A paper

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Primary Source Document 11-6 During the mid 1820's and up until the 1860's the internal slave trade took place. This trade was different then the slave trading of the past as it focused not on importation of slaves but on the trading and selling of slaves currently in the United States. It took place because of a need for more labor in the lower southern states where cotton was the next hot item. This was a slave trade that "uprooted" and "enforced migration" of slaves from the northern south to the "new and expanding cotton-growing regions of the Old Southwest" (Out of Many, 201). With this new internal slave trade it meant that families had to be broken up, which caused a lot of pain and sorrow. As a matter of fact this was the biggest fear of a slave, "the fear of being sold" (Class lecture, 1/13/04). Being sold meant that a slave would be separated (in most every case) from their family members as well as their friends. The primary source document 11-6 tells the story of a slave boy Henry Watson and his accounts of trading and being sold himself during the era of the internal slave trade. It goes into great detail of life as a slave and how trading affected Watson and those around him.

The reaction of this specific account may have had a profound impact on anti-slavery individuals. With the in depth detail of the reality of slave life, it most likely shed new light onto the subject of slavery. The specific details of ordering "them to be stripped and tied hand and foot together," (PSD Vol 1, 144) would not have only enraged anti-slavery people, but would also cause them to feel sorry for the slaves. This narrative on the other hand would have no such an affect on pro-slavery individuals. The slave owners didn't see themselves as barbaric but instead saw the slaves in this manner. They didn't feel sorry for slaves. The slaves were their property and of value to them not as people but as money. This is proven in that "many owners sold slaves and separated slave families not out of necessity but to increase their profits" (Out of Many, 202).

It is quite evident that Watson's account was transcribed by abolitionists. The story uses very unique vocabulary that of which would have been used by an educated individual. It was a crime to teach a slave to read and write, so this could not have been written by Watson. This didn't mean that Watson couldn't read or write after he ran away, it just means that he wasn't educated enough to write at the level that this account is written. It was clearly transcribed and in doing so the abolitionist hoped to influence their readers by showing them what a horrific life it was to be a slave. For example, Watson would not have written "More forcibly did I then feel the galling chains of slavery, the cruelty and barbarism arising from it" (PSD 11-6, 143). If this account would have been written directly from Watson and not transcribed it would have gained a feeling of Watson's persona that sort of lacked throughout the whole story. However, without the transcribing of Watson's life story it may not have been published in the first place and may not have had such an immense affect on readers.

Watson's account of slavery life tells the truth of being a slave. There may have been more accounts on slavery from slave owners or other whites, but this one is effective in the understanding from the perspective of a slave, the individual who actually lived through the ordeal first hand. Most importantly it tells that slave life was a sad life. It was a life of painful pasts and shattered families which meant that "one in every five slave marriages was broken, and one in every three children sold away from their families" (Out of Many, 207) It is also apparent that being a slave meant you had no future except that of being a slave. A slave led mostly a sad life and being separated from families (the only true and happy aspect of slave life) meant almost the end of the world.