The Slave Narratives: Thirty Lines from Linda Brent

"I was born a slave;
Who knows the ways of God?
I once saw a young slave girl dying
soon after the birth of a child
The girl's mother said, 'The baby
is dead, thank God — and I hope
my poor child will soon be in heaven,
too.' 'Heaven!' retorted the mistress.
'There is no such place for the like
of her and her bastard.'"

"The whip is used tile the blood flows
stiffened limbs are put in chains
to be dragged in the fields for days
and days! It was the will of God:
and though it seemed hard, we ought
to pray for contentment. But we
could not expect to be happy.
My soul revolted against the mean
tyranny, I do it to kindle the flame
of compassion in your heart

for my sisters who are still
in bondage, suffering as I once
suffered. My master was, to my
knowledge, the father of eleven
slaves. The conscientious man!"

"Why does the slave ever love?
with the doctrine God created
the African to be slaves.
Murder was so common on his
plantation. Cruelty is contagious . . ."

I followed the young woman's pencil —
her finger proceeding line by line
through the nomenclature of tragedy:
of runaways slaves scalded on spits;
of five hundred lashes from head
to foot. I saw her graphite trembled,
putting in the parenthesis and brackets
all that was degrading, villainous,
and vile. In the margins her words
sank like boats, floating off the page . . .

"What is she going to do?" she wrote
as though this young slave girl,
Linda Brent, was alive as she was
and shouting into her ear — "How sad."
the moved underliner noted whenever
one of Linda's siblings is sold off.
Then with an exclamation point,
she quips, "She had her master's baby?
How could this happen?" her indignity,
built into a lather: she penciled no further.

— Michael S. Morris