ABSTRACT
The threat of slavery was so great that no black could feel secure in their freedom until the system was destroyed. The essential plot of most slave narratives involves individuals who are born and raised in slavery; they witness and suffer extreme injustice, both physical and mental brutality; and they contemplate freedom and escape to the North, Canada, or England. Slave narratives made an impressive impact on American cultural and social history. The slave narrative represented the dramatic story of how slaves learned to read, how they escaped from slavery, and how they organized politically to help free others. Virtually all slave narrative writers functioned as anti-slavery agents, travelling widely and speaking on lecture tours. Slave narrative writers were also important because their testimony provided a unique and fundamental perspective on the institution of slavery, giving future scholars and students essential truths, knowledge, insight, and facts about what US slavery was like, or how it functioned.
