ABSTRACT

The value of the interviews conducted with the formerly enslaved of America’s South by the Federal Writers’ Project in the 1930s can tell us much not just about antebellum enslavement but about the long-term emotional impact for families and individuals of the Civil War. They can provide a different perspective from the immediate responses to the war experience that scholars whose focus is on the refugee experience, the refugee camps, and the health crises that often accompanied freedom have relied on. Although the reliability of childhood memories has been questioned, for this article the extent to which accurate recall of enslavement in older age is compromised by chronological distance or neurological condition is less important than the ways in which in the Civil War is located within the autobiographical memory of the interviewee. What it finds is that the emotional echoes of that conflict are more complicated than we might suppose, evincing a combination of pride in personal as well as familial involvement in support of the Union, veiled critiques of enslaver behaviour during the war, and accounts of active involvement in escaping enslavement that together constructed an emancipatory narrative without the trauma and terror of an enslaved past.

摘要

1930 年代联邦作家计划对曾经被美国南方奴役的人进行采访的价值不仅可以告诉我们很多关于战前奴役的事情，还可以告诉我们内战对家庭和个人的长期情感影响。它们可以提供与关注难民经历、难民营和通常伴随自由而来的健康危机的学者所依赖的对战争经历的直接反应不同的视角。尽管童年记忆的可靠性受到质疑，但对于本文而言，准确回忆老年奴役的程度受到时间距离或神经系统状况的影响，不如内战在自传记忆中的定位方式重要被采访者的。