In the Memoirs from the Slave Narrative Collection “When I was a slave” edited by Norman R.
Yetman, he introduced many slaves and their stories of fear and survival. Frank Bell (one of the slaves)
was interviewed in Texas, at the age of eighty six, by an unidentified interviewer. He states, “My master
was a Frenceman and was real mean to me” (Yetman 9). He also states that “ When I’m about
seventeen I marries a gal while Master on drunk spell……HE (Master) takes a big, long knife and cuts her
head plump off and ties a great, heavy weight to her and makes me throw her in the river”(Yetman 9).
Can up imagine your wife having her head chopped off and your “Master” making you throw her body
in the river. All Frank Bell wanted was to be free and happy. He wanted to fall in love which was
supposed to be a part of his Human Rights…to be safe and happy; at least that what it states in the
Declaration of Indepenance. Instead, he had what little bit of love that he had stripped away from him.
He was to help his owner torturer and kill his love and throw her body in a river like it was a game. I
believe that one of the main important emotions that were felt by all the slaves was fear and survival. I
believe this because who in their right mind wants to be beaten while chained to a wall. Who wants to
wear dirty clothes with holes and afraid and have to answer to anybody. He was afraid to leave. He
states that “…he puts me in chains and every night he comes give me a whippin for a long time” (Yetman
9)
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