商品簡介
Born a slave on a Virginia plantation, James Lindsay Smith endured a life of humiliation, and physical and psychological abuse of every sort. Originally published in 1881, this detailed narrative of Smith's long and eventful life is a stirring testament to his very survival under conditions of extreme hardship. Unlike the eloquent rhetoric of Frederick Douglass, Smith's prose is simple and plainspoken.
Smith begins his narrative with stories of his various cruel masters, the many beatings, the heartless separations of family members, and his religious conversion. Trained as a shoemaker, he makes a daring escape to freedom, forging a new life for himself among the abolitionists in Massachusetts and Connecticut. He details life during the Civil War, racism among Union soldiers, heroism of African American troops, reactions to the Emancipation Proclamation and the assassination of Lincoln, and the migration of emancipated slaves to the West. His autobiography concludes with a bittersweet visit to his old homestead in Virginia, celebrations over the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, and his hope for the future.
作者簡介
James Lindsay Smith was born a slave on the plantation of Thomas Langdon, in Northern Neck, Northumberland County, Virginia. One of eleven children of Rachel and Charles Payne, he was crippled at an early age with an injury that prevented him from working in the cotton fields. A house slave, he eventually was trained as a shoemaker and often hired out.
Smith's mother died after witnessing the sale of one her children. His father died shortly after. Charles Payne's deathbed wish was that his children profess religion; this influenced Smith to become a preacher.
With two companions, Smith escaped in 1838, arriving first in Philadelphia, and then making his home with the family of a White pastor in Springfield, Massachusetts. Here he was employed in a shoe shop while attending school in nearby Wilbraham, Massachusetts. At this time, he was finally licensed to preach.
In 1842, Smith married Emeline Minerva Platt, with whom he had four children. He and his wife settled at Norwich, Connecticut, where Smith owned his own shop and purchased a home for his family. He continued his preaching at the Black Methodist Church.
Smith published his Autobiography of James L. Smith in 1881. Besides telling his life story, he also wrote about the Black regiments in the Civil War and the conditions of African Americans after the war.
