Summary Of The Slave Auction By Frances Ellen Watkins Harper

The author of this poem is Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. She is an African American teacher, author, poet, and really engaged with different movements. This poem is written in first person since she is describing the events occurring in slave auctions. It is a primary source, and we are able to know that she is well educated which make this source more reliable. It was published in one of her books called “Poems on Miscellaneous subjects”, in 1854. Her involvement in the abolition movement makes us realize she know what she is speaking about. It is safe to say that these auctions were taking place in the South, since the North had free states and the south had slave states during that moment. African Americans were always sold in different auctions and families were always separated. They would be sold to the highest bidder, they would not want the whole family, only the strongest, and healthiest member. They felt no sympathy towards the families. This poem could have been written to a very broad audience. Since she was in the abolitionist movement, she could have written it for the people in those years to see how horrible auctions were and educate them. Now we are able to use this poem to further our knowledge of sale auctions, and to really connect with it. She is fairly young when

Harper speaks about the families that would be separated in slave auctions, she writes “And mothers stood with streaming eyes, And saw their dearest children sold” which we are able to see that families were always separated and sometimes they will never see each other again, which brought pain upon them. Harper describes these scenes with lots of emotions, which helps the reader be able to imagine how the enslaved people felt. She uses the words such as “Sobs of despair” and “wretchedness” to get us to get understand better. She uses lots of figurative language and her poem overall is emotional