Slave Memoirs

Book Review # 113527

African-American Studies > Slavery
Literature > American

Slave Memoirs

A slave memoir comparison from the book "When I Was a Slave" by Norman R. Yetman.

1,407 words () | 1 source | MLA | 2009 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper discusses how "When I Was a Slave" is a collection of 34 memoirs of former slaves interviewed to collect their gripping accounts of the past. In particular, it looks at three very different memoirs: Mary Armstrong (91,) Millie Evans (88,) and Rose Williams (90), chosen due to their similar age, female gender, and varying recalls on their experience as slaves.

From the Paper:

"When you begin reading the story of Mary Armstrong, you immediately notice the poor quality of her English. She begins to talk about where she is from and who her parents were, which is more than many slaves knew in the first place. Then, almost instantly in the second paragraph, Mary says "Old Polly, she was a Polly devil if there ever was one, and she whipped my little sister what was only nine months old, and just a baby, to death." (p. 5). The reason for this whipping, says Armstrong, was because the infant was crying. This seems so drastic; it is almost difficult to believe. Mary belonged to Polly's daughter, Olivia, who seemed to have treated her fairly well. "