Characteristics 7-12

Slave Narrative Characteristic 7-12

7.       description of the amounts and kinds of food and clothing given to slaves, the work required of them, the pattern of a day, a week, a year;

“My grandmother had taken my old shoes, and replaced them with a new pair.” “As his food was of the coarsest kind…. He was now confined in an apartment with other prisoners, who were covered with filthy rags.” Chapter IV, THE SLAVE WHO DARED TO FEEL LIKE A MAN.

“A freshet once bore his wine cellar and meat house miles away from the plantation. Some slaves followed, and secured bits of meat and bottles of wine... A rough box was their coffin….” Chapter IX, SKETCHES OF NEIGHBORING SLAVEHOLDERS.

 “I divided my little parcel of food with my guide, knowing that he had lost the chance of grinding his corn, and must toil all day in the field.” Chapter XVI, SCENES AT THE PLANTATION.

^^not sure these this is it, but it’s all that I could find.

OH JK HERE IT IS… I think “Little attention was paid to the slaves' meals in Dr. Flint's house. If they could catch a bit of food while it was going, well and good…. I passed my grandmother's house, where there was always something to spare for me…. I was indebted to her for all my comforts, spiritual or temporal. It was her labor that supplied my scanty wardrobe. I have a vivid recollection of the linsey-woolsey dress given me every winter by Mrs. Flint. How I hated it! It was one of the badges of slavery.” Chapter II, THE NEW MASTER AND MISTRESS.

8.       account of a slave auction, of families being separated and destroyed, of distraught mothers clinging to their children as they are torn from them, of slave coffles being driven South;

“Hiring-day at the south takes place on the 1st of January. On the 2d, the slaves are expected to go to their new masters…. Then comes New Year's eve; and they gather together their little alls, or more properly speaking, their little nothings, and wait anxiously for the dawning of day. At the appointed hour the grounds are thronged with men, women, and children, waiting, like criminals, to hear their doom pronounced. The slave is sure to know who is the most humane, or cruel master, within forty miles of him.”

“It is easy to find out, on that day, who clothes and feeds his slaves well; for he is surrounded by a crowd, begging, "Please, massa, hire me this year. I will work very hard, massa."”

“If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.”

“But to the slave mother New Year's day comes laden with peculiar sorrows. She sits on her cold cabin floor, watching the children who may all be torn from her the next morning; and often does she wish that she and they might die before the day dawns. She may be an ignorant creature, degraded by the system that has brutalized her from childhood; but she has a mother's instincts, and is capable of feeling a mother's agonies.”

“On one of these sale days, I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction-block. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and their mother was bought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell them, one by one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met that mother in the street, and her wild, haggard face lives to-day in my mind. She wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, "Gone! All gone! Why don't God kill me?" I had no words wherewith to comfort her. Instances of this kind are of daily, yea, of hourly occurrence.”
Chapter III, THE SLAVES’ NEW YEARS DAY.

9.       descriptions of patrols, of failed attempt(s) to escape, of pursuit by men and dogs;

“Luckily we heard their horse's hoofs before they came in sight, and we had time to hide behind a large tree. They passed, hallooing and shouting in a manner that indicated a recent carousal. How thankful we were that they had not their dogs with them!” XVI, SCENES AT THE PLANTATION.

“The slave Hamlin, the first fugitive that came under the new law, was given up by the bloodhounds of the north to the bloodhounds of the south.” Chapter XL, THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW.

“It is not necessary to state how he made his escape. Suffice it to say, he was on his way to New York when a violent storm overtook the vessel. The captain said he must put into the nearest port. This alarmed Benjamin, who was aware that he would be advertised in every port near his own town. His embarrassment was noticed by the captain. To port they went. There the advertisement met the captain's eye. Benjamin so exactly answered its description, that the captain laid hold on him, and bound him in chains. The storm passed, and they proceeded to New York. Before reaching that port Benjamin managed to get off his chains and throw them overboard. He escaped from the vessel, but was pursued, captured, and carried back to his master.” Chapter IV, THE SLAVE WHO DARED TO FEEL LIKE A MAN.

10.   description of successful attempt(s) to escape, lying by during the day, travelling by night guided by the North Star, reception in a free state by Quakers who offer a lavish breakfast and much genial thee/thou conversation

“We made haste to enter the boat, and were rowed back to the vessel. I passed a wretched night; for the heat of the swamp, the mosquitos, and the constant terror of snakes, had brought on a burning fever.” Chapter XX, NEW PERILS.

“It seemed horrible to sit or lie in a cramped position day after day, without one gleam of light.”Chapter XXI, THE LOOPHOLE RETREAT.

“…and I determined to steer for the North Star at all hazards.”  “I made all my arrangements to go on board as soon as it was dusk.” Chapter XXIX, PREPARATIONS FOR ESCAPE.

11.   taking of a new last name (frequently one suggested by a white abolitionist) to accord with new social identity as a free man, but retention of first name as a mark of continuity of individual identity;

You guys said to skip this one, but I don’t know, maybe this quote would be good for this one?

“Fanny, not dreaming I was any where about in that region, had assumed my name, though she called herself Johnson.” Chapter XXIX PREPARATIONS FOR ESCAPE

12.   reflections on slavery.

“Yet there was no place, where slavery existed, that could have afforded me so good a place of concealment.” Chapter XXI, THE LOOPHOLE OF RETREAT.

“Much as I despise and detest the class of slave-traders, whom I regard as the vilest wretches on earth” Chapter XIX, THE CHILDREN SOLD.