Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Volume X, Missouri Narratives

In the sweltering summer of 1936, government interviewers fanned across Missouri with notebooks and recording equipment, seeking out elderly Black men and women who had been born into bondage. What they captured was something no textbook could provide: the raw, unfiltered voices of people who had actually lived through American slavery, speaking in their own words about what they remembered. These are not polished memoirs or historian's analyses. They are conversations, often halting, sometimes haltingly funny, frequently heartbreaking, always human. A woman remembers her mother's songs. A man describes the day the Yankees came. A former cook details the elaborate lies her enslaver told his children about why the enslaved people were so unhappy. These 74 narratives constitute an invaluable archive of folk history, recovered from the memories and lips of those who were there. They preserve details no scholar could invent: the taste of particular foods, the sound of particular songs, the particular cruelties and rare kindnesses that made up a whole human life. For anyone seeking to understand the real texture of American slavery, told by those who knew it best, there is no substitute for these pages.