Women's History Commons^™

No Such Thing As A Slave Narrative: Abba, Coobah, And Sally, Shelby K. Miller

Student Scholar Showcase

Within history, there is a push to combine and generalize individual experiences into a single narrative. However, individual slaves lived massively different lives even when they lived on the same planation. My presentation will focus on three specific slaves from Thomas Thistlewood’s sugar cane plantation in Jamaica. These three women lived in the same place, experienced the same brutality, and yet all responded differently to their trauma. I will agree that historians cannot create a comprehensive slave narrative because of these varying and greatly contrasting lives.

Coping Mechanisms Used By Female Slaves In Charleston During The Antebellum Era, Jennifer Seay

Student Scholar Showcase

Coping Mechanisms Used by Slaves in Charleston, South Carolina

In Charleston, South Carolina during the Antebellum Era slaves used coping mechanisms to survive the oppression and dehumanization of slavery. Slave implemented coping mechanisms such as religion and music into their daily lives which provided them with a source of hope and solace. Former slaves have stated in personal interviews and writings that reflecting on something other than their reality of bondage inspired them and created hope for a new future. The enslaved found hope through religion and accepted the biblical stories of Christianity as prophecy of the future. Music relayed …