- What surprised you as you learned about slave agency/resistance?
- The voices of enslaved people have traditionally been missing from the historical record. Why do you think that is? How does the inclusion of slave narratives change the historical record?
- How did this change/complicate your understanding of the institution of slavery in the United States?
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Slavery in the United States was a gruesome time in history for the nation, and should not be forgotten. According to John Green in his “Crash Course” video, slaves made up a third of the United States population during the 19th century. That means that one third of the United States human population was being treated as if they were property, beaten, used, and stripped of human rights every day during that time. However, because these slaves were stripped of their rights, they had to find ways to fight back for their own wellbeing. This usually did not consist of large revolts, but rather smaller instances like working slower or damaging property.
Slaves had many routes of resistance while working, and most of them came from more so indirect forms of fighting the white owners. Mattie Logan out of Mississippi tells a story in the Slave Narrative about her peers hating the overseer on their plantation. He was constantly whipping and beating the slaves for no apparent reason, and they resisted him by putting snakes in his cabin at night. They did it so many times that he ended up getting up and leaving the plantation. Forms of resistance like this show how the slaves made their day to day lifestyles slightly better by using sly forms of resistance.
Many times, the slaves were not fed in glorious proportions, so they had to figure out ways in order to provide for themselves. Carter Jackson, a slave from Alabama and Texas said that he would figure out ways to steal money from the slave owners. He would go and make a fire at the owners house, and take $50 bills when he could. These subversive actions led slaves to be able to better their circumstances in situations. Compared to stealing some cookies from the cookie jar, slaves acted the same way. Grown men and women did not have the rights in order to act on their own, resulting in them having to use subversive acts in order to obtain some type of joy.
One of the major ways that the slaves acted against their owners and the slave culture was to get involved in religion. Many examples in the readings show that many slaves were religious and were constantly relying on God to help them. Religion acted as a staple for resistance in many ways for slaves. One of the ways is that it gave them a sense of community and unity. Gatherings in secret and the spreading of the Gospel is something that allowed the slaves to have something in common with each other. They could all agree in unison on the same things, and that is matched with hope. The hope that they received through God was also something that religion did. It is ironic because these slaves had so much hope – humming Gospel tunes in the fields and praising the Lord – while they were in one of the most unfortunate circumstances in history. Religion gave them a sense of unity and hope.
National Humanities Center. “Slaves’ Resistance on Southern Plantations, Selections from the WPA Slave Narratives.” Slaves’ Resistance on Southern Plantations, Selections from the WPA Slave Narratives, vol. Vol. I, 1500–1865, 1930, pp. 1–8. National humanities center, nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text7/resistancewpa.pdf.
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