Describe the genre of Slave Narrative in his essentials on the basis of an example. What was the role of the genre for the abolitionist movement?
Anti-slavery literature was very important for the abolitionists` fight against slavery. The Slave Narratives took a special importance because of the fact that slaves reported from the personal perspective. They described autobiographically how the life in captivity looked like. Consequently, they disputed the description of slave keeper, which were played down and romanticized. Frederick Douglass, one of the former slaves, wrote his story on his own, whereas some who couldn´t write and read (who were illiterate), dictated their stories to abolitionists. Those wrote and published these stories. Moreover, the Slave Narratives always were authenticated in preface and epilogues from whiteness. In the following part, I will quote many a time from the autobiography of the mentioned Frederick Douglass‘ “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass“ “Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin.” and sexual misuse of women and children, of none tolerable workloads and working conditions. “I suffered much from hunger, but much more from cold. In hottest summer and coldest winter, I was kept almost naked—no shoes, no stockings, no jacket, no trousers, nothing on but a coarse tow linen shirt, reaching only to my knees. I had no bed. I must have perished with cold, but that, the coldest nights, I used to steal a bag which was used for carrying corn to the mill. I would crawl into this bag, and there sleep on the cold, damp, clay floor, with my head in and feet out.”
The sanctimony and unsettledness of whiteness owner and their inhuman treatments towards slaves were also described. “He [the over-seer] was one of those who could torture the slightest look, word, or gesture, on the part of the slave, into impudence, and would treat it accordingly. There must be no answering back to him; no explanation was allowed a slave, showing himself to have been wrongfully accused. Mr. Gore acted fully up to the maxim laid down by slaveholders,—"It is better that a dozen slaves should suffer under the lash, than that the overseer should be convicted, in the presence of the slaves, of having been at fault." No matter how innocent a slave might be—it availed him nothing, when accused by Mr. Gore of any misdemeanor. To be accused was to be convicted, and to be convicted was to be punished; the one always following the other with immutable certainty.”
They narrated how families, e.g. children from his parents, were separated, and listed its consequences. “My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant—before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child's affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.“
The narrator, or rather the writer, describe situations in those their hopes were first increased by the slave keepers so that they destroyed them afterwards. Hopes like a better life in the near future or the wish to learn reading and writing. “Very soon after I went to live with Mr. and Mrs. Auld, she very kindly commenced to teach me the A, B, C. After I had learned this, she assisted me in learning to spell words of three or four letters. Just at this point of my progress, Mr. Auld found out what was going on, and at once forbade Mrs. Auld to instruct me further, telling her, among other things, that it was unlawful, as well as unsafe, to teach a slave to read. To use his own words, further, he said, "If you give a nigger an inch, he will take an ell. A nigger should know nothing but to obey his master—to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best nigger in the world. Now," said he, "if you teach that nigger (speaking of myself) how to read, there would be no keeping him. It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master. As to himself, it could do him no good, but a great deal of harm. It would make him discontented and unhappy."“
They told excited stories about escape, heroism, betrayal and tragedy, which fascinate the readers. Thereby, the narrators didn´t mention their black otherness, they emphasized the human equality of all instead. In the Slave Narratives, the autobiographies illustrate their destiny of the slavery and the escape in a better life frequently with help and comparisons of biblical narrations about escape of egyptian captivity in the promised land.
The Slave Narratives were an essential "Voice of Reality" for the abolitionist movement, which took place from 1830 till 1870, and demanded immediate release and the end of segregation and discrimination. They gave an imagination to the unions and the rest of the world about the life of slaves, which they didn´t have before. Even though historians still argue about the extent of the influence of this movement to the US-policy, they had an huge influence to the culture and society of the unions (north states?).
The demands of the abolitionist for racial equality in society, which were underlined/emphazised of numerous Slave Narratives, inspired including the foundation of NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) in 1909.
2)
What significance were attributed to the american frontier? Which frontiers were there? Name two authors/writers and works, that arrange literary the frontier-life.
The frontier, Grenze in German, is a slogan/keyword in the american history which is used for the settlement boundaries to the west between the Wildims, which are dominated by the indians and hunters, and the following civilization, a trained society. As formula for the american pioneering spirit the myth is transferred to many types of the restart and emergence, from the frontier till today.

In 1893, Frederick Jackson Turner (1861-1932) gave a speech in front of the American Historical Association about the topic “The Significance of the Frontier in American History“. In that respect he claims that the frontier serves the American democracy as a kind of "fountain of youth", as "source of replacement of traditional values and location of constantly probation for an individuals". At this settlement boundary as meeting point of nature and civilisation, according to Turner, the individual is transformed and receives new possibilities for self-realisation. Moreover, the whole nation receive thereby its unmistakable american character".
In the year of the first expantion there were numerous different frontiers. The farming frontier, mining frontier and cattle frontier for mentioning some. Also expeditions as the known Lewis and Clark – Expedition from 1804 till 1806, an exploration tour and discovery journey from St. Louis, in the ultimate north west till pacific, the first crossing of the middle continent. These researchers were considered as pioneers in forwarding of the frontiers.
The frontier myths were described literary from numerous authors/writers. The well-known for that time are James Fenimore Cooper‘s (1789-1851) “Lederstrumpfromane“, or also Herman Melville’s (1819-1891) “Typee“ from 1846.