Slavery and class in the American South : a generation of slave narrative testimony 1840 1865 Introduction: slaves and privileges Emerging class awareness Work status and social mobility Class and conflict: white and black The fugitive as class exemplar Epilogue: the record of which we feel so proud today In William L. Andrewss magisterial study of an entire generation of slave narrators more than 60 mid nineteenth century narratives reveal how work family skills and connections made for social and economic differences among the enslaved of the South. Slave narrators disclosed class based reasons for violence that broke out between impudent  gentleman  and lady slaves and their resentful mean masters. Andrewss far reaching book shows that status and class played key roles in the self and social awareness and in the processes of liberation portrayed in the narratives of the most celebrated fugitives from U.S. slavery such as Frederick Douglass Harriet Jacobs William Wells Brown and William and Ellen Craft. Slavery and Class in the American South explains why social and economic distinctions developed and how they functioned among the enslaved. Noting that the majority of the slave narrators came from the higher echelons of the enslaved Andrews also pays close attention to the narratives that have received the least notice from scholars those from the most exploited class the field hands. By examining the lives of the most and least acclaimed heroes and heroines of the slave narrative Andrews shows how the dividing edge of social class cut two ways sometimes separating upper and lower strata of slaves to their enslavers advantage but at other times fueling pride aspiration and a sense of just deserts among some of the enslaved that could be satisfied by nothing less than complete freedom