{"id":984,"date":"2019-10-24T21:24:15","date_gmt":"2019-10-24T21:24:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/?p=984"},"modified":"2019-11-12T19:30:55","modified_gmt":"2019-11-12T19:30:55","slug":"the-life-of-aunt-harriet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/timeline\/the-life-of-aunt-harriet\/","title":{"rendered":"The Life of Aunt Harriet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n

Aunt Harriet Smith, a soft gentle woman in Hampstead Texas, lived the life of a Texan Slave until she was 13.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Through the life of Aunt Harriet Smith facts of the lives of slaves are sparse and interspersed. Even though they had a hard life Harriet\u2019s story reveals they had many religious traditions. The interviewer mainly focuses on the white people in her life. They asked about how the white people treated her, and if they beat her. Of course she said they didn\u2019t, but her memories were distant. She had difficulty remembering some of the people she married or knew. Aunt Harriet also repeated herself many times. This indicates she may have dementia or another issue that comes with age. Even with the memory issues I was surprised she never went into detail about her parents or family life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most surprising moment was when Aunt Harriet\u2019s first husband\u00a0 and his brother were murdered by a poor white man. Their murder did not surprise me, but the fact that she nursed this particular man as a child. That detail of close relation really twisted my stomach. Another moment that really highlighted the dangerous lives in her lifetime was the story of a young woman. She worker in a molasses mill, and she had her arm torn off while working. It\u2019s details and small tidbits like that that show just how terrifying their lives could be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview is incredibly useful in the sphere of understanding how Texan slaves grew after they were freed. They harbored a community\/colony that was sold to them by a man named Reilly. It is, however, limited because the interviewer obviously was more interested in the white folk around her<\/a> than he was in her story. He steered the conversation rather than expanding on the already existing storyline she was going with he kept redirecting her train of thought.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview definitely reinforced my pre existing knowledge of oral history. From readings in contemporary oral history I already knew oral history as a primary source needed important questions to be viable. The interviewer is just as responsible for the information as the interviewee is. Both sides must have a strong understanding of the topic at hand. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From this interview you can hear the soft gentle personality of Aunt Harriet, and these personality traits wouldn\u2019t be apparent in a written format. Transcription can also lose certain dialectic history<\/a>. Rather than write in her dialect just transcribers type in the full words. This makes it easy to read, but erases a part of minority history.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This interview shows that the FWP<\/a> was concerned with the history of slavery, but the motive behind that concern is a bit hazy. The questions can be misleading and focused on her white folk rather than her. History is about proper questions. Some questions purge the very heart of societal issues, but some ignore it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Aunt Harriet Smith, a soft gentle woman in Hampstead Texas, lived the life of a Texan Slave until she was 13. Through the life of Aunt Harriet Smith facts of the lives of slaves are sparse and interspersed. Even though they had a hard life Harriet\u2019s story reveals they had many religious traditions. The interviewer … Continue reading “The Life of Aunt Harriet”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-984","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-timeline","tag-timelines"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jessicadoeshistory.com\/courseblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}