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To tackle a three-page essay on the meaning of freedom for enslaved people in the United States, it is very important to keep in mind that there was no single idea of freedom. The condition of slaves varied tremendously throughout the United States. Some slaves lived near urban areas and had relatively high amounts of personal autonomy as well as exposure to free people of color, while other slaves were in isolation on plantations and may not ever encounter free people or color or even regularly encounter slaves held captive on other plantations. In addition, men, women, and children experienced slavery differently, as did slaves who had different roles. As a result, there were multiple perspectives about what freedom meant for slaves.
One of the best ways to understand how slaves felt about the idea of freedom is to look at slave narratives and what former slaves had to say about the condition. Fortunately, there are a number of former slaves who participated in the abolitionist movement and were, therefore, very vocal about their view of slavery and what freedom meant to them. Understanding the perspectives of famous abolitionists like Frederick Douglass, David Walker, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman can shed light on how African Americans viewed the concept of freedom in the Civil War period.
While there are conflicting ideas about freedom, reading their statements and stories one theme becomes apparent. Many former slaves considered the destruction of the family system, which was a cornerstone of slavery as practiced in the United States, to be one of its greatest evils. For many of them, the idea of being able to reunite with family members was one of the biggest promises of freedom. A related issue is the horrors of the sexual violence perpetrated against slave women, and freedom from that sexual violence was hallmark of freedom for many abolitionists. In fact, Sojourner Truth very vocally connected racial and gender equality in her speeches.
