The thread was "Re: Madison's slaves (and black descendants?)"

Anne --
I would differ with your assertion that "Whatever evils the children may 
have witnessed were undoubtedly explained away by adults who didn't want 
the children to grow up excessively fearful." 

These two books shed light on the experiences of enslaved children:
(1)  Born in Bondage: Growing Up Enslaved in the Antebellum South by 
Marie Jenkins Schwarts (Harvard University Press, 2000)
(2)  Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America by 
Wilma King (Indiana University Press, 1995)

They go way beyond the WPA narratives.  Also note Blassingame, Gutman, 
Genovese, Owens, and Webber include data on slave children in their books.

Leslie Anderson Morales
Reference Librarian
Local History/Special Collections
Alexandria Library
717 Queen Street
Alexandria, VA  22314-2420
(703) 838-4577 x207
http://www.alexandria.lib.va.us/branches/lhsc.html



Anne Pemberton wrote:

> Yojsouth,
>
> PLEASE remember that those interviewed for the WPA narratives were by 
> then old people, but had been CHILDREN in slavery. Whatever evils the 
> children may have witnessed were undoubtedly explained away by adults 
> who didn't want the children to grow up excessively fearful.
>
> Anne
>
> Anne Pemberton
> [log in to unmask]
> http://www.erols.com/apembert
> http://www.educationalsynthesis.org
>
>