Social Studies Programs - Americans through History

This example of a slave narrative was written by Charles Thompson, a former slave and preacher. Thompson often used his position as a preacher to gain the respect of other slaves and to organize meetings of all kinds against the wishes of his masters.

Slaves did not have the same rights as free people. They had been taken away from their original homes and forced to live on plantations that they were not allowed to leave. Despite their differences and their lack of freedom, the slaves created new lives for themselves by forming communities on the plantations. Religion, especially Christianity, played an important role in those communities.

During the New Deal, the federal government hired people to record the lives of former slaves. People working for the “Federal Writers’ Project” interviewed former slaves during the 1930s and gave them a chance to describe their life experiences in their own words.

In this quotation, Fountain Hughes discusses the transition from being a slave to being a free person.

This image shows slaves sifting through cotton on a plantation in South Carolina . Both Charles Thompson and Fountain Hughes would have done similar work on plantations.