Slavery's Echoes
Missouri State Museum/Jefferson Landing State Historic Site
Who can tell us better than those who experienced it what it meant to be enslaved in Missouri? With voices echoing from those troubled times, former slaves describe their lives – the good and the bad. No matter how benevolent the master or mistress, the system of enslaving another human being has, and always will, result in the degradation and humiliation of those enslaved.
This audio site contains subject matter and language that reflect a specific historical period. There are quotes from former slaves that could be considered offensive.
The quotes have been gathered primarily from interviews with former slaves conducted by Works Progress Administration all over the country during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Although some of these interviews were recorded, there are no known recordings of the over 90 former Missouri slaves interviewed. While developing the exhibit "Slavery's Echoes: Interviews with Former Missouri Slaves," Missouri State Museum staff with the assistance of staff from Lincoln University in Jefferson City, Missouri, created recordings using the words of the former slaves. The exhibit was on display in the State Museum from February 2007 through February 2011. The audio developed for the Slavery’s Echoes exhibit is currently featured in the “Reflections” section of the exhibit, "Civil War Missouri: A House Dividing,” which opened May 2011.
The original interview documents are housed at the National Archives and can be found in digital form from the Library of Congress. The quotes here are edited from the written records. Where in type, the words are spelled as the interviewer spelled them and therefore are his or her interpretation of the former slave's accent and dialect. The text has been edited for length and clarity, but care has been taken to keep the original meaning and nature of the interview.
Below are MP3 files, transcripts, and more information of first account experiences from former slaves in an array of different topics.