The great stain : witnessing American slavery
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages [571]-582) and index.

Draws on personal accounts from the transatlantic slave trade era to share firsthand insights into what slavery was actually like from the perspectives of former slaves, slave owners, and African slavers.

Comprising personal accounts from a consequential chapter in our country's history, Rae tells the story of American slavery from its origins in Africa to its abolition with the end of the Civil War. He integrates firsthand accounts into a narrative history that brings the reader face to face with slavery's everyday reality, weaving together narratives that span hundreds of years. From the travel journals of sixteenth-century Spanish settlers who offered religious instruction and 'protection' in exchange for farm labor, to the diaries of poetess Phillis Wheatley and Reverend Cotton Mather, to Central Park designer Frederick Law Olmsted's book about traveling through the 'cotton states, ' to an 1880 speech given by Frederick Douglass, Rae provides a comprehensive accounting of parties from throughout the antebellum history of the nation. He also draws on a wide variety of accounts from less distinguished individuals. Most significant are the texts from and interviews with former slaves themselves. Drawing on thousands of original sources, Rae tells of repression and resistance in a society based on the exploitation of the cheapest labor and fallacies of racial superiority. --From publisher description.