The Great Stain: Witnessing American Slavery

by Noel Rae Narrated by Steven Crossley

Overview

Comprising personal accounts from an intensely consequential chapter in human history, the transatlantic slave trade, The Great Stain takes listeners from the depths of suffering to the heights of human dignity.

There have been numerous books about the why, when, and where of slavery in America, but there is a dearth of material exposing what slavery was actually like. In The Great Stain, researcher Noel Rae frames first-hand accounts from former slaves, slave owners, and even African slavers.

Rae exposes the commerce and culture of slavery, not only from an economic or moral standpoint but also through multitudinous perspectives within it: a young girl is beaten after being accused of stealing a piece of candy, a slave ship's surgeon recounts brutal treatment and squalid conditions, an Englishman visiting Haiti observes as violent uprisings break out. So many viewpoints ensure that no historical blind spot will leave the picture of an era incomplete.

The Great Stain weaves a tapestry of good and evil, of greed and kindness, and of a civilization as it develops, evolves, and continues to move toward the future. More than that, the listener will encounter the complex economic underpinning of an entire society based on the exploitation of the cheapest labor.

Editorial Reviews

Choice

[The Great Stain] provides a moving, eyeopening account of the complexity and horror of human bondage. The testimony of slaves is particularly powerful . . . Essential. For all public, general, and undergraduate collections.”

David S. Ferriero

InThe Great Stain, Noel Rae brings together first-hand accounts of 300 years of slavery in America.In the historical discussion, we often talk about the institution of slavery. We examine the debate over the legal question concerning slavery and its expansion in the United States, its role in the origin and conduct of the Civil War, butworkssuch asThe Great Stainbring us back to the human level, allowing us to hear what the institution meant for an individual.”

National Book Review

Many histories have been writtenofslavery in America, but far too few have lettheparticipants, and particularlythevictims, speak so directly for themselves. Rae has helped to fill that historical vacuum in this important work, andthevoices are intense, eloquent, and haunting.

starred review Booklist

Through adept use of historical documents and artful storytelling, Rae examines nearly 300 years of American slavery and attempts to answer the question: “What was it like?” . . . To allow narrative voices, black and white, to come through, Rae draws on a remarkable assemblage of documents . . . as well as oral histories of former slaves and excerpts from the writings of free persons who lived in the South, such as the sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké, and visitors to the South, such as seminal landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted. The result is a uniquely immediate, multivoiced, specific, arresting, and illuminating look at life under slavery in America.

Ibram X. Kendi

Noel Rae expertly assembles the most consequential accounts from the era of the American slave trade. Drawing on a wide range of sources, he frames a vivid and comprehensive picture of a period in American history about which many only have a vague understanding.

APRIL 2018 - AudioFile

Rae explores centuries of writings by those personally involved with or impacted by the slave trade, providing a powerful and palpable tapestry of the problems and horrors of slavery. Narrator Steven Crossley’s deep, slightly raspy voice and English accent are instilled with a tone that evokes the voice-over of the classic British documentary. While enjoyable, the overwhelmingly consistent voice falls flat in an audiobook that hinges upon giving life to multiple voices. Too often, it’s unclear where the large swaths of quoting from original sources such as Solomon Northrup, Frederick Douglass, Reverend Cotton Mather, and Phillis Wheatley have ended and Rae’s prose has begun. Using multiple narrators would have made this a more effective experience, helping listeners connect more meaningfully with each person Rae includes. L.E. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Review

2017-12-24
Eyewitness testimonies to the culture and commerce of slavery, America's original sin.Slavery was, in the words of a Southern circumlocution, a "peculiar institution." In America, it was also an institution extending deep into the past, two centuries and more before the Civil War that ended it. In this gathering of personal, firsthand accounts, coupled with smart commentary, popular historian and editor Rae (People's War: Original Voices of the American Revolution, 2011, etc.) looks into that past. Near the beginning of the book is a tale by a slave trader in Africa who purchased captives from "a country called Tuffoe"—perhaps Togo—for "the value of twenty shillings sterling for every man, in cowries…and ten shillings for a woman, boy, or girl." During the American Revolution, the British promised freedom to slaves only to return them to their masters in defeat given that the terms of surrender mandated that "any property obviously belonging to the inhabitants of these states…shall be subject to be reclaimed." Within a couple of generations, by the account of a touring British journalist, the slave economy was at its apex. And it was extremely costly, tying up an enormous quantity of capital that would otherwise have gone into hiring labor and enriching the economy as a whole, by virtue of which "the whole country would have been advanced at least a century beyond its present condition." That's a fascinating premise, one of many that arise from this overstuffed book. It's certainly a more fruitful one than the notion of the "lost cause," which Rae traces to another journalist, a Southerner named Edward Pollard, who lamented the supremacy of the Northern cause and people, who were "coarse and inferior in comparison with the aristocracy and chivalry of the South." Given the culture's apparent need to readjudicate that conflict, this book and its wealth of documents and reports make a welcome, ready reference.Essential for students of American slavery and antebellum history.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940169695366
Publisher:	Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Publication date:	02/20/2018
Edition description:	Unabridged

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