Böcker av William Dusinberre

Strategies for Survival conveys the experience of bondage through the words of former slaves themselves. The interviews-conducted in Virginia in 1937 by WPA interviewers-are considered among the most valuable of the WPA interviews because in Virginia the interviewers were almost all African Americans; thus the interviewees almost certainly spoke more frankly than they would otherwise have done. Dusinberre uses the interviews to assess the strategies by which slaves sought to survive, despite the severe constrictions bondage imposed upon their lives. Religion and escape were common means of coping with the indignity of family disruption, contempt, and the harsh realities of slavery. However, while Dusinberre recognizes the creativity and variety of slaves' responses to oppression, he acknowledges the dispiriting realities of the limits of slave resistance and agency.

James Polk was US president from 1845-49, when slavery began to dominate its politics. He also owned a substantial plantation in Mississippi and 54 slaves. This book reconstructs the world of his estate and lives of his slaves, analysing how this affected his stance on slavery issues.