The Bondwoman's Narrative

“I ask myself for the hundredth time How will such a literary venture, coming from a sphere so humble be received?”

In her introduction to the text, Hannah Crafts makes clear her hesitation and her anxiety about the book she has written. She worries about the way her audience will receive her views on the dynamics of slavery. Just as she describes herself, the preface seems to suggest that she is a humble author but not one who is unaware of the importance of her own work. It is literature with a purpose and literature with a new perspective. Though she may be self-admittedly humble, Crafts is a confident and skilled writer. The occasional spelling or grammatical mistake denotes her level of education and the nature of the manuscript (unedited and not professionally proofread), but the general tenor of the words gives the audience confidence in Crafts.

“The birds of the air, or beasts of the field are not freer from moral culture than I was.”

From the opening lines of the novel, the self-effacing Hannah Crafts admits to being neither clever nor talented and, as she continues to explain, this is because she has received very little education in this regard. In the second paragraph, the reason for this is becoming clear. Just like wildlife, her education has been minimal, and she is already equivocating people’s opinions of her as being similar to their opinions of birds or beasts. Society does not expect her to be clever or smart and treats her like a farm animal: a beast of the field, designed to perform laborious duties to which a decent education is not relevant. However, her evident writing skills contradict her humble claims. Although society may consider Hannah little more than an animal, she possesses great skill and humanity, which allows her to diagnose the moral depravity of the institution of slavery.

“We thought our enslaver must be a very great man to have so much wealth at his command, but it never occurred to us to inquire whose sweat and blood and unpaid labor had contributed to produce it.”

Thus far in the novel, Hannah has described the life of an enslaved person. She has shown the audience her desire to educate herself, despite the illegality of educated enslaved people. In this passage, she begins to offer a wider institutional critique of slavery. Her enslaver is wealthy, but he does little work himself. Instead, it is the blood and the toil of the enslaved people who have contributed to his vast wealth. Hannah’s enslaver’s artworks and items of furniture are so impressive that the sight of them stirs in Hannah the initial anti-slavery sentiments, sentiments which no longer focus on the individual but on the institution of slavery (and, to some extent, capitalism). The stirrings of a class conscience in the mind of the young enslaved person will be part of what separates the novel from so many other narratives of enslaved people and examples of sentimental literature. Hannah Crafts’s unique perspective allows this discussion of the intersection between race and class, and her skill as a writer allows her to interject with such ideological criticisms.

“I will hang here till I die as a curse to this house, and I will come here after I am dead to prove its bane. In sunshine and shadow, by day and night I will brood over this tree, and weigh down its branches, and when death, or sickness, or misfortune it to befall the family ye may listen for ye will assuredly hear the creaking of its limbs.”

In the second chapter, the story of Sir Clifford portrays the sheer brutality of slavery. Remembering the legend associated with one of the trees on the estate, Hannah recounts how an old enslaver—Sir Clifford—tortured and killed an elderly enslaved woman and the dog that she loved like a grandchild. After both woman and dog are bound to the tree and left to starve to death, Sir Clifford approaches. The woman levels the above curse at him and then dies. Not only does the manner of the woman’s death demonstrate the rank cruelty of slavery and the dynamics of the enslaver/enslaved relationship, but it shows the true powerlessness of the enslaved people. For this old woman, her only chance to take any action against the man who has owned her and then tortured her to death is to haunt him from beyond the grave. It is a type of pessimism or nihilism, reflecting the truly horrendous conditions in which the enslaved people found themselves. The only hope they have of escaping the horrors of slavery and avenging their condition is to die.

“The evil his presence always brought with it had been accomplished there. He had brought misery and destruction on the household. Was that enough?”

The role of Mr. Trappe is less like a 19^th-century lawyer and more like an evil, malevolent force. The way Crafts describes him in the above quote seems to liken him to a disease or a curse. He functions less like something from a sentimental novel or a narrative of enslaved people and more like the evil force found in many Gothic novels. His appearance at the window of the farm after the lady and Hannah have fled is evidence of this. He is quiet and brooding, the keeper of a terrible secret that manifests the latent curse in the portraits of Sir Clifford. The enslaver, who had not held the traditional ceremony when hanging his own portrait, falls victim to Trappe’s curse. He is convinced to die by suicide after a lengthy meeting with Trappe after Hannah and the lady liberate themselves. He compels the man to die by suicide, threatening to reveal the truth. In a novel that criticizes the deeply immoral institution of slavery, Trappe is particularly evil.

“‘I used to hate slavery’ she continued ‘born in a slave state, educated in a slave state, with slavery all the time before my eyes I could see no beauties in the system. Yet they said it was beautiful, and many thought me a fool for not seeing it so, but somehow I couldn’t; no I couldn’t’ and the old creature sighed.”

There are white characters in the text who take a dim view of slavery but few who take so explicit an anti-slavery stance as Mrs. Wright. Locked in a cell for two years and now quite mentally ill, she has paid a huge price for doing what she believed to be morally right. Ironically, her descent into madness has turned her view of her prison cell on its head. She now believes that she is inside a beautiful palace. This delusion echoes her now-changing view about slavery. Just as she “used to hate slavery” (128), she used to see the cell for what it really was, but now she has convinced herself that she is in a palace. Likewise, her views on slavery have become more malleable. The implication of this is that slavery apologia is akin to being inside a dark cell and becoming convinced that it is a palace.

“It was evident that we had only been transferred from one prison to another.”

Hannah and her former enslaver’s wife are at an unknown house after an unknown enslaver bought them. Hayes, their jailer, seems to treat them with more care and respect than they had expected. When Hayes takes them into the new house, the women have two rooms and a fire, and Hayes tells them to ring the bell if there is anything that they require. Despite these luxuries, Hannah can see through the charade. She is painfully aware that she is still in prison. This prison might have nice furniture, a fire, and the promise of supper, but they are no freer in the house than they were in the jail cell where the rat nibbled on Hannah’s face. To be enslaved is to live perpetually captive without the option of leaving.

“There was a gasp, a struggle, a slight shiver of the limbs and she was free.” 

When Trappe announces to Hannah and the lady that a potential enslaver is to visit the house and that the lady should look her best, a blood vessel bursts in the lady’s body, and she begins to bleed uncontrollably. With a final blessing to Hannah, the lady dies. The above quote notes that this is not a moment of sadness for the lady, but a moment of triumph. Only in death has she found herself free from Trappe.

“My beloved companion, my ccount mistress I know not where they laid her.”

In this quote, the opening line of the chapter, it becomes clear just how far the lady has fallen from grace. Her arrival at the estate as part of the bridal party was heralded with a huge celebration. She was the center of attention at home and the center of intrigue in a narrative sense, but after her confrontation with Trappe and her sudden and tragic death, she has ceased to become worthy of note. The burial in an unknown location reflects how white society has discarded her. When she was living as a white woman, she was a beautiful bride and the daughter of an important man. When Trappe knew her secret, she was a valuable source of blackmail income. Even when she was enslaved, she had some value on the market. In death, she has no value. Trappe discards her as he would a piece of junk or a dead animal. While Hannah wants to know what happened to her, no one else cares enough to mention it. Were it not for the lady’s mention in the novel, she would be lost to history. That her fall follows the steady reveal of the truth about her race is a comment on the value of Black lives in comparison to their white equivalents.

“You won’t find a nicer bit of woman’s flesh to be bought for that money in old Virginia.”

When Trappe decides to sell Hannah, he brings Saddler to the room where she is staying and tries to show her off, determined to fetch a high price. He has already lost the lady and now seeks to regain his financial misfortune, recouping it through the sale of Hannah. The way he talks about Hannah reveals the dehumanizing nature of slavery and the fate that awaits her once sold. The words “a nicer bit of woman’s flesh” (144) denote exactly what Trappe values about Hannah: She is little more than meat or chattel, a product. The word “flesh” suggests that Hannah is to be sold into sexual slavery, her sexual potential traded upon as one of her biggest selling points. Neither man considers consent, as Hannah is a dehumanized item to them.

“I try to deal honest, and act honorably. I would rather be treated myself than cheat another.”

Saddler plays a brief but important role in the novel. As the person who buys Hannah from Trappe, his character is a clear contrast to the old lawyer. Whereas Trappe was cruel, calculating, and devious, Saddler seems to present himself as an honest tradesman. This juxtaposition is important as both men, despite their differences, perform the same essential industrial role: They buy and sell enslaved people. Their fundamental morality is the same, as both men function within the same immoral system. The novel investigates the cognitive dissonance that Saddler employs. He believes himself to be an honest and honorable man, so much so that he would rather lose money rather than have anyone think that he is not honest or honorable. Not once, however, does Saddler reflect on the honor or the honesty of his own trade.

“Alas; those that view slavery only as it relates to physical sufferings or the wants of nature, can have no conception of its greatest evils.”

Though the novel has detailed many violent and brutal ways in which slavery affects the physical bodies of the African American enslaved people, Hannah remarks that the true suffering is in the minds of those who are enslaved. This revelation arrives when Hannah is to leave the Henrys’ genial estate, an important moment. When Hannah discovers that Lotty, who seems to have as good a life as is possible for an enslaved person, has been crying, Hannah knows that there is no way to ccountt for the psychological torments inflicted upon the enslaved people. The constant, perpetual desire to be free affects a slave’s every other thought, action, and emotion. The “greatest evils” of slavery are not always the most obvious.

“Well, you can hug the chain if you please. With me it is liberty or death.”

Hannah finds herself caught in a difficult situation. At a clandestine midnight meeting, Lotty and her husband, William, propose that all three of them liberate themselves. Hannah yearns for freedom, but she remains hesitant. She has already liberated herself once and had it end in failure, and she feels indebted to Mrs. Henry and worries about betraying the woman who nursed her back to health. Life on the Henry estate is as good as Hannah might have hoped. Liberating herself runs the risk of losing everything. William has already lost everything. He cannot return to his former enslaver, who may punish or execute him. He has translated this into a simple binary decision: “liberty or death” (175). While this may be true for William (and for Lotty, as life without her husband is akin to death), Hannah is in a different position. While she agrees with William’s statement on an ideological level, the realities of her situation complicate the matter.

“Between the mistress and her slave a freedom exists probably not to be found elsewhere.”

This is one of the insights that Gates, in his introduction, pointed to as unique. The dynamic between a female enslaver and an enslaved woman is not like any other relationship in the domestic household. Instead, the enslaved woman takes on a confidant-like role. As Hannah describes it, the enslaver will happily talk at length about her problems and personal matters and expect these to stay private. This is not unique to Mrs. Wheeler but a dynamic common across households. These insights and details demonstrate why The Bondwoman’s Narrative is uniquely placed in literature to provide an insight into the life of an enslaved woman in antebellum America.

“It even extended to the slave market, but the miserable victims of that dreadful traffic found little in it to ameliorate their woes.”

The novel has employed several different genres to this point. There have been traits of the sentimental novel, the Gothic horror, and the narrative of an enslaved person. With Hannah and the Wheelers’ trip to Washington, the story becomes something of a farce. The irony of the slave-owning Mrs. Wheeler arriving at the offices of a high-ranking government official while wearing what is ostensibly blackface is evident. In a novel so concerned with the plight of the African American enslaved people, this is the one instance in which a white character is forced to come to the experiences of African American characters: When Mrs. Wheeler arrives at the office, she is ridiculed, belittled, and told that people like her are not given such positions.



The author is illustrating the key difference between having an aesthetically black face and actually being Black. Mrs. Wheeler is incapable of dealing with two hours of having to present herself to the world as anything other than white and all that she must deal with is social embarrassment. For the enslaved people, there is no escape. Rather than a dent in their social standing, their enslavers whip them, hunt them with dogs, and execute them, all while the enslaved people work with no recompense. For the enslaved people in the market, the story of Mrs. Wheeler does nothing to “ameliorate their woes” (197), as they are stuck in their situation forever. While the city laughs, the enslaved people recognize the true tragedy that lurks behind the farce.

“To think that she had been rivaled by slaves. She, with English and aristocrat blood in her veins.”

This is the first point Crafts gives the perspective of a non-American character. England, at the time, had either abolished or was in the process of abolishing slavery, unlike the United States of America. Mrs. Cosgrove, an English woman of aristocratic descent, discovers that her husband has fathered several children with enslaved women while she has been away. She finds herself distraught and furious that she has been “rivaled” by enslaved women for her husband’s interest. The English woman feels insulted on a personal level by her husband’s infidelity rather than objecting to rape on a moral level. This new perspective demonstrates the extent to which even those from abolitionist nations were prepared to tolerate slavery, right up until the moment when it became personally inconvenient. At this point, the woman’s objections to slavery do not seem sincere. Instead, she has an objection to her husband and his actions.

“I did so, and just as we entered the room, the last flutter expired on her sinking lip. She was dead.”

Though The Bondwoman’s Narrative is technically the autobiography of Hannah Crafts, there are several points where it detaches from Hannah’s life and explores other areas of the contemporary American South. These short vignettes might only be tangentially related to Hannah’s life, but they provide a greater depth of understanding of slavery at the time. In both chapters containing Lizzy’s story, for example, Hannah relates the tale of Mr. Cosgrove. It is a short, self-contained narrative that contains births, deaths, murder, mystery, and tragedy. This short story covers what happened when enslavers decided to rape and impregnate their enslaved people, as well as giving the perspective of a white non-American character, whose death, as outlined in the above quote, brings an end to this story.

“Those brutalized creatures in the cabins are fit companions for one so vile.” 

This quote serves several purposes. First, it speaks to the nature of the punishment which Mrs. Wheeler is handing out. After falsely accusing Hannah of spreading rumors of the incident in Washington, Mrs. Wheeler decides to send Hannah to live with enslaved people in the field, whom she describes in the quote above. To live with enslaved people in the field is clearly a punishment and Mrs. Wheeler considers the enslaved people in the field to be barely human. That she keeps these people in a condition that is a fitting punishment for the vilest of people is demonstrable of how little Mrs. Wheeler cares about her enslaved people. She knows how they live and is willing to wield that inhumanity as a stick with which to beat Hannah.

Just as the passage reflects on Mrs. Wheeler it also reflects on Hannah. She has spent her entire life enslaved in the house. When passing by the slums belonging to the enslaved people in the field, she is disgusted. This speaks to a class hierarchy among the enslaved people. To live in the house is better than living in the fields, and those enslaved people who live in the house consider themselves the social betters of enslaved people in the field.

“They regarded me curiously as I entered, grinned with malicious satisfaction that I had been brought down to their level, and made some remarks at my expense.” 

Just as Hannah perceives herself to be above the slums and the enslaved people in the field, their perception of her seems to be equally as distasteful. To them, she is a representative of those who live in the house in relative luxury while they are stuck in the slums. Thus, when Hannah is reduced to living with the enslaved people in the field, they take a twisted delight in her suffering. Hannah is now on their social level and is suffering like they are. For all of Hannah’s airs and pretensions (which are evident in the previous quote), she is now one of them. Hannah’s education, her good looks, her soft skin, and her social standing mean nothing in the slums.

“Dead.”

As Hannah liberates herself through the forest, she comes across a brother and sister, and they all take shelter in a hut together. As the sister is dying from a fever, Hannah considers how enslaved people die shacked and alone, as opposed to the ways other people die. As the sun comes up, the sister dies. Crafts writes her death in one of the most evident literary flourishes in the text. Craft announces the sister’s death in a single sentence and a single word, isolated on one line as though it were an individual paragraph. The bluntness of the single syllable hits hard, reinforcing the huge emotional impact of the moment and forcing the reader to pause and consider the circumstances and meaning of the death. Hannah hardly knows the woman, has spent barely a night with her while the woman was unconscious. Nevertheless, the delivery of the above quote demonstrates the impact the death has on Hannah and reiterates the lack of fanfare when an enslaved person dies, as is noted when the lady’s burial place is left a mystery.

“Greatly as I feared discovery on my own account, I feared it no less on that of my friend.”

In the plight of Aunt Hetty, the text demonstrates how slavery also affects white abolitionists. Aunt Hetty and her deceased husband have already suffered because of their kindness to African American enslaved people. Aunt Hetty taught Hannah to read and was jailed as a result. The act of educating an enslaved person is a crime, one which forces them from their home and ruins the stability in their lives. When Hetty finds Hannah beside the river and welcomes the self-emancipated person into her home, Hannah is appreciative but mindful of the sacrifices Hetty has already made. She fears discovery not just because of the retribution that she will suffer as a self-emancipated person, but because she fears for Hetty. In this respect, it becomes clear that the institution of slavery does not only adversely affect people along racial lines.

“Whoever put him out of the way would deserve the thanks of the community for ridding the world of a villain.”

The penultimate chapter is an outlier in narrative terms. After liberating herself and spending weeks and months on the run, Hetty sends Hannah on a boat headed for New Jersey. She finds herself lost and worried on the crowded boat but does not give too many details on how she reaches her destination. Rather, she takes the moment to detail a conversation that she overheard while onboard which brings a degree of closure to the novel. In the early stages of the text, Mr. Trappe is the antagonist and Crafts treats his appearance like a bad omen. As Hannah learns that Mr. Trappe was killed by some of his victims, Crafts again uses Trappe to foreshadow future events; this time, with the death of the evil figure, she foreshadows an end to Hannah’s troubles.

“It is well attended, and I enjoy myself almost as well in imparting knowledge to others, as I did in obtaining it when a child myself.” 

The final chapter differs from the rest of the book in style. Whereas the other chapters offer detailed descriptions of scenes and events, this ultimate communication from Hannah provides an opportunity for her to discuss the joys of life as a free woman. The above quote is interesting, as it shows a different way in which Hannah is addressing slavery’s effect on her life. When Hannah finally reaches the North and finds herself freed from the bondage of slavery, her first instinct is to pass along the education that transformed her life. To her, education is a gift and a means of achieving equality. Not only is she passing along her education and experiences to the children in the class, but she is also passing it along through the medium of the novel. The text becomes an expression of Hannah’s freedom and a means by which she can liberate others.