Words + Images

I have  written about “the Painter of Light” before on this blog.  Joseph Mallord William Turner’s works have always drawn my eyes, but none moreso than this painting.  The Slave Ship chronicles an actual event in British history — when over 100 African slaves were tossed overboard with shackles on their limbs into shark-infested waters.  The people on that boat were herded into the sea like animals.

In 1803 in the waters of Dunbar Creek off St. Simons Island, SC a group of Africans also died in the ocean.  In an area now known as Ebo Landing, the story seems to be that after a failed slave rebellion,  a dozen or more Africans of the Igbo people decided to no longer be enslaved.  Their leader’s voice rang out:   “The water brought us and the water will take us away.”  And then, together, they walked into the sea.

That story and many others are captured in American slave narratives.  Here are just a few resources:

Virginia Slave Narratives

http://xroads.virginia.edu/~hyper/wpa/index.html

Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/snhtml/

Oklahoma Slave Narratives

http://www.okgenweb.org/slave.htm

I hope you have a chance to read the words and hear the voices of these people long gone.  Their stories should not be forgotten.  If you know of other resources, please let me know.  I’d love to post additional recommendations.