The Bondwoman's Narrative

Rating:
Summary: What a wonderful discovery!
Review: "The Bondwoman's Narrative" is perhaps the earliest work of fiction by a black woman. The novel details the journey of Hannah Crafts through slavery to her eventual escape to freedom. The story is engaging, suspenseful, humorous and tragic all at once. Yet, given the subject matter, I was rarely saddened by the events depicted in the novel. During the most emotionally difficult parts of the story, where mistreatment, death, and extreme cruelty are revealed, the author provides soothing relief for the reader through her faith in a loving, protecting God. I found it quite refreshing to read a slave narrative where the slaves' faith in God is used to elevate and encourage them to freedom as opposed to placate and conform them to slavery.

The book is beautifully written; authentic in tone, language and setting. Gate's decision to leave the author's original editing marks as part of the published novel provided a peep into Crafts' writing process and choices while at the same time drawing me even closer to the author. I suggest that you read the novel prior to reading the Introduction. I stopped a few pages into the Introduction for fear that I wold learn something through Gate's analysis that I would have picked up from the narrative on my own. Having saved the Introduction and Textual Annotations for last, I return to the book in anticipation of the story about the story of Hannah Crafts.

I highly recommend this novel. It should be welcomed into the American literary cannon. Its content and style are deserving of the honor. An excellent teaching and learning tool (an alternative to "Uncle Tom's Cabin" for sure!), that resonates with the spirit of love. There is something beyond strength throughout the pages of Hannah Crafts' story and Gates deserves kudos for making it available to the world. I can imagine Crafts at her writing desk above smiling down with gratitude.

Rating:
Summary: Unique and Unprecedented
Review: "The Bondwoman's Narrative" is an unprecedented literary event. This manuscript, recently discovered by Professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is the only known novel to have been written by an African American slave. It might possibly be the first manuscript to have been written by a black woman...anywhere. Not only is the narrative unprecedented, it is a suspenseful and engrossing account of a young slave who "passes" for white in her attempt to find her way to freedom.

The bondwoman is Hannah Crafts, a mulatto and a slave, who wrote her story as an autobiographical novel. Hannah Crafts was not uneducated, she was self-educated. And, as anyone familiar with world literature will realize, Hannah Crafts, may have been very well educated, indeed. As we read her story, written in an effusive style, we realize that she was well aware of the limitations and injustices society inflicted on persons of color in 19th century America. What she didn't realize is that the freedom and life of the plantation's mistress is soon to be in as much peril as is her own and that their destinies will intertwine. Is Hannah Crafts story an autobiographical rendition or is it a flight of fancy, albeit a very good flight of fancy? I think it is up to each individual reader to judge.

"The Bondwoman's Narrative" really doesn't tell us anything new about the times in which Hannah Crafts lived. It's significance lies not in the facts it presents (although they are interesting), but in its historical value. The fact that this is, quite probably, the first narrative to have been written by a black woman makes "The Bondwoman's Narrative" unique and unprecedented and a true literary event.

Almost as interesting as the story of Hannah, herself, is Professor Gates' introduction in which he details his own search for the real Hannah Crafts and the true facts of her life.

Although the details in this book are details we have read before, perhaps several times before, we have not read them as presented by Hannah Crafts. The experience of slavery was important in shaping the character of America and, because of this importance, Hannah Crafts' voice is a voice that should be heard. I don't think anyone who reads this unique and sometimes very lovely book, will ever regret it.

Rating:
Summary: Facinating.....
Review: A historical and literary find, The Bondwoman's Narritave is the heretofore unpublished manuscript believed to be written by Hannah Crafts, a female slave who is believed to have been self educated, and at some time either escaped or freed.
The story contained is of a young house slave, Hannah, who is privy to many of the secrets of the house in which she lives and works. A henious cruelty by her master causes a curse to be placed by a dying slave against the master's house and a series of unfortunate events begin to take place. This young slave takes leave with the new bride of the master's son, fearing the revelation of a terrible secret that will destroy the family. After many months, she and her mistress are found and are returned, only to both be placed in servaitude. There is a seering description of some of the methods of procuring slaves, and the disdain that the general public held slave traders in. Chafing against the cruelty of slavery, she seeks placement with a kinder family of the much sought after release, but to no avail. This work of fiction is believed to be based largely on the author's own life, and is quick moving and very readable. The events are clear and moving and engaging. Throughout the time she writes about she is a clear eyed observer of the people around her, and comes in contact with people of all sorts. She is able to talk about the delineation between whites and blacks and observe the difficulty that whites have at that time with associating blacks as humans, even the whites working against slavery.
There is also a sizable piece explaining the authentication of the manuscript and the sizable eforts made to find the person who wrote the book. Henry Louis Gates Jr. details his excitement as step by step he was able to determine that the paper, ink, binding thread was all actual to the times. With the help of various genelogical tools he also brieflt tells the search for the author. This would be worthy of a book of its own. A great book from beginning to end.

Rating:
Summary: Magnificent reading!!
Review: Admittedly I was also drawn by Gates' inteview; particularly I wished to read about how they discovered & authenticated this manuscript. While I certainly have my differences whith Dr. Gates on many things, the work his team did was exhaustive and impressive.

Going on to read the text itself, I was equally impressed. As a self-educated slave woman writing in clear recognition of the horrors of the "Peculiar Institution", the work is impressive in itself. She uses the florid language of the time and as others have said, uses many of the devices of Dickens et al. Nonetheless she writes in a manner which is far more clear than most of her contemporaries, and even with misspellings it is a wonderful read. The story she tells holds together well.

She also displays a great amount of respect for the reader. For example, she covers large gaps of time (for instance one instance where having escaped with another woman they lived in the forest for some months) very briefly, allowing the reader to fill in the obvious suffering and deprivation they experienced rather than making us labor through that. As a consequence of this good judgement the story moves along at a pace most modern readers will feel comfortable with.

And she spares no one (including some of her fellow slaves) plain-spoken criticism where warranted. And defying stereotypes, she even describes the small kindnesses shown by everyone from jailers to slave-traders struggling with their admirable impulses under the burden of this legal monstrosity.

Modern teenagers will also wince when they realize the similarities between their own attitudes and those of Mrs. Wheeler (one of her owner-mistresses).

And it is as revealing as "Gone With the Wind" and "Wind Done Gone" about the foibles of Southern culture.

Despite it's shortcomings, this work deserves to be added to the American Canon of literature. Not just because it's the earliest novel by an African American woman, but because it's a great story as well. It can and should be read (and enjoyed) along with Washington Irving and Twain.

Rating:
Summary: Buy it just for the research that was put into it
Review: After listening to the interview on NPR with Mr. Gates, I suggest he write a novel on his research of this book. It was fascinating.

Rating:
Summary: An unpublished masterpiece?
Review: As background for this slave's narrative, we are introduced to John Hill Wheeler, writer, who had published HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF NORTH CAROLINA, 1584-1851), who served as assistant secretary to the U. S. President Franklin Pierce (always one of my favorites) in 1854. There is a good photograph of Wheeler and a painting of his wife, Ellen, with her two sons by Thomas Sully who made the youngest look like a sleeping angel.

There is also a photo depiction of the abduction of his slave, Jane Johnson with her family, off the Steamer Washington on July 18, 1855, in Philadelphia "by force" by a gang of Negroes led by an abolotionist. Since he was unable to locate and reclaim his servants, Jane was subsequently replaced by Hannah -- who escaped in the Spring of 1857. He must have been a hard taskmaster.

One interesting thing (for me) was a mention of John Brown's (of Harper's Ferry, West VA fame) hanging in Charleston, VA. It was observed that he died as he lived, "game." He certainly was no coward.

I found too much redundancy in the introduction by Henry L. Gates, Jr., and the narrative itself. Absorbed in finding and preserving black culture in written form, he spends a lot of effort propounding on his conclusions, instead of the facts. Like a local writer involved in uncovering ancient history, he uses too many "that's" proving he is not scholary. To me, it shows a definite lack of education and too much emphasis on self promotion, so that whatever is printed will be thought or taken as the truth, the whole truth and nothing else.

As with all autobiographical material it is hard to tell what is fact and where the fiction begins. An old acquaintance now deceased who had been in the Merchant Marines in his younger years and received much enjoyment in bewildering strangers with his detailed stories, told me how he manufactured "truth." Add a few relevant facts which can be substantiated and names of real people and presto! it's history -- not fiction.

As with science, the individual authors are expounding on their own theories, not facts per se. It's the same in any field and any "case" history. Mr. Gates wanted to prove this narrative was authentic; therefore, he spent more effort with his "proof" than the slave's account itself.

Something that old can never be proven beyond a doubt. Now Clifford Irving's bogus biography of Howard Hughes was ill-timed. Had he waited until after the person's demise, there would always be doubt and nothing to prove he was a liar.

I don't believe a slave would know some of the words used by this writer. By including family background and descriptions of events, it is taken as the authentic tale of a real Hannah Crafts. He did too much surmising "what if's" to have run down the actual writer to New Jersey -- to have been the runaway slave from North Carolina.

I found the marked out words and phrases to be distracting (also detracting). It would have helped to have the edited parts left out; the 21 chapters would have sufficed without so much explanation and additions (in brackets). Instead of making this clearer, it befuddles the story itself.

I'm not a user of the word "that" which is grossly overused in newspapers today. About ten years ago, I typed the lengthy "memoir" of my ex-husband, a college English professor, and edited at intervals throughout. Of course, he proof-read every page before having the entirety copied and bound to distribute to members of his family. Sometimes, he agreed to my "clarifications"; at others, he'd say, "but we didn't talk that way." Growing up in a tiny hamlet between Shelbyville and Chapel Hill (where he'd been born) in Middle TN, and being about fifteen years my senior, he'd experienced things and feelings totally opposite to what I had in Knox County (East TN). My reasons to "edit" were for the benefit of those who'd be reading his memories, not to change events -- and he finally agreed with me.

Perhaps I should have left things exactly the way he expressed them, no matter how grammatically incorrect they were, as now that is what I am wishing Mr. Gates had done with this manuscript. The things he marked through seemed inconsistent vocabulary for such a young, uneducated woman confined in "the peculiar institution", and I'd have preferred not to have to think about them.

The textual annotations did not add to the story and were a bit too detailed. You can analyze a situation "to death." Some things are better left to the reader's imagaination.

This story is as old as the hills. Didn't he see the similarities between characters of this narrative and those in SHOW BOAT? Sad but true. Life is not always easy for those without power or money.

Rating:
Summary: A MOVING EMPATHETIC READING
Review: Dubbed by Newsweek magazine as "the most exciting individual in the American theater," actress/playwright Anna Deavere Smith gives empathetic reading to this landmark narrative. Known for her portrayal of Nancy McNally on the popular TV show "The West Wing," Smith has also written and performed two one-woman plays pertaining to racial issues in America.

It is one thing to read about the injustices of slavery from a historical or even an observer's point of view. It is quite something else to learn of the daily life of a slave in the indentured person's own voice. Such is the case with "The Bondwoman's Narrative" penned by a female slave in the 1850s.

According to the editor this manuscript has existed for 140 years, and is quite probably the "earliest known novel by a female African-American slave and the earliest known novel by a black woman anywhere." Also according to Mr. Gates a slave escaped from a North Carolina plantation in 1857 and was able to reach New Jersey. It is his contention that she is the author of this book.

Whether one wishes to question the authenticity of his identification or not is quite immaterial considering the compelling material within "The Bondwoman's Narrative." The relationship between ladies' maids and their mistresses is revealed in sharp detail, as are the offensive overtures by a relentless master. The slave and narrator is presented not as a human being but as chattel, valued only for what she might bring on the block.

- Gail Cooke

Rating:
Summary: Erasing the Lines
Review: For a moment, let's set aside questions regarding the historical veracity of the manuscript. Is this a worthwhile read? A good story? A diverting three hours of reading time?

Simply stated, the answer is yes. "The Bondwoman's Narrative" isn't the most complex story. The ideas are not all that original, and do, in fact, come close to overplaying their gothic and romanticized hands. But the attention to detail, the believable characters, and the view into the mindset of a slave set hooks quickly and draw you along. The language, although flawed at times (thank you, Mr. Gates, for allowing us to see the manuscript as you saw it), is effective and occasionally beautiful. The story of young Hannah Crafts and her slow escape from servanthood to freedom in New Jersey is worth studying. It underlines the psychological effects that slavery inflicted, effects that still resonate into this present age. Despite the unflinching narrative, Crafts is fairly objective in her judgment of whites and blacks, finding good and evil on both sides of the line...thereby making the lines invisible. "The Bondwoman's Narrative," for these reasons and more, could become a valuable addition to a school's curriculum. For me, it was a valuable personal exposure to wounds of our country's past.

In footnote, yes, I found that Gates and his associates used accurate and detailed research to establish the authenticity of this manuscript. The notes and printed results are nearly as fascinating as the story itself. The investment by those involved is to be commended; they have done the literary and historical worlds a great service by their labor of love.

Rating:
Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: Henry Louis Gates, Jr. is known for being a historian that makes history accessible to everyone - not just academia. The Bondwoman's Narrative truly brings history alive through the voice of another and as usual we have Gates to thank for it.

The first few chapters of the book are Gates telling the story of how he discovered and then verified the authenticity of the manuscript as being that of an self-educated woman in the period of the 1850s. Not only does Gates reaffirm his reputation as a devoted and meticulous scholar of history (much of his research being done while recovering from hip surgery - he could have just watched television, after all!) but the reader is drawn into the story of Hannah Crafts even before beginning the text of her manuscript. I was worried that the Victorian language of her story or the many misspellings might have gotten in the way of her tale - it didn't. I literally could not put down this book - when I had to walk away I kept thinking (while doing dishes at the sink) "what's going to happen to Hannah next?"

There are a great many scholarly points to this manuscript - the literary style in which she wrote, the ways in which the distance from her subject (it is, after all, a memoir and seemingly written several years after her harrowing experience) is revealed, and, most incredibly, the historical relevance of her no-hold's-barred vision of what slavery was really like from a woman's perspective, complete with relationships with white women of the South and women of color who were "passing", is so shocking in its frankness that it's no wonder the book was not published at the time of its writing. I think Hannah needed the 21st century to obtain an appreciative audience for her life's story.

Many thanks to Dr. Gates for bringing such an important (and readable) historical work to light.

Rating:
Summary: A Beautiful Learning Experience
Review: I couldn't have been more moved or impressed with a work of literature than I was with "The Bondwoman's Narrative" by Hannah Crafts and Henry Louis Gates Jr (Editor). Sadly, this is a part of history and literature that I am not that familiar with so I was eager to read this and expand my horizons and knowledge base. WOW! I was taken back in time to a world that I can hardly imagine. As a 27 year old white woman living in 2002 I can't even begin to truly understand what it meant to be a black slave in the South. It is a completely different world and existence that I will never comprehend. The mere fact that she was a self-educated woman who survived to reach freedom should be enough to make this a wonderful work but, it's so much more. It's the human condition and spirit that takes the reader on an adventure with Ms. Crafts. I was charmed.

I found the Introduction by Mr. Gates particularly informative and was entranced by his ease and clear explanations. It is truly amazing how he found this unknown jewel. I am so glad that he did, because it provided me with knowledge that I desperately needed. Thank you!