To Be a Slave

In the Author’s Note, Julius Lester points out that in the study of slavery “the words of those who were slaves” have often been overlooked (5). Before the Civil War, slave narratives were written and shared by abolitionist groups. In the 1930s, there was fresh interest in slave narratives, and the Federal Writers’ Project recorded the stories of former slaves that were still living at the time.

The Federal Writers’ Project narratives deliberately preserved the “speech patterns and language of the ex-slaves” (5). In contrast, the pre-Civil War narratives took the experiences of slaves but adjusted the language “to conform to certain literary standards at the time” (6). Lester notes that, in his book, readers will find excerpts from both collections. He explains that, in his quotations, he has made only minor changes to punctuation and spelling to clarify the content. Lester also details his system for citing sources beneath each quoted passage.

The Prologue opens with a quote from a letter written by John Rolfe, detailing the 1619 arrival of 20 African slaves to the Jamestown colony. Following the quote, Lester reviews the history of the African slave trade, pointing out that African slaves “were a part of the New World long before the Mayflower, even before the settling of Jamestown in 1609” (8).