American Experience: Slavery

Read about Slave Narratives (Gonzaga University's link) or read WPA (Works Progress Administration) actual Oral Histories taken of former slaves in the 1930s. From 1936 to 1938, over 2,300 former slaves from across the American South were interviewed by writers and journalists under the aegis of the Works Progress Administration. These former slaves, most born in the last years of the slave regime or during the Civil War, provided first-hand accounts of their experiences on plantations, in cities, and on small farms.

Electronic Texts related to African-American slavery

W.E.B. DuBois, The Souls of Black Folk: Electronic text.
Zora Neale Hurston, Of Mules and Men: Electronic text with critical and biographical supplementary materials.
Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl: Electronic text with critical and biographical supplementary materials.
Sojurner Truth, The Narrative of Sojurner Truth: Electronic text.
Booker T. Washington, Up From Slavery: Electronic text.
Harriet Wilson, Our Nig: Electronic Text with Critical and biographical supplementary materials.

First person written narratives: Mary Rowlandson's Entire Narrative to Download

Slavery: Olaudah Equiano, or, Gustavus Vassa, The African

Links to his works and information about his life and other works by slaves

Slavery and Contemporary Issues:

Slavery (even in the United States) is not a thing of the past, though it is no longer a legal institution. More than 27 million human beings live as slaves even today, it is a $9 billion global industry, and in the United States alone, a woman or child is trafficked within our borders approximately every ten minutes (about six in a classroom hour). In 1996, more than 70 Thai women were discovered in El Monte, a Los Angeles suburb, working as slaves held in an aprtment surrounded by barbed wire and locked gates. They spent 12 to 15 hours per day making clothing and were rarely allowed to leave their sewing machines by factory owners who held their passports and sold them essetials (soap, toothpaste ...) at wildly inflated prices that kept them from ever getting out of the debt they had incurred to pay for their passage to America in the first place. Interesting internet sites that address contemporary slavery issues are:

CAST - Coalition to Abolish Slavery and Trafficking A Los Angeles-based organizations whose mission is to assist persons trafficked for the purpose of forced labor and slavery-like practices and to work toward ending all instances of such human rights violations

Free the Slaves Deals primarily with the issue of child slavery world wide, the goal of giving them back their childhoods, fascinating website. They point out that children as young as three still work globally in commercial sex trade, in domestic servitude, as child soldiers, in agriculture and minining, and in manufacturing. Individual stories.

Anti-Slavery International The world's oldest anti-slavery organization with roots stretching back to 1787. Concerned about where your chocolate comes from? Check here!