A Slave Tells of His Sale at Auction – 1848

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History
A Slave tells of his sale at auction – 1848
Narrative of Henry Watson: A Fugitive Slave is a historical account of one of the darkest eras in the history of the United States of America. Slavery was indeed heinous and it is remarkable how some victims of the slavery era managed to document the hardship they underwent. This account was written by Henry Watson and published in 1848. In his story, Watson narrates how inhumane the slavery era was by vividly describing how his life and fate changed overnight. The main idea or argument of this document is that slavery was indeed the lowest point humanity had ever sunk. Slaves had no rights and therefore, were expected to do as their slave masters asked and expected without question. With every slave narrative, there could indeed be issues of exaggeration or bias but Watson’s auction story is quite real and is synonymous to the famous 1859 slave auction or ‘The Weeping Time’ as it is popularly known. From the text, it is clear that Watson never meant for his account to be read by generations that succeeded his. His intention was to showcase the atrocities of the slavery era and to spread the inhumane nature of what transpired then.
In this particular slave narrative, the author was not trying to make any argument but simply provide the first account of how a slave auction happened as well as what precedes it. Watson, however, was not trying to persuade anyone but simply trying to offer an account of what happened to him after he was separa...