Submitted by: Submitted by LunchDuck
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Words: 2069
Pages: 9
Category: US History
Date Submitted: 01/04/2016 05:29 PM
Smith 1
Kent Smith
Norton
AP Language
September 4, 2015
Life of William Grimes
Being a slave, no matter what era is a trying and difficult life. Knowing that one will
never be able to own anything even after years of labor is a mental affliction most never
overcome. Slavery symbolizes a flourishing and expansive time on America, however, it also
serves as a reminder of the inequality and cultural atrocities which plague the United States past.
William Grimes has not only lived in the peak of slave culture within America, for much of his
life he was a slave himself. William Grimes experiences a vital part of history in American
culture. This allowed him to incorporate his understanding and first hand experience in into his
writing to linguistically tell his testimony as well as providing a medium many can relate to and
learn from.
Born 1784, King George County Virginia, he served as an enslaved servant being abused
and moved between numerous plantations. Son of a wealthy plantation owner and slave, he had a
uniquely lighter skin color than most other slaves, and therefore received abuse from his master
and his fellow slaves alike. Grimes writes,”
I was in law, a bastard and slave.” (Grimes 5).
When Grimes was ten years old he was bought by Col. Thornton and taken away from his
mother never to see her again. Grimes describes his final moments as his leaves his mother,”
It
grieved me to see my mother's tears at our separation. I was a heartbroken child, although too
young to realize the afflictions of a tender mother, who was also a slave, the hopes of freedom
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for her already lost; but I was compelled to go and leave her”. (Grimes 8). As he is transported
from plantation to plantation until he finally finds his opportunity of freedom, working on a boat
and traveling to New York. Working as a barber he moves around until he finds business in New ...