When I saw "slavery stories" - I did a double take - I thought someone was putting up a website to talk about modern day slavery stories.<p>CNN has a good site up on this subject - estimated 20-30 million people work in forced labor around the world today.<p><a href="http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/category/the-facts/" rel="nofollow">http://thecnnfreedomproject.blogs.cnn.com/category/the-facts...</a><p>The fact that slavery persists to this day, despite the known history and aftereffects, is an important subject that needs more awareness.
I was recently reading this book: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A735906/" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00A735906/</a> (title: When I Was a Slave: Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection)<p>It contains interviews with slaves that were part of a public-works program geared towards writers/musicians and other white-collar workers during the great depression. It was a particularly fascinating text since lots of the interviewees were in their 90s and thus had experienced both the pre- and post-emancipation eras. The most consistent message I saw was that a group of oppressed people who had not been allowed to acquire any of the skills one needs to survive had been set free and asked to fend for themselves in a very hostile environment (jim crow laws and so on) and thus for most of that generation, it was like trading one problem for another.<p>Also, there are several statistics compiled where the african-american community features as an outlier. For instance, breast-feeding rates in that community are far lower than the rest of the US [1]. I didn't know that this was a result of what women in the slavery-era went through but learned that from the book.<p>It is important to read literature from this era. Tells us a lot about how just over a century ago, people employed rhetoric to convince themselves that slavery was really ok (see the talking points of the "overseers" and "speculators").<p>[1] <a href="http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/43/3/1.3.full" rel="nofollow">http://thenationshealth.aphapublications.org/content/43/3/1....</a>
The site is well done and I look forward to checking it out.<p>It does irritate me a bit when all of these slave stories always come out during black history month as if black peoples entire history consists of slavery and then the civil rights struggle. There are black poets, artists, inventors, scientists and intellectuals that nobody really knows about. It would be cool to put some focus on that aspect or at least let it match the amount of effort put into sharing the chilling truths of slavery in America...
Really like the site.<p>I've been reading the narratives of enslaved people lately, starting with 12 Years a Slave, then Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and started reading Frederick Douglass' narratives. Harrowing reads.<p>For anyone reading these narratives: it's easy to get caught up in the dynamic of blacks and whites, racism, and the like, but the core issue of American slavery is the depravity of humanity. Focusing on the guilt/non-guilt/whatever of various ethnic groups quite misses the point.<p>Evils of this type exist across humanity; these enslavement narratives show us the particular context of how this depravity played out in America. They also provides us with some insight into contemporary issues in our society. The tentacles of a 400+ year institution like slavery, and their corroding influence, continue to wrap themselves around hearts and minds open to their venom.<p>The narratives are very worthwhile reading.<p>Sidenote: I think the site title might be better termed as Memoirs from American Enslaved People. For so long these people were not acknowledged as human beings, and it seems appropriate to acknowledge the dignity of their humanity.
There is only one monument built to commemorate the end of the slave trade (through the British Empire). As it happens this monument just so happens to be at the entrance to the school I attended. Consequently we learned more about the slave business than most. Our education was a bit more nuanced and not entirely pious.<p>It is easy to focus on what terrible times slaves had - 'wasn't it terrible' - but the more interesting stories and the bigger picture are elsewhere. For starters, it was not the slaves that freed themselves (Haiti being an exception), the campaign was a Quaker thing, an understanding that God would not have thought it right. Beyond that there was also the economic picture, indentured labour from Bengal (India) was more cost effective.<p>At least slaves could see their chains. They had to be fed and watered, it wasn't as if they had to find the essentials for staying alive out of a paycheck. Those doing the same toil as indentured labour were living that bit more precariously.<p>What I find most interesting about the slave trade and slavery is how analogous it is to the arms trade. In the days of slavery members of parliament would own plantations, councillors would have shares in slave-trade related concerns and every aspect of power was corrupted by some link. If you were against slavery it was hard to clothe and feed yourself without buying slavery products. Think of today and if you wanted to avoid things made in China for some ideological reason - near impossible.<p>So anyway, today's arms trade where all politicians seem to take some back-hander from it is so like the slave trade/slavery in how it corrupts. Equally, nobody thinks or cares about banking with a bank that services the arms companies, or buying something as small as a paperclip from a company that gladly sells to the Pentagon. It was the same in the slavery days. Nobody cared except for some Quakers.<p>That is not entirely true, a lot of factory operatives in places like Manchester realised their struggle for fair pay for fair work was tied into the slavery thing.<p>I particularly like stories that challenge the narrative. In the UK during the post war years a lot of people from the Caribbean were invited over to blighty to be cleaners, bus drivers etc. That is what we like to think. However, some did make it over here to be judges, teachers and other professions. These contradictions and the nuances to the story are what make it interesting for me, and, personally, I think that our history regarding slavery deserves to be more thought provoking than the testimonies provided on the slaverystories.org website.
This is the best thing I've seen on HN in ages. And love that they're actively seeking submissions and additions through GitHub. <i>And</i> lovely design, too. Kudos all around!
Coursera course <i>History of the Slave</i> [US] <i>South</i> is in session now for people interested in the subject.<p><a href="https://www.coursera.org/course/slavesouth" rel="nofollow">https://www.coursera.org/course/slavesouth</a>
I just fell in love with Fountain Hughes. Great site.<p><a href="http://www.slaverystories.org/fountain-hughes/" rel="nofollow">http://www.slaverystories.org/fountain-hughes/</a>
"The Warmth of Other Suns" may also interest you: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Warmth-Other-Suns-Migration/dp/1469233029" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/The-Warmth-Other-Suns-Migration/dp/146...</a> (no affil link)
The website looks nice. I'm curious, is there any editorial process for the contributions, to verify accuracy (understanding the full verification is impossible)?
The audio is from the 1970's 1940's and 1930's.<p>I don't know why, but I was somehow expecting the audio to be analog rips taken directly from 19th century wax cylinders.
This is a great site. It correctly addresses the often-dense web spaces that make available many of the narratives. Good to see the modern web approach. And the instructional stuff on github is worthwhile.<p>I've shared it with the major African American Studies listserv, H-Afro-Am (<a href="http://www.h-net.org/~afro-am/" rel="nofollow">http://www.h-net.org/~afro-am/</a>)
A minor bug: words in italic do not have a space before and after them, as they should do. For example: <a href="http://www.slaverystories.org/harriet-jacobs/1" rel="nofollow">http://www.slaverystories.org/harriet-jacobs/1</a><p>This is a great project.
My thoughts on the site:<p>1) It would be nice to have pictures, illustrations, and maps to give better context to the stories. It would make them more alive.<p>Something like this would be nice: <a href="http://apps.npr.org/wolves/" rel="nofollow">http://apps.npr.org/wolves/</a><p>There's a nicer example on some railway in Russia but I can't seem to find it.<p>2) As someone else has already mentioned, it would be great to include modern slavery stories. Sadly, there are a lot more slaves today compared to before Emancipation was passed. People need to know about that.
Why limit it to the (relatively) small collection of American stories? Why not open it up to slavery stories from the hundreds of thousands of people around the world?
Wow, this is an awesome site, especially for someone who's not from the US. I've read literature that is about US slavery, and a few stories about particular slaves that got (or took) their freedom so I find it fascinating to read about.<p>Really nicely designed too :)
Great idea, and nicely executed :)<p>Feature request : would be great to have a /all to get the whole story at once, instead of chapter by chapter.
Would allow to export to Kindle or Pocket in 2 secs.
With Javascript disabled (which is how safety-minded folk browse) your site displays nothing but the background color (I guess). Add some <noscript>!
The fact remains, how can we as American people move on, when all some are trying to do is concentrate on the past?<p>Should we not concentrate on the future, and pay attention to the rest of the world and the active slavery that still persists today?<p>I think Americans are spoiled. I also think that what we say, is comparable to a poop sandwich because everyone wants attention on their own problems instead of living their life and bettering the progress of the world.
Ya! Let's do more to eliminate racism, perhaps a website that shows how slavery affected us, so we can move past it and turn a new page. Oh wait...