The House of Bondage, Or, Charlotte Brooks and Other Slaves

One of the most interesting volumes is also one of the most eclectic. 'The House of Bondage or Charlotte Brooks and Other Slaves' by Octavia Rogers Albert is a piece of literature partly because it is so experimental in its attempt to blend an interview format with slave narratives, biographical accounts, historical information, and even her own personal commentary. Published in 1890, 'House of Bondage' is an example of the black oral tradition in process. The reader becomes an eye-witness to black culture and history in formation. Albert skillfully moves the dialogue between the black vernacular of the slaves and the standard English of the black middle-class narrator. Frances Smith Foster in her introduction to 'House of Bonage' argues that the narrative authority of Albert's personal experience makes her book more authentic in its portrayal of slavery. The personal narratives, especially a group narrative like Octavia Albert's 'House of Bondage' (1890), were a means of perserving fragile antebellum life history as the slave generations grew old and died. Just as important, they provided a counterweight against the plantation myth and the denigration of black freedom being generated by respected white novelists such as Thomas Nelson Page and Thomas Dixon, and historians such as James Ford Rhodes.