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https://www.loc.gov/resource/lhbcb.21103/?st=gallery
This story was published in 1892 and is about a man named Louis Hughes who was born into slavery in 1832.  Hughes made five attempts over the course of his 30 year servitude to escape his masters along with his wife and friends, but he did not reach freedom until after emancipation.  This story describes a relationship between Hughes and his owners as a cruel and resistant one.  Page 6 describes the first event of Hughes's life that would result in an ultimate distrust and hatred for his masters.
When he was just a young boy he was taken from his mother without warning and sold to a new owner, he would never see or hear from his mother again.  In this story we see how a slave might have much different mentalities than others. If a slave is treated with some respect and kindness, they may develop a sense of loyalty for their owners, but if they are treated harshly, they may form into a rebellious slave like Louis Hughes. I think that this story, in comparison to the others, shows that the better way to treat a slave is with respect.  Regardless of how masters back then felt about the black race, slaves who were treated well, held a lot of loyalty for their owners, whereas slaves who were treated poorly were more likely to run away or be disobedient.

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About this Item

About this Item

Title

Thirty years a slave. From bondage to freedom. The institution of slavery as seen on the plantation and in the home of the planter.

Summary

Louis Hughes was born in Virginia (1832), but was sold (1844) in the Richmond slave market to a cotton planter and his wife who lived on the Mississippi River. Later, he traveled with them to their new home in Memphis, Tennessee, and spent time during the Civil War in Alabama. Hughes made five attempts to escape, alone and with his wife and friends, but he and his wife succeeded in finding freedom only after Emancipation. Eventually, after reuniting with several members of their family and seeking a livelihood in various Southern, Midwestern and Canadian cities (Memphis, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Windsor, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland), they settled in Milwaukee, where Hughes became a nurse, drawing on skills he had developed while treating the illnesses of his fellow slaves. Thirty Years a Slave provides a great deal of information about the complex relationships between slaves and masters, along with graphic accounts of the physical abuse slaves endured, and details about slave markets, slave religion, and the organization of plantation work. Hughes also remembers the desire for learning he felt when he was a slave and recalls the varied tasks he performed in his masters' households.

Contributor Names

Hughes, Louis, 1832-

Created / Published

Milwaukee, South Side Printing Company, 1897.

Subject Headings

- Slavery--United States

- Slavery--United States--Personal narratives

- Slaves--Emancipation--United States

Notes

- Also available in digital form on the Library of Congress Web site and on the Internet Archive Web site.

Medium

210 p. front. (port.) plates (facsims.) 22 cm.

Call Number/Physical Location

E444 .H89

Digital Id

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/lhbcb.21103

http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.gdc/scd0001.0006147321A

Library of Congress Control Number

11021103

Online Format

online text

image

pdf

Description

Louis Hughes was born in Virginia (1832), but was sold (1844) in the Richmond slave market to a cotton planter and his wife who lived on the Mississippi River. Later, he traveled with them to their new home in Memphis, Tennessee, and spent time during the Civil War in Alabama. Hughes made five attempts to escape, alone and with his wife and friends, but he and his wife succeeded in finding freedom only after Emancipation. Eventually, after reuniting with several members of their family and seeking a livelihood in various Southern, Midwestern and Canadian cities (Memphis, Cincinnati, Hamilton, Windsor, Detroit, Chicago, and Cleveland), they settled in Milwaukee, where Hughes became a nurse, drawing on skills he had developed while treating the illnesses of his fellow slaves. Thirty Years a Slave provides a great deal of information about the complex relationships between slaves and masters, along with graphic accounts of the physical abuse slaves endured, and details about slave markets, slave religion, and the organization of plantation work. Hughes also remembers the desire for learning he felt when he was a slave and recalls the varied tasks he performed in his masters' households.

LCCN Permalink

https://lccn.loc.gov/11021103

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MODS Record

Dublin Core Record

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The Library of Congress is not aware of any U.S. copyright protection (see Title 17, U.S.C.) or any other restrictions in the materials in the Pioneering the Upper Midwest: Books from Michigan, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, ca. 1820-1910 materials. The Library of Congress is providing access to these materials for educational and research purposes. The written permission of the copyright owners and/or other rights holders (such as publicity and/or privacy rights) is required for distribution, reproduction, or other use of protected items beyond that allowed by fair use or other statutory exemptions. Responsibility for making an independent legal assessment of an item and securing any necessary permissions ultimately rests with persons desiring to use the item.

Credit Line: Library of Congress, General Collections and Rare Book and Special Collections Division.

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Citations are generated automatically from bibliographic data as a convenience, and may not be complete or accurate.

Chicago citation style:

Hughes, Louis. Thirty years a slave. From bondage to freedom. The institution of slavery as seen on the plantation and in the home of the planter. Milwaukee, South Side Printing Company, 1897. Pdf. https://www.loc.gov/item/11021103/.

APA citation style:

Hughes, L. (1897) Thirty years a slave. From bondage to freedom. The institution of slavery as seen on the plantation and in the home of the planter. Milwaukee, South Side Printing Company. [Pdf] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/11021103/.

MLA citation style:

Hughes, Louis. Thirty years a slave. From bondage to freedom. The institution of slavery as seen on the plantation and in the home of the planter. Milwaukee, South Side Printing Company, 1897. Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/11021103/>.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Thirty years a slave. From bondage to freedom. The institution of slavery as seen on the plantation and in the home of the planter.

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Louis Hughes was born in Virginia (1832), but was sold (1844) in the Richmond slave market to a cotton planter and his wife who lived on the Mississippi River. Later, he traveled with them to their new home in Memphis, Tennessee, and spent time during the Civil War in Alabama.

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Frederick Douglass on Slave/Master Relationships

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Frederick Douglass on Slave/Master Relationships

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http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai/enslavement/text6/masterslaverelationship.pdf
In the second bullet point on the website under Frederick Douglass ("Slaveholders have been...is true."), Douglass discusses relationships between slaves and their masters. He comments on the nature of these relationships and how good acts for masters are done by slaves because they believe they may have better lives than others. The slaves believe their master is better-natured than other masters. This paragraph portion of Frederick Douglass' narrative discusses how human nature can lead us to see the best in others and the silver-lining, so to say, even when others are terrible towards us. In the "Noble Conduct of a Slave" article, the slave saves his master from a fire. According to Frederick Douglass, that particular slave could have felt like his master wasn't as bad as someone else's could have been. In a way that slave was grateful to their master and wanted to save him from the flames. Forgetting the roles of master and slave, any person could wonder why someone would save a person's life who they owe absolutely nothing to? Why wouldn't they just let them burn? It's obvious that the newspaper's syntax and diction come off as rather surprised by the acts of the slave. This relationship seems to be more than master/slave. The master could have been seen as a guardian figure. Either way, owning a slave, in a normal person's opinion, is a terrible thing, but at the time that this happened, the situation and relationships couldn't have been as clear cut as someone would assume.

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The Athens Post "Noble Conduct of a Slave"

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The Athens Post "Noble Conduct of a Slave"

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http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84024443/1850-03-08/ed-1/seq-1/#date1=1820&index=12&rows=20&words=fire+Slave&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1860&proxtext=slave+fire&y=12&x=19&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

Our article comes from the March 8, 1850 edition of The Athens Post. In the story of the "Noble Conduct of a Slave", there was a fire burning down the village of Sparta. The fire reached the home of a slave master who could not a find any way to escape. While trapped in his burning home, his slave ran into the house and saved him by throwing a feather bed out the window and throwing his slave master on to it after. This act performed by the slave shows that some slaves were surprisingly willing to help their slave master while they were in a time of need. It also displays that some slaves could look past the harsh treatment that they received from their slave master and still do the honorable thing for them.

Thinking in a sense that the slaves tried to see the best in their oppressors, it is easy to assume that some slaves might have respected their master. Fredrick Douglass, who was an African American slave and later abolitionist, said of slaves: "They are apt to think their condition better than that that of others. Many, under the influence of this prejudice, think their own masters are better than the masters of other slaves; and this, too, in some cases, when the very reverse is true" (Douglass). Another component that plays a role in this virtuous act of the slave is how some slave masters treated their slaves. While there were many masters who treated their slaves viciously, some slave owners gave their slaves great responsibility and rewards if they acted loyally. Some slaves would take on this responsibility with pride and find meaning in a life of servitude for someone they respected. In this article, this enslaved person showed that they are a very good person with respectable morals, rather than an animal, like their white masters would believe them to be. This slave would think that just because this man had wronged him, the right thing to do is save that human’s life. Though the exact reasoning for this slave’s actions in Sparta are not defined within the article, it is simple to assume that this slave did not care for his master, but rather felt a sort of guilt into saving him.

The question that is run into when talking about morals is: would the slave-master have done the same thing for one of his slaves? It could be very easy to dismiss the question with a simple no, but shouldn’t we think otherwise? Maybe that enslaved man or woman has been treated extremely unfairly already or perhaps the slave-master simply feels like he owes his slaves something better than what they have had so far. Human empathy is a tricky thing, especially when it involves individuals that are taken for free labor.

This article allows the reader to glimpse into a smaller incident that may have been forgotten if the Athens Post did not chronicle the event. The actions the slave took may not have changed the way slaves were looked at on a social scale overall to our chagrin, but it is sure to have made an impact on how that specific slave-master saw his workers.