I Belong to South Carolina: South Carolina Slave Narratives

329 Pages·2010·1.55 MB·English

by  Susanna Ashton (ed.)

I Belong to South Carolina
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I Belong to
South Carolina
South Carolina
Slave Narratives
(cid:1)
Edited by
Susanna Ashton
with the assistance of
Robyn E. Adams, Maximilien Blanton,
Laura V. Bridges, E. Langston Culler,
Cooper Leigh Hill, Deanna L. Panetta,
and Kelly E. Riddle
The University of South Carolina Press
© 2010 University of South Carolina
Cloth and paperback editions published
by the University of South Carolina Press, 2010
Ebook edition published in Columbia, South Carolina,
by the University of South Carolina Press, 2012
www.sc.edu/uscpress
21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print editions as follows:
I belong to South Carolina : South Carolina slave narratives : the lives
of Boston King, Clarinda, "A runaway," John Andrew Jackson, Jacob
Stroyer, Irving Lowery, and Sam Aleckson / edited by Susanna Ashton ;
with the assistance of Robyn E. Adams ... [et al.].
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-1-57003-900-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-1-57003-901-0
(pbk : alk. paper)
1. Slave narratives—South Carolina. 2. Slaves—South Carolina—Biography.
3. Slavery—South Carolina—History—Sources. I. Ashton, Susanna, 1967–
II. Adams, Robyn E.
E185.93.S7I2 2010
303.3'620922757—dc22
[B]
2009051095
ISBN 978-1-61117-167-9 (ebook)
Contents
Acknowledgments | vii
Editorial Method | ix
Introduction | 1
Memoirs of the Life of Boston King, a Black Preacher (1798) | 14
“Clarinda: A Pious Colored Woman of South Carolina” (1875) | 40
“Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave” (1838) | 49
The Experience of a Slave in South Carolina,by
John Andrew Jackson (1862) | 83
My Life in the South,by Jacob Stroyer (1885) | 127
Life on the Old Plantation in Ante-Bellum Days, or a Story Based
on Facts by the Reverend I. E. Lowery(1911) | 167
Before the War and after the Union: An Autobiography,
by Sam Aleckson (1929) | 228
Afterword—the Slave Experience in South Carolina | 294
Index | 307
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Acknowledgments
Thanks for research and reference assistance are owed to the library staff
at Swarthmore Friends Historical Library, especially Christopher Dens-
more, who helped trace Clarinda to 1837. Allen Thigpen of Sumter shared
very useful information about the history of I. E. Lowery for which I am
grateful. The reference and the interlibrary loan specialists at Clemson
University Library were patient and obliging throughout the long course
of this project, and the scholars at the Maine Historical Society were in-
valuable in helping trace the history of the anonymous author of Recollec-
tions of a Runaway Slave.
Drafts of various parts of this work were read and greatly improved
by Joe Mai, Mike LeMahieu, Rhonnda Thomas, James Burns, Stephanie
Barczewski, Aga Skordzka, and Elizabeth Rivlin. Editorial assistance from
Misry Soles, Charis Chapman, Russell Hehn, and Leslie Haines also
helped move this project to completion.
This project was made possible by special grants from the College of
Arts, Architecture and Humanities at Clemson University. Finally, but
most important, the Clemson University–wide program for the pursuit of
creative inquiry in the classroom inspired the creation of this special
team investigation and made it happen by funding the year-long course
and expenses associated with the necessary research and writing.
Editorial Method
The goal for editing these texts was simply to make alterations only when
helpful to contemporary readers and yet not unnecessarily diminish the
tone and historical phrasing particular to these narratives. Silent changes
were made in some small instances to remove misleading punctuation
and to correct spelling or printing errors that rendered words incompre-
hensible. Various versions of “Sumpter,” “Sumter,” “Sumpterville,” and
“Fort Sumpter” were left as they were in each narrative to reflect the prac-
tices of different eras and regions. No changes were made to dialect
phrases or words already within quotation marks, nor were capitalization
practices altered to reflect contemporary sensibilities. This is particularly
notable with the terms “negro,” “negroes,” “Negro,” and “Negroes,” which
were left precisely as the original printed manuscript read.
In order to convey the significance of the serial reading experience—
most important for “Recollections of Slavery by a Runaway Slave,” which
initially appeared in the Advocate of Freedomand later in the Emancipator,
and also for the memoirs of Boston King, whose narrative was originally
published in the Methodist Magazine—the installment breaks are indi-
cated. In the case of the Reverend I. E. Lowery, whose memoir consists of
an initial serialized narrative published by a friend in conjunction with
his own later additions and stories in book form, the complete 1911 edi-
tion of the text appears, and thus the breaks in the initial sections of the
serialized version are not indicated.
While the lives of Boston King, Clarinda, “A Runaway,” John Andrew
Jackson, and Sam Aleckson are presented here in their entirety, Jacob
Stroyer’s narrative and that of I. E. Lowery are trimmed to emphasize
their individual life stories and also to focus attention on the narrative
thrust of these works. Thus a long chapter of Stroyer’s narrative that con-
cerns generalized anecdotes and impersonal recollections of slavery was
ix | Editorial Method
excised, as was an appendix assembled by Lowery that excerpts and sum-
marizes newsp aper articles, letters, and other documents attesting to
the positive relationships between white and black southerners. Omit-
ting these sections should assist readers in focusing on the compelling
personal testimony these people provide about the South Carolina slave
experience.