Compare and contrast two slave narratives from two different states
More than four million Americans who were slaves in the United States of America were released by the end of the Civil War. Some of them managed to give account of the stories of their experiences through diaries, word of mouth, letters, ex-slaves and records. Here in, there are two stories under discussion relating to the issues and experiences within the institution of slavery. The focus will be on the narrations of Alice Gaston from Gee’s Bend, Alabama in the 1941 through an interview with Robert Sonkin. The other narration will be from the story of Fountain Hughes from Baltimore, Maryland in 1949 in an interview with Hermond Norwood.
The stories of Alice and Hughes are different because in the account of Alice as a slave, his master and missus treated her right . On the part of Hughes, he faced a rather rough time having lived all his life as a slave and having his parents and grandparents as slaves too. Mr. Hughes started by giving a brief history of himself and his family having very little to remember about his parents. He then went on to tell of the economic situation that guided the spending of people of different classes. This he says by claiming that as much as some people claimed that commodities were cheap, he found them expensive and could wait for so long before ever buying anything. Also important, he avoided getting into debt and at the age of 100, he brags of having no money at all and at the same time no debts .
He then says that they were slave children and never received any luxuries like shoes and clothes to a very old age. They had no education and any visiting to a person’s house required a note. The slaves were answerable to their masters and with the pass given by the master they could be sent anywhere. However, they were not allowed to stay out for as long as two hours. The essence of the pass defined their being slaves. They belonged to people and those people had the right to sell them whenever they pleased through auctioning just like cattle. The sale price differed from person to person though Hughes confirms that he stayed with a single person and was never sold to another. This was mainly because he was still young during the war.
Parents were forced to subject their children to work for extra earnings for the family. They both say that the lives they lived were worse than the lifestyle of current dogs. There were no cars at the time for the slaves. All they had were log houses where they squatted and whenever their masters sent them, they could walk for very long distances. Although the narration of Alice Gatson shows a different picture of the story by Hughes, the appearance of the Yankees remained a threat to both of them. As Alice puts it, the coming of the Yankees was a scare to the white people just the same way it was in Hugh’s end.
The missus of Alice always had to hide herself from the Yankees in fear that they would be taken away. The slaves were asked not to say anything to the Yankees and even in so doing, what remained to be done was harassment of the slaves. In the case of Alice, they took her father, two sisters and her brother away . Because she does not mention them again, it is apparent that they never came back after the Yankees leading them away. A similar story is told by Hughes who claims that despite his age during the war, he can remember his master running away from home in fear of the Yankees. He feared being taken into war and while on his hideout, he caught cold only coming back after the war and eventually dying.
The Yankees were vicious and cared less about the slaves. Whenever they went into the homes during their rounds, it was all a fearful thing for the masters and slaves with the slaves taking the greater wrath. Without caring about the wellbeing of those in the homes they went to, the Yankees destroyed property, throwing out food like milk, sugar, flour and meat. On occasions when they could be hungry, they ate everything they could find then throw away whatever remained regardless of the hunger the slave boys had.
Slavery is a loathed period that most people are never comfortable talking about. This is because of the pains and struggles the slaves had to go through. For the slaves, they cannot forget the history, though many of them may avoid talking about it because the pain it gives to their loved ones and those to whom they narrate their experiences. That is what they had to face and the end of the war came with spiritual liberations such as church attendances, which gave the likes of Hughes hope .
Works Cited
The Library Congress. American memory. Voices from the Days of Slavery. Interview with Alice Gaston, Gee’s Bend, Alabama, 1941 http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/afcesn:@field%28DOCID+afc9999001t5091b%29
The Library Congress. American memory. Voices from the Days of Slavery. Interview with Fountain Hughes, Baltimore, Maryland, June 11, 1949. http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/afcesn:@field%28DOCID+afc9999001t9990a%29
