Fourteen thousand. That is the estimated number of Sudanese men, women and children that have been abducted and forced into slavery between 1986 and 2002. (Agnes Scott College, http://prww.agnesscott.edu/alumnae/p_maineventsarticle.asp?id=260) Mende Nazer is one of those 14,000. The thing that sets her apart is that she escaped and had the courage to tell her story to the world. Slave: My True Story, the Memoir of Mende Nazer, depicts how courage and the will to live can triumph over oppression and enslavement by showing the world that slavery did not end in 1865, but is still a worldwide problem. In Slave: My True Story, Nazer personally and vividly chronicles her life, which began in the Nuba Mountains of southern Sudan. Her early life with the Karko Tribe in a rural and isolated area was very simple and happy. Nazer grew up in a family that was, by Nuba standards, considerably well off. She was the youngest of five children, with two brothers and two sisters. Nazer, along with both her brothers and one sister attended a government-run, Arab school. She led what has been described as an “idyllic childhood” with no worries about food, shelter, or social comforts. However, in the spring of 1993, everything changed. At the age of twelve or thirteen (the Nuba people do not keep records of birth dates) Nazer was abducted during a raid on her village. "a man seized me from behind. He pinned me down with his stubbly beard pricking the back of my neck…He dragged me to my feet and started to march me through the village…We arrived at the edge of the forest. Beneath the trees there were about thirty other children huddled together"(Nazer 97). Nazer, along with the other children were taken to a converted army base run by Arab Militiamen loyal to Sudan’s Islamist Government. “…a camp – made up of twenty or more khaki green tents, arranged in rows. We approached the camp in a long line, and at the gates we were met by a group of men in military uniforms”(Nazer 105). She was then sold to a wealthy Arab family in Khartoum, Sudan’s capitol, for the equivalent of $150 (estimated). She worked as a slave for the family for seven years, from 1993-1999, and was then sent to London, England to work for the family’s relatives. She was a slave in London from 1999-2000.
The book The Classic Slave Narratives is a collection of narratives that includes the historical enslavement experiences in the lives of the former slaves Harriet Jacobs, Frederick Douglass, and Olaudah Equiano. They all find ways to advocate for themselves to protect them from some of the horrors of slavery, such as sexual abuse, verbal abuse, imprisonment, beatings, torturing, killings and the nonexistence of civil rights as Americans or rights as human beings. Also, their keen wit and intelligence leads them to their freedom from slavery, and their fight for freedom and justice for all oppressed people.
Others weep for the ones lost. They then got prison clothes that were ridiculously fitted. They made exchanges and went to a new barracks in the “gypsies’ camp.” They waited in the mud for a long time. They were permitted to another barracks, with a gypsy in charge of them.
Naba and Ayodele’s stories were similar to many other people. It truly shows the wretchedness of slavery and the negative effects that it has. Unfortunately, the abolition of slavery does not happen for a long time and this sort of mistreatment of human beings continues for years to come.
To understand the desperation of wanting to obtain freedom at any cost, it is necessary to take a look into what the conditions and lives were like of slaves. It is no secret that African-American slaves received cruel and inhumane treatment. Although she wrote of the horrific afflictions experienced by slaves, Linda Brent said, “No pen can give adequate description of the all-pervading corruption produced by slavery." The life of a slave was never a satisfactory one, but it all depended on the plantation that one lived on and the mast...
Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents In The Life Of A Slave Girl. 2nd Edition. Edited by Pine T. Joslyn. Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, INC., 2001.
The setting of the narrative Incidents is vaguely described but we get the notion that Linda’s family exists in a state where even though they are enslaved, they have some kind of freedom. The setting thus tries to remind us that there are many different kinds of slavery. However upon arriving in England, Linda disperses the widely spread idea that American slaves were better off than the poor people in other countries. She says: “I repeat that the most ignorant and the most destitute of these peasants was a thousand fold better off than the most pampered American slave” (37) In some ways we can say that Linda was a pampered slave – she was able to live with her family and she was never raped or whipped (which was not the case in Douglass...
During the period after the emancipation many African Americans are hoping for a better future with no one as their master but themselves, however, according to the documentary their dream is still crushed since even after liberation, as a result of the bad laws from the federal government their lives were filled with forced labor, torture and brutality, poverty and poor living conditions. All this is shown in film.
The author Sharon M. Draper, is a granddaughter of a slave and her grandfather was freed at age five. In Copper Sun, she uses interesting characters to describe what a slave’s life was like trying to escape, working in fields, and earning an education. In this story, we are able to picture all of the struggles that a slave faced. The protagonist was an average young lady named Amari who lived happily with her family and friends in her village. She was going along her day when she heard that some pale men were heading her way. Amari’s village always welcomed all of their guests by throwing parties and shortly after, her whole village was attacked. The only survivors were teens who were brought to some unknown place where shortly afterward, they
In 1756, a British ship named the “Hare” set sail for Charleston, North Carolina carrying about 80 African slaves. There was a little girl named Priscilla who was 10 years old. She was taken through the Middle Passage along with many others. Many women were taken advantage of during this period of time by the male crew. Priscilla was on the boat for 10 weeks and saw 13 of her fellow African American people die and be thrown into the ocean. As the ship got closer to land, the slaves were forced to be covered in gunpowder and oil to hide their marks from being beaten. Once at Charleston, there were slave auctions almost everyday. When Priscilla was brought, she was brought by a rice grower. She was 1 out of 4,000 slaves the family had owned.
In Solomon Northup’s narrative, 12 years a slave, he shares a story of the horrors of his past that was a lifelong reality to many African Americans throughout American history. Northup, being a free man of Saratoga, New York, was stripped of his freedom and sold ‘down the river’ to the Bayou Boeuf of Louisiana and was bound to slavery for twelve years. Along with recounting the gruesome hardships and labor that he had to endure, Northup also gives detailed accounts of the lives of fellow slaves that he comes across, primarily, women. Northup’s narrative allows readers to see that the hardships that slave women experienced by far surpassed anything that a slave man could endure. Stripped of their families, beaten relentlessly and forever victims
Being given away as a little kid, slave girl grew up working for people without
Aldhous, Peter. "Brutalized Child Soldiers can Return to Normality." Student Research Center. 10 May 2008: pg. 6-7. 2-p. Print. http://web.ebscohost.com
Northup, Solomon, Sue L. Eakin, and Joseph Logsdon. Twelve years a slave. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968. Print.
One of the most important parts in our history involves the influence of slavery throughout Africa. In the graphic novel, Abina and the Important Men, by Getz and Clarke, the true story of a young girl, Abina who was wrongly enslaved in the Gold Coast Protectorate, present day Ghana.(116) In 1875, slavery was abolished there, and Abina goes on trial, suing her previous “master”. This story is particularly significant due to the fact that it is a true story. One theme that is present throughout this remarkable graphic novel is - What does it mean to be a slave? Many characters had their own specific perspectives on slavery, specifically by the “important men”,
Twelve Years a Slave is based on a true story. This book is a narrative of Solomon Northup. Who is he, and what is his identity is all described in this book. The title of this book, Twelve Years a Slave, explains those twelve years, Northup spent in slavery. He was a citizen of New York. Solomon Northup, the protagonist of the story, is born-free African American on July 1808. He is married to Anne Hampton and had three children: Elizabeth, ten years old; Margaret, eight years old; Alonzo, five years old. Solomon Northup was a free man kidnapped into slavery for twelve years in Washington, D.C at the age of 32. Two men named Brown and Hamilton kidnapped him in 1841, offered him a job in circus and drugged him. Shortly after his escape, he published his memoir to great acclaim and brought legal action against his abductors, though they were never prosecuted. Solomon Northup in Twelve Years a Slave is an interesting character because the author displays him as very intelligent & creative, caring& kind and persistent and hopeful person.