The value of this narrative by emancipated slave, Peter Randolph, is his approach to factually listing the day-to-day life he experienced and saw while under the “peculiar institution” of slavery in the United States.

In a fascinating, touching, and yet almost clinical way, he describes slave auctions, religious practices, concubinage, and other details of slave life. In his most emotional passage, he describes the utter despair of the cruelest and most degrading practice of slavery, the separation of families.

“…were your wife, the partner of your bosom, the mother of your babes, thus ruthlessly snatched from you, were your
beloved children stolen before your eyes, would you not think it sufficient cause for a nation’s wail?”