Where can I find a personal account of freedom of a slave in America after 1863
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The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared free all slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865 the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the whole country. I am familiar with the context.
What I am looking for is an account of how a particular slave gained his/her freedom, after 1863. How did they learn of the proclamation or the abolition? What did they say and do? What did his/her master say and do? How did they transition to freedom?
All books I have seen talk about Lincoln and the legal and military aspects. I would like a very concrete story, focused on the human side.
slavery american-civil-war
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up vote
3
down vote
favorite
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared free all slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865 the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the whole country. I am familiar with the context.
What I am looking for is an account of how a particular slave gained his/her freedom, after 1863. How did they learn of the proclamation or the abolition? What did they say and do? What did his/her master say and do? How did they transition to freedom?
All books I have seen talk about Lincoln and the legal and military aspects. I would like a very concrete story, focused on the human side.
slavery american-civil-war
add a comment |Â
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
up vote
3
down vote
favorite
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared free all slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865 the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the whole country. I am familiar with the context.
What I am looking for is an account of how a particular slave gained his/her freedom, after 1863. How did they learn of the proclamation or the abolition? What did they say and do? What did his/her master say and do? How did they transition to freedom?
All books I have seen talk about Lincoln and the legal and military aspects. I would like a very concrete story, focused on the human side.
slavery american-civil-war
The Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 declared free all slaves in the Confederacy. In 1865 the 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the whole country. I am familiar with the context.
What I am looking for is an account of how a particular slave gained his/her freedom, after 1863. How did they learn of the proclamation or the abolition? What did they say and do? What did his/her master say and do? How did they transition to freedom?
All books I have seen talk about Lincoln and the legal and military aspects. I would like a very concrete story, focused on the human side.
slavery american-civil-war
slavery american-civil-war
edited 2 hours ago
asked 4 hours ago
Marcel
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270210
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2 Answers
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up vote
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There are likely some around, but they won't be as common as you might think. The problem you are likely to run into here is that it was in most places actually a crime to teach a slave to read and write. So anything you find is almost certainly going to be second-hand or from interviews long after the fact.
However, there has been no little ink spilt on the origins of Juneteeth, which is a quasi-official holiday among the African American community celebrating the day slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom (due to Union troops occupying the state). While the EP was the guiding document, this happened 3 years later.
All I could find with a few minutes searching online was that there was "celebrating in the streets". A thorough search may well turn up more though.
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
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up vote
2
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Possibly in From Slavery to Freedom, which has resources here
I also found
This photograph of former slave Lucindy Lawrence Jurdon accompanied the transcript of an oral history interview conducted with her during the 1930s as part of the ex-slave narrative program of the Work Projects Administration's Federal Writers Project. In seventeen states WPA workers interviewed hundreds of African Americans born before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery in 1865. Some of the informants were infants and small children when the Civil War ended, but others were old enough to have experienced and remembered many aspects of slavery. The narratives often are as interesting to historians studying the history of African Americans in the 1930s as to scholars examining the antebellum period. (United States Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers Project Records) loc.gov
That may provide additional material.
Note: @T.E.D points out that "We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community." I think that observation is too important to leave in a comment. The narrative is going to change if it is interpreted through a white transcriber.
1
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
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2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
2
down vote
There are likely some around, but they won't be as common as you might think. The problem you are likely to run into here is that it was in most places actually a crime to teach a slave to read and write. So anything you find is almost certainly going to be second-hand or from interviews long after the fact.
However, there has been no little ink spilt on the origins of Juneteeth, which is a quasi-official holiday among the African American community celebrating the day slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom (due to Union troops occupying the state). While the EP was the guiding document, this happened 3 years later.
All I could find with a few minutes searching online was that there was "celebrating in the streets". A thorough search may well turn up more though.
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
There are likely some around, but they won't be as common as you might think. The problem you are likely to run into here is that it was in most places actually a crime to teach a slave to read and write. So anything you find is almost certainly going to be second-hand or from interviews long after the fact.
However, there has been no little ink spilt on the origins of Juneteeth, which is a quasi-official holiday among the African American community celebrating the day slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom (due to Union troops occupying the state). While the EP was the guiding document, this happened 3 years later.
All I could find with a few minutes searching online was that there was "celebrating in the streets". A thorough search may well turn up more though.
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
There are likely some around, but they won't be as common as you might think. The problem you are likely to run into here is that it was in most places actually a crime to teach a slave to read and write. So anything you find is almost certainly going to be second-hand or from interviews long after the fact.
However, there has been no little ink spilt on the origins of Juneteeth, which is a quasi-official holiday among the African American community celebrating the day slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom (due to Union troops occupying the state). While the EP was the guiding document, this happened 3 years later.
All I could find with a few minutes searching online was that there was "celebrating in the streets". A thorough search may well turn up more though.
There are likely some around, but they won't be as common as you might think. The problem you are likely to run into here is that it was in most places actually a crime to teach a slave to read and write. So anything you find is almost certainly going to be second-hand or from interviews long after the fact.
However, there has been no little ink spilt on the origins of Juneteeth, which is a quasi-official holiday among the African American community celebrating the day slaves in Texas were informed of their freedom (due to Union troops occupying the state). While the EP was the guiding document, this happened 3 years later.
All I could find with a few minutes searching online was that there was "celebrating in the streets". A thorough search may well turn up more though.
answered 3 hours ago
T.E.D.â¦
71.6k9157291
71.6k9157291
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
add a comment |Â
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
They didn't need to learn of it by reading, someone else could tell them, like another slave or a Union soldier. I would be happy with second-hand accounts.
â Marcel
3 hours ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
Possibly in From Slavery to Freedom, which has resources here
I also found
This photograph of former slave Lucindy Lawrence Jurdon accompanied the transcript of an oral history interview conducted with her during the 1930s as part of the ex-slave narrative program of the Work Projects Administration's Federal Writers Project. In seventeen states WPA workers interviewed hundreds of African Americans born before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery in 1865. Some of the informants were infants and small children when the Civil War ended, but others were old enough to have experienced and remembered many aspects of slavery. The narratives often are as interesting to historians studying the history of African Americans in the 1930s as to scholars examining the antebellum period. (United States Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers Project Records) loc.gov
That may provide additional material.
Note: @T.E.D points out that "We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community." I think that observation is too important to leave in a comment. The narrative is going to change if it is interpreted through a white transcriber.
1
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
Possibly in From Slavery to Freedom, which has resources here
I also found
This photograph of former slave Lucindy Lawrence Jurdon accompanied the transcript of an oral history interview conducted with her during the 1930s as part of the ex-slave narrative program of the Work Projects Administration's Federal Writers Project. In seventeen states WPA workers interviewed hundreds of African Americans born before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery in 1865. Some of the informants were infants and small children when the Civil War ended, but others were old enough to have experienced and remembered many aspects of slavery. The narratives often are as interesting to historians studying the history of African Americans in the 1930s as to scholars examining the antebellum period. (United States Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers Project Records) loc.gov
That may provide additional material.
Note: @T.E.D points out that "We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community." I think that observation is too important to leave in a comment. The narrative is going to change if it is interpreted through a white transcriber.
1
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
2
down vote
up vote
2
down vote
Possibly in From Slavery to Freedom, which has resources here
I also found
This photograph of former slave Lucindy Lawrence Jurdon accompanied the transcript of an oral history interview conducted with her during the 1930s as part of the ex-slave narrative program of the Work Projects Administration's Federal Writers Project. In seventeen states WPA workers interviewed hundreds of African Americans born before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery in 1865. Some of the informants were infants and small children when the Civil War ended, but others were old enough to have experienced and remembered many aspects of slavery. The narratives often are as interesting to historians studying the history of African Americans in the 1930s as to scholars examining the antebellum period. (United States Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers Project Records) loc.gov
That may provide additional material.
Note: @T.E.D points out that "We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community." I think that observation is too important to leave in a comment. The narrative is going to change if it is interpreted through a white transcriber.
Possibly in From Slavery to Freedom, which has resources here
I also found
This photograph of former slave Lucindy Lawrence Jurdon accompanied the transcript of an oral history interview conducted with her during the 1930s as part of the ex-slave narrative program of the Work Projects Administration's Federal Writers Project. In seventeen states WPA workers interviewed hundreds of African Americans born before the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment outlawing slavery in 1865. Some of the informants were infants and small children when the Civil War ended, but others were old enough to have experienced and remembered many aspects of slavery. The narratives often are as interesting to historians studying the history of African Americans in the 1930s as to scholars examining the antebellum period. (United States Work Projects Administration, Federal Writers Project Records) loc.gov
That may provide additional material.
Note: @T.E.D points out that "We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community." I think that observation is too important to leave in a comment. The narrative is going to change if it is interpreted through a white transcriber.
edited 40 secs ago
answered 32 mins ago
Mark C. Wallaceâ¦
22.7k871109
22.7k871109
1
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
add a comment |Â
1
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
1
1
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
Upvoted. We had a question on this in the past (link anyone?), and one important fact that came out is that the interviews were being conducted largely by local white people during Jim Crow. This means rather a lot of the actual rough edges were likely self-edited out by the interview subjects to avoid causing themselves or their family trouble in the community.
â T.E.D.â¦
14 mins ago
add a comment |Â
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