An excellent primary historical source. Four slave narratives from the nineteeth century are presented by Henry Gates. These are actual narratives written by escaped or freed slaves and published at the time. I was suprised to read there were thousands of narratives like these published - Gates has selected four as representative of the genre.
I found here what I was looking for - specifically the attitude of religious people toward slaves and the use of religion to justify slavery. Pretty chilling accounts of the debasement of the people touched by slavery, not only the slaves, who had no choice, but the slave owners, who went to great lengths to excuse their evil actions.
Plenty of material for novels here!
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