Nightline aired an interview that featured recordings from formerly enslaved people in 1999. The interviews feature Fountain Hughes (enslaved in VA), Laura Smalley (enslaved in TX), Harriet Smith (enslaved in TX). It’s a fantastic look at history in the words of people who experienced it, but are not bound to the fantasy of a noble South or “happy or loyal slaves”.
Pro Neo-Confederates say that critics are looking at slavery and race relations through modern eyes, but these are people who actually experienced it. The people who enslaved them probably had a very different opinion on how “there were no race relation problems, until the North came”. There are thousands more slave narratives at the Library of Congress.
FOUNTAIN HUGHES: Me? Which I’d rather be? You know what I’d rather do? If I
thought… had any idea that I’d ever be a slave again, I’d take a gun and just end it all right away! Because you’re nothing but a dog. You’re not a thing but a dog! Night never come without you had nothing to do. Time to cut tobacco…if they want you to cut all night long out in the field you cut. And if they want you to hang all night long, you hang…hang tobacco. It didn’t matter about your tired…being tired. You’re afraid to say you’re tired. They just…well …[voice trails off]
Most people don’t even speak up to their bosses or clients they depend on for money, they won’t/can’t take a day off without the fear of how it affects their job – but these same people expect people living under a system of slavery to tell their Masters they want to be free. Some people did it, but is it any wonder others did not?
It's about Heritage! 