Hearing Enslaved Voices: African and Indian Slave Testimony in British and French America, 1700-1848

by Sophie White (Editor), Trevor Burnard (Editor)

Overview

This book focuses on alternative types of slave narratives, especially courtroom testimony, and interrogates how such narratives were produced, the societies (both those that were majority slave societies and those in which slaves were a distinct minority of the population) in which testimony was permitted, and the meanings that can be attached to such narratives. The chapters in this book provide valuable information about the everyday lives—including the inner and spiritual lives—of enslaved African American and Native American individuals in the British and French Atlantic World, from Canada to the Caribbean. It explores slave testimony as a form of autobiographical narrative, and in ways that allow us to foreground enslaved persons’ lived experience as expressed in their own words.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367542801
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	08/01/2022
Series:	Routledge Studies in the History of the Americas
Pages:	264
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Sophie White is Professor of American Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

Trevor Burnard is Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Slave Narratives in British and French America, 1700–1848 Trevor Burnard and Sophie White Section One: Voices in the Archives 1. "Said Without Being Asked": Slavery, Testimony and Autobiography Sophie White 2. Fictions in the Archives: Jupiter alias Gamelle or the Tales of an Enslaved Peddler in the French New Orleans’ Court Cécile Vidal 3. Slave Judiciary Testimonies in the French Caribbean: What to Do with Them Dominique Rogers Section Two: Native Americans 4. A "Spanish American Squaw" in New England: Indian Ann’s Journey from Slavery to Freedom Linford D. Fisher 5. In the Borderlands of Race and Freedom (and Genre): Embedded Indian and African Slave Testimony in Eighteenth-Century New England Margaret Ellen Newell 6. "She Said Her Answers Contained the Truth": Listening to and with Enslaved Witnesses in Eighteenth-Century New France Brett Rushforth Section Three: African Americans 7. Ideologies of the Age of Revolution and Emancipation in Enslaved African Narrative Aaron Spencer Fogleman 8. Slave Voice and the Legal Archive: The Case of the Freedom Suits Before the Paris Admiralty Court Miranda Spieler 9. "I Know I Have to Work": The Moral Economy of Labor Among Enslaved Women in Berbice, 1819–1834 Trevor Burnard 10. "An Anomalous Population": Re-captive Narratives in Antigua and the British Colonial Archive, 1807–1828 Anita Rupprecht Conclusion: Slave Testimonies: The Long View Emily Clark