Two rare slave narratives, firsthand accounts of slavery and escapes to freedom during the Civil War, form the backbone of Yale Professor David W. Blight's book. While Blight reads his portion, which puts the narratives in historical context and discusses the lives led by the writers, a different reader takes on each of the narratives. Thus, John M. Washington's story is told in a reflective, eloquent voice, while Wallace Turnage's story dramatically brings home the risks and dangers involved in his escape attempts. The abridgment leaves some repetition between Blight's writing and the slave narratives, and his narration tends toward the scholarly. Nonetheless, the power of the unedited manuscripts is compelling. J.A.S. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine
Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the one hundred or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
1116986633
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Abridged)
Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the one hundred or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
Wallace Turnage was a teenage field hand on an Alabama plantation, John Washington an urban slave in Virginia. They never met. But both men saw opportunity in the chaos of the Civil War, both escaped North, and both left us remarkable accounts of their flights to freedom. Handed down through family and friends these narratives tell gripping stories of escape.
Working from an unusual abundance of genealogical material, historian David W. Blight has reconstructed Turnage's and Washington's childhoods as sons of white slaveholders and their climb to black working-class stability in the North, where they reunited their families. In A Slave No More, the untold stories of two ordinary men take their place at the heart of the American experience.
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A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Abridged)
A Slave No More: Two Men Who Escaped to Freedom, Including Their Own Narratives of Emancipation (Abridged)
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Product Details
| BN ID: | 2940172047282 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Penguin Random House |
| Publication date: | 11/06/2007 |
| Edition description: | Abridged |
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