Biography of a runaway slave chapter summary

Miguel Barnet.Biography of a Runaway Slave. Willimantic, Conn.: Curbstone Press, 1994. 217 pp. $11.95 (paper), ISBN 978-1-880684-18-4.

Biography of a runaway slave chapter summary

Reviewed by Dale T. Graden (University of Idaho)
Published on H-Ethnic (October, 1996)

Miguel Barnet's Biography of a Runaway Slave: Testimonial Literature as History

Few documentary sources exist from the Caribbean islands and the Latin American mainland written by Africans or their descendants that describe their life under enslavement.

In Brazil, two mulatto abolitionists wrote sketchy descriptions of their personal experiences, and one autobiography of a black man was published before emancipation. In contrast, several thousand slave narratives and eight full-length autobiographies were published in the United States before the outbreak of the Civil War (1860-1865) (Conrad, p.

xix). In Cuba, one slave narrative appeared in the nineteenth century. Penned by Juan Francisco Manzano, the Autobiografia (written in 1835, publishe