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History 1700
15 September 2018
On a plantation, near Raleigh, North Carolina, in 1803, Lunsford Lane was born into
slavery. In 1842, The Narrative of Lunsford Lane was a published memoir, which depicted a first
person point of view of His Experience as a Slave Child. Lane gives a short illustration of what
his experience was like while being a slave in the South during the early 1800s. Starting from his
infancy to adolescence, while discovering the differences between himself and his master’s white
children. Lane’s only intent to writing his memoir, was to shed light on the behavior of the
All while, in 1833, William Lloyd Garrison of Massachusetts, helped to form the
American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). This group focused on giving the same rights to people
of color, just as their counterparts. Garrison almost lost his life trying to give justice to those
enslaved, but remaining hopeful, he last saw the abolition of slavery on December 6, 1865.
The beginning of Lane’s document paints a picture of where he was born and where he
spent most of his childhood, which was an apartment he called, “the kitchen”. Recalling his
infancy being spent either on the floor, in his mother’s arms, or in a cradle. Fast forwarding to his
early youth described as some light, occasional labor due to his young age, as well as playing
with other children, both colored and white. Lane states that he did not perceive there to be any
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differences between himself and the other children, but that there were colored families living in
the same kitchen, playing with children of both races, in the same yard.
Lane describes his infancy to childhood years, just as any other child may, with nothing,
but pure innocence. Now, Lane becoming of age were it is common to begin working, his
innocence was broken, leading him to find the differences between him and the other white
children. Some differences exhibited were when the master’s white children began to read, were
as Lane having any writing or print in his possession, would be transgression. Another difference
was when the same white children he had grown up with, began to give him orders, with those
orders being fueled by his master and mistress. These are the same white children that he had
played with in the yard and would even share the occasional biscuit his master would give to
each colored and white child. Lane’s description of his early childhood, proves a point that
The southern slave owners kept their slaves uneducated, obedient by punishments, which
lead to instill them with nothing but fear. The intense fear placed upon Lane, was if he were to be
separated from his friends, which his friends were the only ones that heard his voice. Now
knowing what and who he is, but from his young adult eyes, is nothing. This realization of
having no say in when or what he would eat, where he slept, or what he did, his friends were the
one thing that made him feel like a person. To take away the one thing he thought life was worth
All humans want self defining roles, whether that is to have an education, chose your
friends, eat what you want, or just to live and do what you please. To determine this self
definition, it is formed from ones self wants, opinions, needs, clearly summed up as basic human
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rights. This document portrays how insignificant a person of color was, they had no existential
self in who are what they are. A slave’s opportunity of developing a self concept is stripped at
such a young age, that they know exactly the difference between them self and their master’s
white children. Lane had this small window of not knowing those differences, which beginning
to develop a self concept of who you are, then abruptly having it taken away would be worse
than death. Lane most likely new the obvious truth, that death is inevitable, but that small
window he had, made him realize that dying is what we all have to look towards, but the things
Works Cited
www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=480.
“Anti-Slavery Sentiment and the Crises of the 1850s.” American Civilization, A Brief History,
2014 Rice University. Textbook Content Produced by OpenStax College, 2014, pp.
180-181.