Oral histories and slave narratives in American historical scholarship

¶ … historians know about slave experience?

African slavery in America is one of the most controversial subjects that still spark a debate among the people. The historians over the years have interpreted different stories but a lot of the viewpoints of the writers have not been successful as they have not considered the systematic documented records of the people of that time. The historians mostly have taken into consideration the opinions and views of different people but they have neglected the testimonies provided by the victims. Narratives of the slaves are one important source of writing history that has been underestimated by the historians over the years. Many former slaves have written their autobiographies and recorded their narratives which have been an important source for the historians (Gibson 2015).

What difficulties exist for historians in recreating the slave past?

In American history, the act of freeing more than four million slaves is an important event, but it's also one of the events that cannot be told easily. In order to understand the triumphs and trials of the slaves, the historians need to take into consideration their personal experiences and recreate them from their point-of-view. However the slaves at the time lived the lowest forms of life and a lot of them were not literate. The social reality of the slaves and the conditions that they lived in at that time has brought many difficulties to the historians in uncovering the point-of-view of the slaves (James and Mark n.d.).

What is Oral History?

Oral history is a term used for a rehearsed and formal account of history; an informal conversation between the coworkers, neighbors or family members about the old days. These informal talks are recorded and compiled into stories to be presented as experiences (Making Sense of Oral History n.d.).

What are the issues involved with writing exclusively from Oral History?

Oral history is not totally authentic because it is an informal talk between groups of people. It is recorded through interviews as well but this information has to be seen from a skeptic point-of-view as well. Timing in this regard matters a lot because the conversations can be biased under the time they were collected which might not lead to a right path (James and Mark n.d.).

Is it possible to produce "good" history from oral sources?

Oral history has been very successful in constructing the stories of African slaves. In the past, the slaves were not literate and the stories collected today mostly are based on the interviews conducted which talk about the personal experiences of the slaves (Oral Traditions n.d.).

Conclusion

Gathering history is an important task but also the most difficult one. In the past when people did not know how to read and write and there were less in their favor, telling the present generations about their stories is not an easy task. Considering the fact that there were only narratives present and the most authentic written documents present were from the white people, historians have to work very skeptically before presenting the world with their work. In order to present the first hand experience, it is important to talk to the people who were present at that time. The closest relationship of the black slaves was with their masters which was an unequal relationship. Their dependency on the masters forbade them to talk about their personal feelings or talk about their problems, so the historians have a pretty difficult time in collecting the stories and presenting it to the public (James and Mark n.d.).