Review: Stolen Childhood, Second Edition: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America

Stolen Childhood, Second Edition: Slave Youth in Nineteenth-Century America by Wilma King
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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.

View all my reviews