreter, that half is what restores humanity to the victims of slavery. It is the perspective of the witness that does not (or cannot) fulfill the expectations of any interviewer, past or present. One example may be taken from Albert’s interview with Aunt Charlotte touching upon alcohol abuse.

[Charlotte:] “I tell you, I am afraid whisky will ruin my people yet.”

“I trust not, Aunt Charlotte. There is a great temperance movement going on throughout this country, and we are destined to see good results from it. We hope to have a law to prevent the sale of any intoxicating drinks. It may be many years, but I believe we shall have it.”

“I trust in the Lord to bring it to pass. Our people suffer more than any body, for we were turned loose without any thing, and we got no time to waste. We must get education, and, above all things in this world, get religion, and then we will be ladies and gentlemen.”

“Yes; I believe religion and education will lift them ^[6] upon a level with any other of the civilized races on earth. It’s true we see so much prejudice manifested almost every-where we go; but we must wait on the Lord. He has promised to carry us through.”(Chapter VIII in Albert, 1988, pp. 54–56)

The conversation is dialectic and exposes different perspectives of narrator and reporter. The slave woman cares for her people—the politically active interviewer anticipates prohibition legislation. The enslaved woman thinks in eschatological patterns (“… and we got no time to waste”): salvation is equated to becoming “ladies and gentlemen,” so that “religion” has both spiritual and societal effects. To which Octavia Albert responds by reducing religion to civil education that overcomes racism while postponing salvation to the end of the world. This tension between spiritual and material liberation and between the urgency of one or the other (“It may be many years”) is the tension between a slave and an abolitionist. In all friendship and respect, they speak about the same thing and yet they speak differently. The untold half is that perspectival difference that makes up slavery.

Narrative gestures

Returning to the initial observation that the state of mind of the narrator is not usually the topic of the text, I suggest paying attention to certain tropes of slave narratives that— although reiterative and most likely learned from other writings—may reveal the position of the slave narrator in his or her world. For, whenever a writer takes recourse to a trope it is still a creative decision. Earlier I distinguished authorial from subjective narration to the effect that when a narrator ‘forgets’ objective recounting we get a glimpse into his or her state of mind. We cannot dismiss authorial narrative (as seen in Moses Roper), but we as readers must pay attention to the choice of the means of authorial storytelling. The factual data of the story are not to be ignored, for they are the main message of any narrator. As examples I may mention the variety of tortures presented by Roper or the function of songs as explained by Douglass. The question that is of interest for an understanding of the world of slaves is why the authors chose to say those details. And the answer to that reveals their stance towards their oppressors and, reflectively, to themselves.

Douglass is the most famous slave narrator of the 19th century, and he certainly merits his fame due to the compelling coherence of his life story. But it should also be remembered that as an author he felt the need to re-write his autobiography twice. The later versions are more political and philosophical, of course; but that is due to the fact that the author did not need to prove himself an expert anymore. The first version, that with “narrative” in the title, is particularly compelling in its conscious arrangement of topics. Now this very arrangement sheds light on Douglass the escaped slave’s mentality.

So let us briefly recapitulate some of the major episodes of the autobiography: his birthplace and family (or lack thereof), the series of masters, his early witnessing of torture, the living conditions of the slaves vs. those of the masters, the cruelties, his life as a child house slave, the prohibition of education, and so on. (This is not a table of contents.) From this sequence we need to think what it may mean for the self-perception of a human being. Young Douglass chose to talk about both the intimate (birth and family) and the external (being surrounded by a hostile group of persons). We could say Douglass’ world was that of alienation. Not because he says so, but through the experiences he recounts in his mission to explain what it is to be a slave. Learning to read was an act of defiance. He quotes his master chiding his wife: “Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world” (Douglass, 1847, chapter VI, p. 33). His gesture towards this facet of slaveholder mentality reveals in the act of narration the nature of the master-slave relationship and how it was perceived internally. If learning to read and write defies that relationship then being a slave is equivalent to being in a state of resistance. That is the lesson we glean from such a detail, especially when we then contextualize it. The context of little Frederick’s fight for the alphabet is described and symbolized in the fight with the slaver Covey.

The fight with Covey is introduced with an element that is explicitly alien to Douglass’ intentions, namely that of the magic root, which he receives from a friend (Douglass, 1847, chapter X, 70-71 and 80; out of the plethora of interpretations cf. Kohn, 2005). That friend was married to a free woman and thus, in a way, on the border between slavery and freedom. The presence of the root is embedded in both the fight for liberation with the slaver and in considerations about white and the black people’s attitude towards religion. Douglass says that he accepted the root only to please his friend, and yet entertained the possibility that its magic worked. Fine, as Douglass says, such superstition was common among slaves: “A slave seldom dies but that his death is attributed to trickery.” But why does he even hint towards religious magic at a point in his narrative that affirms and illustrates his own prowess, determination, and superiority that makes the standoff with Covey possible? Is he distracting from his main message? We may certainly read this detail—especially as we would not miss it at all had Douglass left it out—as a gesture towards the overall culture to which he (and his half free friend, but never his master) belonged. This is a culture that gives meaning and support through care for the other person and reliance on higher powers, which is the exact opposite to the brutal force of the slaveholders. It is this distinct perspective that empowers the rebel.

This famous scene of the fight with Covey is a masterpiece of literature, and it abounds with choice symbolism. However, the end result of our present quest for the life of a slave is the fact that experiences accumulate, with no small detail of the past going to waste, so that, if the high point of this man’s life was the standoff with the slaver, then life is nothing but a standoff. This is not what Frederick Douglass says, that’s what he exercises and shows through his style of narration. Alienation—resistance—standoff: That is Douglass’ autoethnography of slavery, beyond his words.

Conclusion

At this point it is possible to draw a preliminary conclusion. Slave narratives of the 18th-19th century England and America are well known resources to understand what it is like to be a slave. They offer factual accounts, evaluations, and accusations, as the theme requires. However, in order to ‘enter the mind’ of the victim, the slave world, we need to adopt interpretive strategies. First of all, there is the question of authenticity in the sense of the subjective component that is hidden behind, or implied in, the objective account. Second, we need to separate the agenda from the experience. Third, since many acts and words of slaves were in reality silent reproaches, in place of open complaints, we need to find the truth within the story, which is essentially the difference between the perspectives of the slaves, on the one hand, and the masters and the liberators on the other hand. The difference is that between enslavement and freedom. And finally, we need to pay attention to facts per se and the order in which they are told. The narrators do not dwell upon that because they are not studying hermeneutics. But, to the reader, it is what we ultimately learn from reading slave narratives.