Teaching Guide
In A Slave No More, the noted historian David W. Blight presents two recently
discovered Civil War–era slave narratives. John Washington’s “Memories of the Past”
and the “Journal of Wallace Turnage” are the harrowing, often beautifully written
personal stories of two slaves who escaped from the wartime South to the safety and
freedom of the Union lines. The two narratives are presented in their original state, with
no editorial interference. Blight prefaces them with a wealth of meticulously researched
biographical information about the two men’s lives and a contextualization of this pivotal
moment in American history. A Slave No More is history at its most intimate, the
American experience expressed through the previously untold stories of two ordinary
men.
This guide is meant for instructors employing A Slave No More in their teaching. The
guide’s first section, Reading and Understanding the Narrative, will help students keep up
with the events and themes of Blight’s introduction and the narratives themselves. The
second section, Further Questions for Class Discussion, will help students explore the
book in broader and more reflective ways. At the end of the guide we have included a
few suggestions for further reading, including other slave narratives, histories of slavery
and the Civil War, and works of fiction.
Questions for Reading and Understanding
Prologue
1. What is a slave narrative? What are the different kinds of slave narratives Blight
discusses? According to Blight, how did the purpose and the style of slave narratives
change over time, from the antebellum era to the post-abolition era?
Chapter 1
1. Blight quotes former slave Harriet Jacobs: "The mother of slaves is very watchful. She
knows there is no security for her children. After they have entered their teens she lives in
daily expectations of trouble" (page 22). What is the trouble the mother expects?
2. According to Blight, how were city slaves different from plantation slaves? How did
the time John Washington spent in the city make him more likely and able to escape?
What were some of the other factors that contributed to his ability and inclination to
escape?
Chapter 2
1. How did the war make it possible for Wallace Turnage to escape?
2. How did slavery fit into the economy of the United States before the Civil War? In
what ways were the Northern, non-slave states economically involved in slavery?
Chapter 3
1. How do Washington’s and Turnage’s life stories and the stories of their descendants
illustrate the importance of migration in the African American experience? Compare
Washington’s and Turnage’s migrations with their descendants’ movements. Compare
and contrast African American migration with that of the European immigrants with
whom Blight imagines Turnage must have come into contact in New York City.
Chapter 4
1. What were the different factors President Lincoln had to consider in issuing the
Emancipation Proclamation? What were the earlier, less radical steps he took before
issuing the proclamation? How did the proclamation help the Union to win the war? How
might it have hurt the Union’s efforts?
2. What was a contraband camp? What was life like for the residents of these camps?
John Washington’s Memories of the Past
1. What is the significance of Washington’s story of being left behind at the circus (page
166)? How does it relate to Washington’s story as a whole? Why do you think he
included it in his narrative?
2. When and why does Washington first decide that he will run away if he gets the
chance?
3. How does Washington help the Union army once he is free?
Journal of Wallace Turnage
1. How many times does Turnage attempt to run away? What incident motivates him to
do so in each case?
2. What are the different reactions of the slaves whom Turnage encounters during his
escape attempts? Why do some refuse to help him?
3. How does the tone of Turnage’s narrative change in the section describing his final
escape from Mobile to Fort Powell? Why do you think Turnage seems to talk more about
his feelings and about God in this final passage? Do you feel more suspense in this part
of the narrative?
Further Questions for Class Discussion
1. Blight writes that "virtually all pre-emancipation slave narratives contained . . .
numerous testimonials, prefaces, and letters of endorsement by white abolitionists and
supporters" (page 12). Do you think there are similarities between those kinds of prefaces
and Blight's own? How does reading Blight’s biographies of Washington and Turnage
beforehand affect the way you read and understand their own narratives?
2. Why has Blight preserved the narratives almost exactly as they were written (see
Author’s Note)? What changes did he make to them, and why? Why is it important to
scholars that narratives like this be presented in their original form, including obvious
errors?
3. How does reading the personal stories of individuals like Washington and Turnage add
to our understanding of history? What can we learn from an individual’s recounting of his
own personal story that we can’t learn from reading an historian’s account?
4. Make a timeline of the Civil War era that includes major historical events such as
secession, elections, important battles, and important events in Washington’s and
Turnage’s lives.
5. Discuss Washington’s and Turnage’s writing style in the context of Blight’s
description of the evolution of slave narratives (Prologue). In which passages did you
notice Washington and Turnage using the conventions of fiction and biography? Which
parts of the narrative reminded you of a novel or a movie, and which parts were least like
fiction? Did the narratives remind you of any specific works of literature?
6. Make a copy of the maps provided in the book and trace the journeys of Washington
and Turnage, labeling the location of important incidents and the places each man was
trying to reach.
7. Both Turnage and Washington seem to have had a very detailed knowledge of the
names and tactical movements of the Union armies. Why do you think this is?
8. Blight believes that Washington and Turnage wrote these narratives in part to tell their
children where they had come from. Are there stories or written documents like this in
your own family? If so, compare and contrast those stories with these slave narratives.
9. Discuss the importance of Washington’s and Turnage’s literacy. How did it help them
escape? In what ways might these narratives have been different if Washington and
Turnage had been illiterate and told their stories as oral histories to an interviewer who
transcribed them?
10. Discuss the importance of socioeconomic class in Washington’s and Turnage’s lives
after slavery. Were their post-slavery experiences less similar than their lives as slaves?
How might their lives have been different if they had not escaped to the North during the
war?
11. Discuss Washington’s quote on page 194: “I never would be a slave no more. I felt
for the first time in my life that I could now claim Every cent that I should work for as
my own.” Is it significant that the first type of freedom Washington thinks of is the
freedom to earn his own money?
12. Turnage’s note to the reader at the end of his narrative expresses the hope that, when
he dies, he will “by God’s assistance reach that Blistful abode, and triumph over the
enemies of my soul at last . . . I will then be free indeed.” What is the significance of this
note? Who are the enemies of his soul? Discuss the role that Christianity played in
Turnage’s and Washington’s lives and the way they expressed their religious beliefs in
their narratives.
13. Blight writes that in 2006 the Massachusetts Historical Commission described
Washington as the most notable person buried in the Cohassett, Massachusetts, cemetery.
Why is he considered notable? Discuss Blight’s comment that this shows how
“Americans are finally becoming aware that slavery left indelible marks, large and small,
on the national psyche as well as on the American landscape” (page 112).
14. What did you learn from these narratives that you didn’t already know about slavery,
abolition, and the Civil War? What did you learn that a narrative history written today
couldn’t have taught you?
Suggestions for Further Reading
Slave Narratives
Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, Written by Himself by
Frederick Douglass, edited by David W. Blight.
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl by Harriet Jacobs
Up From Slavery by Booker T. Washington
The Bondswoman’s Narrative by Hannah Crafts
The Slave’s Narrative edited by Charles T. Davis and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
History
Half Slave and Half Free: The Roots of Civil War by Bruce Levine
Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson
Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market by Walter Johnson
Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation by John Hope Franklin and Loren
Schweninger
Literature and Fiction
Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Beloved by Toni Morrison
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Copyright © Harcourt 2007
Discussion questions written by Ben White