Assertion: slave's work | /r/HasProperty | description
Facets:
Source sentences:
text: The actual narrative: a first sentence beginning, "I was born ... ," then specifying a place but not a date of birth; a sketchy account of parentage, often involving a white father; description of a cruel master, mistress, or overseer, details of first observed whipping and numerous subsequent whippings, with women very frequently the victims; an account of one extraordinarily strong, hardworking slave often "pure African"-who, because there is no reason for it, refuses to be whipped; record of the barriers raised against slave literacy and the overwhelming difficulties encountered in learning to read and write; description of a "Christian" slaveholder (often of one such dying in terror) and the accompanying claim that "Christian" slaveholders are invariably worse than those professing no religion; 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; 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; description of patrols, of failed attempt(s) to escape, of pursuit by men and dogs; 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; 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; reflections on slavery.