The Unchained: Powerful Life Stories of Former Slaves
Firsthand Narratives of Enslavement, Resistance, Escape, and the Pursuit of FreedomBy Aphra Behn, Thomas Clarkson, Daniel Drayton, Louis Hughes, Austin Steward, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Moses Grandy, William Still, Nat Turner, Henry Bibb, Olaudah Equiano, Sojourner Truth, Mary Prince, Kate Drumgoold, Frederick Douglass, Brantz Mayer, Theodore Canot, Booker T. Washington, Elizabeth Keckley, Charles Ball, Solomon Northup, Josiah Henson, Stephen Smith, Ellen Craft, William Craft, John Gabriel Stedman, Sarah H. Bradford, Lucy A. Delaney, L. S. Thompson, F. G. De Fontaine, Henry Box Brown, John Dixon Long, Harriet Jacobs, Jacob D. Green, Work Projects Administration, Thomas S. Gaines, Willie Lynch, Margaretta Matilda Odell, Joseph Mountain
Length479h 38m
About this audiobook
The Unchained gathers testimonies, memoirs, narratives, petitions, and documentary accounts that confront slavery as both a system of coercion and a field of resistance. Spanning eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Atlantic and American contexts, the volume moves from seafaring captivity and plantation labor to escape, self-emancipation, abolitionist advocacy, and the difficult conditions of freedom. Its range of forms is a central strength: firsthand life writing sits alongside antislavery reportage, recollection, and archival voices, allowing extraordinary escapes and quieter records of endurance to illuminate one another. The contributors comprise formerly enslaved people, abolitionists, reformers, journalists, and compilers whose writings helped shape the transatlantic abolitionist movement and the later struggle for Black citizenship. Their varied social positions—including women's domestic labor, maritime experience, religious witness, and Underground Railroad networks—complicate any single account of enslavement. Read collectively, these voices reveal how literacy, testimony, and publication became instruments of political action while preserving distinct regional, cultural, and personal histories. This volume is recommended for readers of African American literature, Atlantic history, human rights, and autobiography. It offers an invaluable opportunity to compare styles of witness and strategies of survival within one capacious collection. The Unchained rewards sustained reading by fostering a vital dialogue among narratives of trauma, agency, memory, and freedom.
Audiobook details
Rating★★★★★ 4.5 (48)
Includes Amazon, Goodreads
GenreHistory, Literary Classics
Length479 hrs 38 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
Publish dateDec 14, 2023
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1The Early Life of Abraham Lincoln (Annotated)
26Laura Clark
2Recorded Life Stories of Former Slaves from 17 different US States
27Hattie Clayton
3ALABAMA
28Wadley "Shorty" Clemons
4Charlie Aarons
29William Colbert
5Anthony Abercrombie
30Tildy Collins
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6Molly Ammond (Ammonds)
31Sara Colquitt
7Charity Anderson
32Mandy McCullough Cosby
8Gus Askew
33Emma Crockett
9Tom Baker
34Cheney Cross
10Henry Barnes
35Matilda Pugh Daniel
11Nathan Beauchamp
36Carrie Davis
12Oliver Bell
37Clara Davis
13Nelson Birdsong
38George Dillard
14Ank Bishop
39Ella Dilliard
15Siney Bonner
40Rufus Dirt
16Jennie Bowen
41Katherine Eppes
17Nannie Bradfield
42Reuben Fitzpatrick
18Martha Bradley
43Heywood Ford
19Allen Brown
44Bert Frederick
20Gus Brown
45Delia Garlic
21Walter Calloway
46Angie Garrett
22Esther King Casey
47Henry Garry
23Amy Chapman
48Georgia
24Emma Chapman
49Fannie Gibson
25Henry Cheatam
50Frank Gill
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