Question
In 1798, Venture Smith published his memoir of enslavement, entitled A Narrative of The Life And Adventures of Venture, A Native Of Africa: But Resident Above Sixty Years in the United States of America. In his account, Smith described his kidnapping from a region of West Africa and subsequent enslavement in New England. He also recounted his successful efforts to purchase his own freedom and that of his family members.
According to the Library of Congress, Smith’s book was the first slavery memoir published in the United States. It helped pave the way for a new literary genre of enslavement memoirs. By the end of the Civil War, over 100 works in this genre had been published, including famed orator Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Solomon Northrup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853), and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). By exposing the cruelty and violence of slavery, these works challenged the public narrative of the American slavery system and helped fuel the abolition movement. The genre continued to grow and diversify after the Civil War, with memoirs published during Reconstruction and beyond.
Based on the text, we can infer that the public narrative of the American slavery system prior to the Civil War was ________.
A
falsely positive
B
falsely negative
C
realistic
D
neutral
According to the Library of Congress, Smith’s book was the first slavery memoir published in the United States. It helped pave the way for a new literary genre of enslavement memoirs. By the end of the Civil War, over 100 works in this genre had been published, including famed orator Frederick Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), Solomon Northrup’s Twelve Years a Slave (1853), and Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). By exposing the cruelty and violence of slavery, these works challenged the public narrative of the American slavery system and helped fuel the abolition movement. The genre continued to grow and diversify after the Civil War, with memoirs published during Reconstruction and beyond.
Based on the text, we can infer that the public narrative of the American slavery system prior to the Civil War was ________.
A
falsely positive
B
falsely negative
C
realistic
D
neutral
Answers
GPT-4o mini
Based on the text, we can infer that the public narrative of the American slavery system prior to the Civil War was **A: falsely positive**. The memoirs published in that era, including Venture Smith's, exposed the cruelty and violence of slavery, suggesting that the prevailing narratives at the time were downplaying or ignoring the harsh realities of the system.