Black Slaves (Emancipation)

[bumfuckerie]

I once began writing a story on the aftermath of Emancipation, where a fictional slave-owning household is now held captive by their slaves who've launched a revolt. It didn't get past the first paragraph because I had trouble making the story sound believable (why would the slaves resort to sex to get back at their masters?)

Anyone have an idea on how I could develop the premise?

 

[Hypoxia]

I guess the basic question is: Where do you want the story to end? Once you have some sort of ending, you can figure out how to get there, and maybe even how the story should START in order to get there.

Ah, the premise. We know that black slaves were routinely sexually exploited and abused by their masters and mistresses. The liberated slaves might seek revenge by similarly abusing their former owners. Thus, it's a power game. And where does it end? Do the former slaves torture and kill the owners, or reconcile with them, or just abandon them?

Hmm, here's a possibility. The story can focus on more than one plantation, where the owners have NOT all treated their slaves the same. The revolt occurs across the region. Different plantations have their own dynamics and after-effects -- killing the owners in one place, quietly deserting from another, and reconciling in another.

The story can cover these various dynamics, before and during and after the Civil War. What slave-owner attitudes and actions led to what reactions?

Also explore the long-term repercussions of those events. Were the killers caught, and if not, what was their dark family heritage? Did the deserters quietly blend into other communities, or move West to tend cattle, or what? Did the reconciliators create a durable, tolerant, loving community, or were they later targeted by the Klan, or what?

This is probably not a one-page story, not unless you want to gloss over the complexity and just go for strokes. Good luck.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Yes and no.

One of my ancestors had 20 children by two slave women, another had a daughter by a free black at New Orleans, and yet another had a free black wife at South Carolina. That said, all the 'black' women were light skinned.

If you examine the old records the most common intercourse tween blacks and whites was black slaves sexually involved with white indentured servants. You also find articles whites eloping to Canada and Mexico with black servants.

 

[bumfuckerie]

I guess the basic question is: Where do you want the story to end? Once you have some sort of ending, you can figure out how to get there, and maybe even how the story should START in order to get there.

Ah, the premise. We know that black slaves were routinely sexually exploited and abused by their masters and mistresses. The liberated slaves might seek revenge by similarly abusing their former owners. Thus, it's a power game. And where does it end? Do the former slaves torture and kill the owners, or reconcile with them, or just abandon them?

Hmm, here's a possibility. The story can focus on more than one plantation, where the owners have NOT all treated their slaves the same. The revolt occurs across the region. Different plantations have their own dynamics and after-effects -- killing the owners in one place, quietly deserting from another, and reconciling in another.

The story can cover these various dynamics, before and during and after the Civil War. What slave-owner attitudes and actions led to what reactions?

Also explore the long-term repercussions of those events. Were the killers caught, and if not, what was their dark family heritage? Did the deserters quietly blend into other communities, or move West to tend cattle, or what? Did the reconciliators create a durable, tolerant, loving community, or were they later targeted by the Klan, or what?

This is probably not a one-page story, not unless you want to gloss over the complexity and just go for strokes. Good luck.

Some really good points in there. Thanks for taking the time to type that all out! I'll definitely take all this into consideration when I start again, keeping the end in mind was something I'd stupidly ignored.