Stolen Childhood: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America

by Wilma King

One of the most important books published on slave society, Stolen Childhood focuses on the millions of children and youth enslaved in 19th-century America. This enlarged and revised edition reflects the abundance of new scholarship on slavery that has emerged in the 15 years since the first edition. While the structure of the book remains the same, Wilma King has expanded its scope to include the international dimension with a new chapter on the transatlantic trade in African children, and the book's geographic boundaries now embrace slave-born children in the North. She includes data about children owned by Native Americans and African Americans, and presents new information about children's knowledge of and participation in the abolitionist movement and the interactions between enslaved and free children.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, American History

544 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1995

Reviews

[Teri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very well researched book that follows the life of a slave from the cradle to the grave. Wilma King focuses the bulk of her book on the lost innocence of a childhood for children in bondage in the antebellum south. King utilizes a lot of data including slave narratives, letters, and diaries to piece together the lifecycle of a slave. She draws a picture of a slave's family unit and the circumstances surrounding their bondage, whether they were born into slavery or captured and sold into slavery. She then details the care of a baby and their aging into a toddler that suddenly has chores and light work around the masters home and slave quarters. Many slaves take their babies into the fields with them to play in nearby areas under the watchful eye of their mother. Around the age of 10, children begin back-breaking work in the fields with little leisure time in the evenings and weekends. The second half of the book moves to education (or lack thereof) and the quest for freedom, whether from running away, manumission or eventually for some, emancipation.

I felt this was a very good look at the life of a slave and liked the focus on children. At about the half-way mark, as the topic of education was brought up, I felt that the author lost their focus on a slave's childhood. King certainly mentions how each topic affected children, but their childhood was no longer the true focus, rather it was on the topics and how they affected the entire slave community. I did not feel that the author really brought her thesis full circle to revisit the stolen childhood of a slave. However, this is still a book worthy of the read. It was too short to get too dense, but the statistics were at times less important to the intended thesis and could have been relegated to an appendix or endnote. The first half is quite readable, the second half, skimmable.

[Peyton · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In another case, Julia Ann, a ten-year-old slave in New Castle County, Delaware, who was a caregiver for Augustine Pennington’s infant, faced charges of attempted murder and arson. In 1826, Julia Ann was accused of mixing a quantity of laudanum in the child’s food. When the Penningtons discovered Julia Ann’s plot and notified her owner, Peregrine Hendrickson, he removed her from the Pennington household and took her into his own residence. As Julia Ann awaited her fate, she set fire to Hendrickson’s home.

"What had prompted a ten-year-old child to attempt murder and commit arson? Was she old enough to know right from wrong and understand the consequences of her actions? Both arson and attempted murder were serious crimes and Julia Ann could have been tried for the capital offenses. However, the attorney-general considered her tender age and decided against prosecution. Under the circumstances, Henderickson petitioned the court for permission to sell Julia Ann outside the state of Delaware. He admitted that she “evince[d] a character & disposition of the most dangerous kind.” Without determining what or who was responsible for shaping the child’s character and influencing her disposition, Hendrickson’s primary interest was ridding himself of “troublesome property” without incurring financial losses for his family and social costs to his community. He presented a convincing argument and received permission to sell the child, who would be transported from the state.

"The reasons compelling courts to grant reprieves generally involved slaveholding white men who were sensitive to an owner’s financial losses if the state executed a convicted felon. A prescribed number of lashes, sale, or transportation from the area in lieu of the death sentence were favored alternatives. From the perspective of the owner, these sentences were more desirable financially when they spared the life of an able-bodied laborer, particularly when a state did not compensate owners for executed slaves. The financial interests of owners were paramount in some cases and had nothing to do with the interests of the enslaved defendants."

Difficult to rate. It's a fascinating and under-studied subject, but the prose is often clunky and King doesn't develop her points as strongly as she could, so the execution is underwhelming

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's a hard book to read, but I've no doubt that living through it was considerably worse.

[Sally Sugarman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This account of children in slavery provides a complex picture of the experience of the young people. They did many of the chores at an early age that the children in the West did. However, the nature of the circumstances made that work very different. Working for one’s family or working for someone else with one’s family not able to support and protect one is quite different. Listening to some of the slave narratives in conjunction with this book enriched the reading. I think King was very fair in terms of showing a balanced picture, noting where evidence may have not been correct or where there were gaps in the record. Situations varied and even though the whole system of slavery was not conducive to healthy growth in children, there were situations that were better than others. Certainly, most of the slave mothers and fathers cared for their children and tried to do the best for them that they could under terrible circumstances, knowing that they or the children could be sold away from each other at any point. Since their parents were considered children it was difficult for the slave children ever to grow up even though they never had what we would consider a childhood. They had to work, they had to face the fear of separation, they had to stifle their sense of mastery and achievement. The role of religion was important as was the significance of being able to read. I am fascinated by how education was so important then and is such a problem for black kids now.

[Sjervey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is not an easy book to read, a chronically of man's inhumanity to man. It is a scholarly work, which makes it easier to hold at an intellectual distance, but makes the realities more terrible. Focusing on children drives home the enormity of the injustice. Children were punished brutally; were forced to watch the brutalization of their parents, siblings and relatives; were worked very harshly; and were regularly separated from parents and siblings. Girls could also lol forward to the same sexual exploitation they saw inflicted on their mothers. While students of slavery have some appreciation of these atrocities, having it presented through the perspective of children makes it even more powerful. But the greatest eye-opener was the success of land owners in extending these abuses after emancipation. Children were apprenticed to their former masters, even when liberated parents tried to rescue them but parents who had never been legally married could not establish parental rights or demonstrate that they could provide a more stable home than the plantatiln. This is a tough read, but helps to better explain the reach of systemic racism. I recommend it to any mature readers.

[Betty J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Slavery in the nineteenth-century

Excellent for a thesis or any type of a documentry on slavery. Includes all research and guideline history.
A true but sad part of American History.

[Eva · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most significant texts in the scholarship surrounding transatlantic slavery that focuses on children of African descent who were enslaved and the issues around why it has been so difficult to research.

[Shersta · Rating 3 out of 5]

King's book is an important contribution to our understanding of what childhood might have been like under American slavery. This is the first volume I have read on the subject, and King has done a thorough job of trying to include the voices of slave children themselves as much as possible.

What is unfortunate about this book is that it is poorly organized, with long chapters and no subheadings - such formatting would have been a great help. As it is, each subject tends to transition abruptly into the next, with little by way of explanation or introduction. The writing itself was quite dry, even by academic standards, and there were several sections that seemed only tangentially related to the topic of book without an explanation of why they were included.

I do agree with the author, however, that much more research needs to be done on the topic. Our national squeamishness about our dark past is no excuse for ignoring the conditions under which generations of freed peoples navigated their hard-won citizenship.

[Erendira]

Main E441 .K59 1995