Re: [Marxism] Genovese

[Mason Gibb <mason.akhnaten@xxxxxxxxx>]

Maybe this is a bit late (I'm way backed up on mailing list reading
due to holidays with my Internet-less family)...

Re: slave narratives

After watching a very eloquent Assistant Professor from some Ivy
League school (I want to say Princeton) give a talk on Box Brown, I'd
be very suspicious of any slave narratives you come across.

Box Brown was a slave who escaped the South by mailing himself north. 
In order to escape the Fugitive Slave Act, Brown went to England. 
There, his slave panoramas travelled throughout England and, to help
draw a crowd, he'd mail himself from one location to the next.

The important thing about this was the professor's research in the
ways that the abolitionist press severely changed Brown's slave
narrative.  She cited numerous examples of slave narratives that were
co-opted by abolitionists.  In doing so, the words of the subject were
lost, and in their place surfaced a whole lot of abolitionist
rhetoric.

So take everything with a grain of salt, and be sure to thoroughly
research any available publication information on the narratives you
find.  You may end up finding numerous versions of a narrative, some
with more abolitionist editting than others.

________________________________________________
YOU MUST clip all extraneous text before replying to a message.
Send list submissions to: Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism