Lize

Slave Narrative #2

After reading the narrative of Louis Hughes, it was similar to what I expected but I did learn a lot. I had no idea that slaves actually started so young, ” I was a mere child, probably not more than six years of age, as I remember, when my mother, two brothers and myself were sold to Dr. Louis, a practicing physician in the village of Scottsville.” How can people use that kind of behavior towards children, who are just starting to learn about the world. I also never realized that slaves had a kind of office and arrangement set up for them to be traded. I never knew that there was actually some kind of organization process to it,  I guess i just assumed it was just kind of a trade off between slave owners. Another interesting thing to me was that in the “slave market” the owner’s preferred a well-groomed slave rather than one that has been whipped. However, I did realize how harsh a treatment the slaves got, “Once, when I was sent to town for the mail and had started back, it was so dark and rainy my horse got away from me and I had to stay all night in town. The next morning when I got back home I had a severe whipping, because the master was expecting a letter containing money and was disappointed in not receiving it that night, as he was going to Panola to spend Christmas.” That kind of behavior seems foolish and unecessary to me. The movie that we watched in Mr. Olmstead’s class showed the depiction of a slave as someone that watched after the young lady, and as if they were having a good time helping around the house. The way Hughes describes his living quarters is so different from how the living quarters are shown in the movie. The movie shows it as if the slave is staying in the house with the owner’s, however Hughes describes it as a small room made of logs, and dirt floor, it just sounds awful. Hughes accurate description of life of slave reminds me of how Jim would be treated if found with Huck when he was escaping. Hughes has many sections on being whipped and cruel punishments that happened to the slaves. I cannot imagine living in a time period such as this.