Unchained Memories Summary

Of the given options of films to watch for the extra credit assignment, I chose to watch HBO’s documentary titled the Unchained Memories: Readings From the Slave Narratives, a production I thought was excellently put together. I was initially apprehensive of the film, thinking it would be extremely boring, but I rather found it to be quite the accessible medium of history both available and appealing to a broad audience including myself. I found the readings of the many slave’s interviews and firsthand accounts to be such a clever way to understand more about the culture of slavery in an uncanted light and it broadened my knowledge of what slavery entailed. The credibility of this film finds its foundations cemented in the undeniable and indisputable

Though slightly frivolous to mention merely because of its obviousness but still notably, all the slaves came from the Southern states including and not limited to Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Virginia, South Carolina, and Arkansas. Economically, the United States’ main cash crops—tobacco, rice, sugarcane, and cotton—were cultivated by the slaves who the rich Southerners heavily depended upon. From this perspective establishes a degree of understanding about the unwillingness to abolish slavery and contributes to the reality of the clear division between the agriculturally based South and industrially based North. Having watched the film, I wished the Northern people were more aware of the abuses and dehumanization of the slaves though the saddening reality is that the truth of the slaves’ conditions couldn’t be revealed till much later on because the fear of retaliation and prosecution of the slave owners and white people was very much present. That the slaves’ mistreatment would be considered repulsive and repugnant to the Quakers and abolitionists is made evident the narratives of the slaves read by the different former slaves who elucidated the countless