Background

In the 1930s, thousands of formerly enslaved elderly people were interviewed by agents of the United States government in order to save their recollections for posterity. These interviews usually were held in the former slaves' homes in all of the southern states and a few northern ones.

Their words usually were transcribed in the way that they spoke, southern dialect, such as: "I's gwine tell you da real truf about what happen' on dat plantation." These records were stored in archives.

American Slaves is the standardized English version of the original I WAS A SLAVE books. It was translated for people in the United States and in other countries who have difficulty in understanding southern dialect and to fulfill the huge requests by school systems for a supplementary history textbook.

Donna Wyant Howell began researching the archives in 1988 and started compiling the slave narratives on a full-time basis in 1994. The result is a book series. She categorized the information and published separate books for each subject, such as one book only about slave children and another solely about slave auctions.

Her original books remain in the former slaves own words -- exactly as they spoke them -- with no editing. Included are photographs during slavery and the interviews. Six books of The I WAS A SLAVE Book Collection are available now.

She has donated American Slaves to use as a fund-raiser for the benefit of the American Slaves Foundation of which she is a founding member.