Staging a Different Kind of Rebellion: Fighting Racial Stereotypes as Resistance in Slave Narratives

Abstract

Slave narratives do not display instances of rebellion in the usual sense of the word because formerly enslaved narrators could not include any threats of violence in their narratives. In telling their stories, however, the narrators did rebel against slavery, although their weapons consisted of words carefully chosen to testify against the horror they had undergone and witnessed and to fight racial stereotypes. When referring to black people, they used the usual labels only to question them and resist the dehumanization and prejudices inherent in racial categories. They questioned the concept of race itself through a network of images involving skin color and blood as vectors of ethnicity and identity, and they blurred the color line in many ways. Dehumanization by pro-slavery activists – and even abolitionists – was indeed the main issue black people faced and resisted against. By focusing on individuals and individual stories of conversion and redemption, they reclaimed their humanity.