Please understand that the WPA slavery interviews do not exist in a vacuum. 
There are plenty of earlier accounts of slavery that clearly and explicitly
establish the cruelty and dehumanization of the institution.  That there were
exceptions, situations in which slaves lived in relative comfort, is certain. 
This does not in any way diminish the general trend.  Read the four slave
narratives collected in paperback by Professor Gates, for instance.  In
Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs you can readily see that the
circumstances experienced by slaves in different households varied.  That some
slaves were treated humanely (or less inhumanely) does not alter the over-all
picture: slavery was cruel and dehumanizing.  What's more, as Douglass points
out, slavery dehumanized the slaveholder as well.

The shortcomings of the WPA interviews are summarized in the articles linked in
an earlier post and in earlier discussions by (if I may) Juretta and my
esteemed co-Kevin, and others.  I would add that it might be useful to consider
the circumstances of the interviews in light of now recognized standards of
testing and interviewing.  There is always an effect on answers caused by the
testing/interviewing environment.  Anthropologists and ethnologists have long
struggled with a problem attendant upon observing cultures: one can never be
certain how much behavior and talk are influenced by the presence of an
observer (this is akin to the Heisenberg effect).  Sociologists, too, are wary
of this problem, and so they struggle to make interview questions and
environments as neutral as possible.  It is easy to see how leading questions,
encouragement, and the expectations of the interviewee may condition the
responses.  The WPA interviewers were for the most part not professionals, and
even for those who were the standards of interviewing were not nearly as
careful as they are now (for the most part).  It is important to recognize that
the WPA interviews, though they contain much of value, are not objective
evidence.  (In the interest of fairness, it should be emphasized that the great
published slave narratives are polemical, created to move white readers to
oppose slavery, and thus they cannot be considered objective evidence, either,
without acknowledging the conditions under which they were created).

These comments are meant to address the implicit suggestion that genuine voices
of ex-slaves are being silenced by those in authority who do not agree with
what the ex-slaves say about the conditions of slavery.  This is not the case. 


Cheers -- KJB (the other Kevin)

On Thu, 01 Mar 2007 07:02:50 -0500  Discussion of research and writing about
Virginia history             
<[log in to unmask]><[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> 
> Has anyone done an analysis of the positive recollections versus the  
> negative recollections in these narratives?  I would also be curious what 
that
> would 
> disclose.  Perhaps it would indicate something that no one wants  to 
> admit....that slavery in fact was not all that dehumanizing or cruel as far 
as
> the 
> actual participants were concerned.
>  
> I assume these are first hand narratives with actual  former slaves.  I think 
> it is interesting that some of you want to  argue with the first hand 
> recollections of the actual participants in slavery as  to whether they knew
> what 
> they were talking about in describing their actual  experience.
>  
>  
> JD South
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