1. How do white people figure into the accounts of slavery given by Lewis Clarke, Bethany Veney, and Mary
Reynolds? How do these three ex-slaves describe the relationship between slave and slave owner?
When slave owners purchased slaves, it was often an investment for work they would get out of them. It is
not surprising that while trying to gain maximum returns on these investments, most slave owners weren’t
known to treat their slaves well. Clarke, Veney, and Reynolds, although hailing from different states, all
suffered the same fate under different masters. Almost all their owners are described as “hard and cruel
masters.” Their accounts saw slave owners as evil men and women who didn’t care for slaves. Lewis Clarke in
his question and answers depicted an image of slaves being given a few days holiday throughout the year, and
spending sabbath “every way the master pleases.” Often this resulted in them “salting the cattle, collecting
and counting pigs, breaking young horses,” and anything the master wished. The house slaves never rested as
they took care of the visitors “having more work than any other time.” However, there were few signs where
the slave owner was called, “kind.” One such instance is when Bethany Veney called Miss Lucy, “kind,”
stating that “it grieved her to see me unhappy.” Veney’s daughter Charlotte even played with miss Lucy’s
daughter, and she was happy. This was a rare thing to happen but the fact that Miss Lucy was nice doesn’t
overshadow the unbearable man she lived with who often made his slaves work very hard. Veney’s relationship
with Miss Lucy was peculiar because even when she was sold, it seemed as if she had a say in what happened.
Miss Lucy told her, “If she didn’t like the master after two weeks, she was to return to her at once.”
Overall, despite the kindness of some people like Miss Lucy who made the lives of slaves better, most slave
owners were cruel, often seeing their slaves as animals who didn’t need to be treated any better.
2. How might slaves’ and ex-slaves’ perspective on the institution of slavery have changed over time, and
why might this have been the case?
Someone once said, “no man swims in the same river twice. Either the water has changed, or the man is not
the same as when he went in the first time.” Due to factors such as religion, civil wars and emancipation,
slaves and ex-slaves experienced slavery in different ways as things were changing. In the antebellum era of
Lewis Clarke, slaves experienced harsh treatment from their masters, and they didn’t have any right or laws
protecting them. Everything was done as the master pleases. However, after emancipation, slaves had some
form of right and there were laws governing the whole establishment of slavery. As a result, some may have
had it harder than others, especially Lewis Clarke who was a slave before emancipation. As seen in the case
of Mary Reynolds and Bethany Veney, they became free after the civil war whereas Clarke was a fugitive who
fled to Canada before settling in Ohio where he became a lecturer of antislavery. I believe in his case
things would have gone differently if he remained a slave and not seek his own freedom.
3. To what extent do any of these accounts seem to be direct transcriptions of these individuals’ own
thoughts about slavery? How and where can you detect the presence of another person?
The fact that most slaves were rarely permitted to read or write meant that they had less opportunity to
express their views and could not record their own history. However, one would expect that with the help of
someone literate, these stories would be as accurate as the slaves spoke of them, but this is far from the
truth. The slaves’ accounts were still affected or influenced by the presence of white writers and
journalists. For instance, inside Mary Reynolds’ account of slavery, a line read, “we didn’t know much about
having nothing though.” This shows the presence of someone else writing the story because Reynolds lived and
worked on farms and complained of ill treatment. She even says that “we were scared of Solomon the slave
rider,” that “we sang lowly and prayed in our rooms where he couldn’t see.” This doesn’t reflect the life of
someone who had things in abundance as there was always a lack of freedom. Another instance is when Bethany
Veney is being taken to the auction and she hears the daughter of the jailor sing, stating that, “it seemed
it was my savior speaking directly to me.” In that moment I don’t believe she would have been able to think
that as she was heading toward a future unknown to her. Also, most slaves believed there was a different God
than their owners owned, and there was a different bible as well. Veney is also said to have told her owner
that “as long as she was fed and clothed enough, she wouldn’t cause any trouble.” These are words that no
slave would say to their master and the manner in which they are expressed suggests someone who had a voice
which was not the case for any slave. However, despite this influence, most of the slave stories were able
to show a clear picture of what they went through. As a result, to a greater extent, these accounts are
closer to direct transcriptions of these individuals because Lewis Clarke was answering questions in his own
words, and Veney and Reynolds’ stories still show a clear picture of their suffrage.
4. What can we learn from these visual and written documents about the experiences of slave children and
their parents?
Slaves, children, and their parents, were always at the mercy of their owners. In most cases, they were not
treated well. From Mary Reynolds, whose father was a free black man but unable to buy his wife and kids,
Bethany Veney who wished death upon herself and her daughter because she knew not a different future for
them, and finally Lewis Clarke a fugitive from Kentucky, the experiences of slaves weren’t pleasant. Slave
owners mistreated their slaves, and they didn’t care about them or their families. Lewis Clarke recalls
families not ever staying in one place which was always demoralizing. Either one family member was seen as a
bad influence on the family, or the masters saw an opportunity to get rid of the old to get new slaves. The
punishment of slaves was also something that was inhumane. An image shows slaves being whipped, and “slaves
endured wide range of abuse, and difficult as these were to bear individually, they were made worse when
slaves had to witness the cruel treatment of loved ones.” A man in one image is seen shielding children from
the whip of a slave rider. However, slaves had a few laughs in between. One such instance was when Mary
Reynolds recalled being a child picking cotton in the frost but running toward a fire to warm her hands.
They became used to their life of hardship and the little things became very precious. Children often
inherited the fate of their parents and as depressing as it was, Bethany Veney, “would have been glad if she
and her daughter could have died together during her birth.” To be a slave was to be nobody. They
experienced the worst conditions like long hours of work, no religion, beatings, lack of holidays and
especially not having a say in anything. It is not surprising that Lewis Clarke was a fugitive and Mary
Reynolds was happy that “Solomon is burning in hell.”
[Evidence taken from Lewis Garrard Clarke, Narratives of the Suffering of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the Revolution, during a Captivity of More Than Twenty Years among the Slaveholders of Kentucky, One of the So Called Christian States of North America (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1846) 103-5]
[Evidence taken from Lewis Garrard Clarke, Narratives of the Suffering of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the Revolution, during a Captivity of More Than Twenty Years among the Slaveholders of Kentucky, One of the So Called Christian States of North America (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1846) 103-5 | “Ex-slave Stories(Texas): Mary Reynolds,” in Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938, American Memory, Liberty of Congress, 238-40]
[Evidence taken from Lewis Garrard Clarke, Narratives of the Suffering of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the Revolution, during a Captivity of More Than Twenty Years among the Slaveholders of Kentucky, One of the So Called Christian States of North America (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1846) 103-5 | “Ex-slave Stories(Texas): Mary Reynolds,” in Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938, American Memory, Liberty of Congress, 238-40]
[Evidence taken from Lewis Garrard Clarke, Narratives of the Suffering of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Sons of a Soldier of the Revolution, during a Captivity of More Than Twenty Years among the Slaveholders of Kentucky, One of the So Called Christian States of North America (Boston: Bela Marsh, 1846) 103-5 | “Ex-slave Stories(Texas): Mary Reynolds,” in Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers’ Project, 1936-1938, American Memory, Liberty of Congress, 238-40| Bethany Veney, The Narrative of Bethany Veney: A Slave Woman. (Boston: Press of Geo. H. Ellis) 1899| Snark/Art Resource, NY]