Growing Up in Slavery: Stories of Young Slaves as Told by Themselves

Ten individuals — all under the age of 19 — tell their stories of enslavement, brutality, and dreams of freedom in this collection.

Culled from full-length autobiographies, these accounts were selected to help teenagers understand the horrific experiences of people their own age who were enslaved in the not-so-distant past.

Included are stories of teenagers, all under the age of 19, torn from their mothers and families, suffering from starvation, and being whipped and tortured. But these are not all tales of deprivation and violence. Teenagers will see themselves in these accounts as the people who are enslaved challenge authority, play games, tell jokes, and fall in love. These stories cover the range of the experience of enslavement, from the passage in slave ships across the Atlantic to daily life in slavery both on large plantations and in small city dwellings, and from escaping slavery to fighting in the Civil War.

The writings of  Olaudah Equiano, Frederick Douglass, William Wells Brown, Harriet Jacobs, and Elizabeth Keckley, as well as others whose narratives are not so well known.

ISBN: 9781556526350 | Lawrence Hill Books