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Topic : Re: A POV character who's a slave? I'm currently working on a novel, in which one of the POV characters is a slave. He was born to a slave (so he was born a slave) of a rich merchant family - selfpublishingguru.com

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Sounds like from the description, you are writing a "slave narrative." This was a popular literary genre in the US around the Civil War. It can either be fiction or non-fiction. One of the most famous examples and my personal suggestion is the Life of Fredrick Douglas. He was born a slave and later became a leader in the American Abolition Movement.

What I learned from his book is that freedom isn't inherently obvious. Before Douglas was taught to read by his master, he was very happy as a slave. His realization that he was a free-born person came slowly over time and then he was compelled to run away as slavery became an unbearable condition. The problem was not that his master was cruel, but the knowledge about the alternative. That seems to a theme in your book, so that's why I suggest it as a starting place for your research.

The WPA's Federal Writer's Project did 2300 interviews ex-slaves during the Great Depression. That research is available here. That seems like a great resource to understand what the average slave thought about slavery.


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