Белый Раб

I am astonished that this book, which is in public domain and has been released in numerous editions over the past century and a half, has only one review on GR. It is often compared with Uncle Tom's Cabin which was published around a similar time, and, perhaps, lost the duel in popularity.

I read the Russian edition published in the Soviet Union in 1987, which I found on my grandmother's bookshelf. I had many doubts about it at first - mainly the fact that literature was heavily censored in Soviet times. I also don't like reading translations unless I have to. I was, however, pleasantly surprised by the quality of the translation and a lack of any obvious signs of Soviet propaganda.

But that's not why I'm giving this book 4 stars. I'm giving it 4 stars because of its portrayal of Slavery in the US: the engaging way the story is constructed and the wide array of injustice it presents to the reader.

We follow the life of Archie Moore, the titular white slave, born to a plantation-owner father and a slave mother. Archie is described as having fair skin - the attribute which I still have some reservations about. I assume this choice was made in order to gain sympathy from the white readers of the day (the book was published in the 19th century, after all) and it does serve a purpose in the plot in the second half of the novel, yet it still raises the question of well-meaning white people talking over black people in the narrative of their own history.

Aside from that, Archie's struggles are difficult, and his successes, no matter how small, are heartwarming. The reader gets an honest and disturbingly realistic experience of the life of American slaves, as well as the political and economical reasons why that system was so hard to abolish. Richard Hildreth manages to show the development of historical events, touching upon topics of slave trade, the hypocrisy of the so called “free” states, the social status of impoverished whites in the South and “Yankees” in the North, the start of the abolitionist movement, and the horrors of the anti-abolitionism that came after..

I did have one issue with the narrative, though. The first third of the novel progressed very slowly and had a lot of repetition - of both ideas and events. At some point I wanted to drop the book, but I'm really glad I didn't. I've always known the treatment of American slaves was inhumane, but I never imagined how horrifying it could actually be, and what atrocities slave-owners were ready to commit in order to preserve this barbaric system of oppression.

Not only is this a reminder of a dark period of history; it should also serve as a reminder of slavery today. This timeline of abolition of slavery on Wikipedia shows how recently some countries in the world chose to criminalize slavery. At the bottom of the table, it says that “Although slavery is now abolished de jure in all countries,(...) de facto practices akin to it continue today in many places throughout the world.”

I hope we get to hear the voices of modern-day slaves, and once we do - we take a stance and fight for their freedom.