This document is an excerpt from the book, Fifty Years in Chains published in 1859. Fifty in Chains was itself an abridged unauthorized reprint of Slavery in the United States: A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, a autobiographical narrative of slavery as composed by Charles Ball and edited by Isaac Fisher. By the late 1850s, the slave narrative had become an established literary genre and an important instrument of anti-slavery activists. By 1859, slave narratives had already been published by Olaudah Equano, Frederick Douglass, Soloman Northrup and several lesser known slaves
Like many of those born into slavery, the particulars of Charles Ball’s early life are hard to determine and occasionally disputed. He is believed …show more content…
Isaac Fisher, the transcriber and editor of the book, admitted to omitting some of Ball’s statements that he felt would not play as well with white audiences. One has wonder what else he chose to omit, modify, or add for the same purpose. As is debated by historians in respect to Olaudah Equano’s narrative of slavery, Ball himself may also have incorporated the stories of other slaves in order to form a more representative account of enslaved` experiences.
This question is very much complicated by the complex authorship of the document. Not much is known about Charles Ball outside of this narrative, I cannot speak to his education level or economic status at the time of publication. He was however a man who had spent the majority of his life enslaved so his opportunities would have been restricted. He was also of a different race than most of the book’s readership. Issac Fisher, as a well-to-do educated white man, would have come from a very similar background as much of the book’s intended …show more content…
These chains which eliminate the chance to escape from this trader and return to his family. Ball discusses being at that moment indifferent to his fate, for his life could not possibly get worse. Any sense of efficacy is gone. His hopelessness has left him powerless. The physical chains of the slave trader are no doubt intended to fuel this psychological effect. Charles’s new master is attempting to “break” the male slaves to make them more marketable. Charles is being treated in the same way his master might treat a
Like many of those born into slavery, the particulars of Charles Ball’s early life are hard to determine and occasionally disputed. He is believed …show more content…
Isaac Fisher, the transcriber and editor of the book, admitted to omitting some of Ball’s statements that he felt would not play as well with white audiences. One has wonder what else he chose to omit, modify, or add for the same purpose. As is debated by historians in respect to Olaudah Equano’s narrative of slavery, Ball himself may also have incorporated the stories of other slaves in order to form a more representative account of enslaved` experiences.
This question is very much complicated by the complex authorship of the document. Not much is known about Charles Ball outside of this narrative, I cannot speak to his education level or economic status at the time of publication. He was however a man who had spent the majority of his life enslaved so his opportunities would have been restricted. He was also of a different race than most of the book’s readership. Issac Fisher, as a well-to-do educated white man, would have come from a very similar background as much of the book’s intended …show more content…
These chains which eliminate the chance to escape from this trader and return to his family. Ball discusses being at that moment indifferent to his fate, for his life could not possibly get worse. Any sense of efficacy is gone. His hopelessness has left him powerless. The physical chains of the slave trader are no doubt intended to fuel this psychological effect. Charles’s new master is attempting to “break” the male slaves to make them more marketable. Charles is being treated in the same way his master might treat a