About the author: Carver Waters received his PhD from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then known as University of Southwestern Louisiana). He has taught at the College of Charleston, Trident Technical College, Clemson University, Grambling State University, and is presently at Savannah State University, where he teaches Freshman Composition and courses in African American Literature.
2002 0-7734-6988-5 These three narratives provide a broad picture of slavery in America. Equiano’s 18th-century account takes readers from West Africa through the Middle Passage to the Caribbean to England and America. Douglass’ 19th-century narrative recounts his enslavement in Maryland and how his personal experience made him a formidable opponent of oppression and racism. Northrup came of age as a free black man in New York, but his narrative of his kidnapping and twelve-year enslavement in Louisiana provides evidence that American slavery jeopardized the lives of nominally free blacks as well.