Once A Slave, by Stanley Feldstein

With the disclaimer that his book is neither the ""history"" nor the ""true story"" of slavery, Stanley Feldstein has pieced together excerpts from hundreds of slave narratives to reconstruct the physical and psychological experience of bondage.
Against the general backdrop of dehumanization and fear a few themes stand out most starkly. The terror and rage at the violation of family life by masters who considered the slave's child ""of no more consequence to him than the calf is to the cow"" and the slave owners' pathological fear of the educated chattel (""Let me ever know you to spell another word"" she screeched ""and I'll tear your heart right out of you"") are omnipresent.
Less overt but equally pervasive are the fierce class antagonisms within the slave community exemplified by the exalted status or the domestic over the field laborer and the pathetic pride of some of the blacks in belonging to ""quality folk"" rather than ""po' white trash.""

1970
suggested by Val