Kate Drumgoold (born c. 1858 or 1859 – ?) was an American woman born into
slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
around 1858 near
Petersburg, Virginia
Petersburg is an independent city (United States), independent city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the population was 33,458. The Bureau of Econ ...
. Her life is captured in her 1898 autobiography, ''A Slave Girl's Story, Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold.'' It offers a message of
racial uplift Racial uplift is a term within the African American community that motivates educated blacks to be responsible in the lifting of their race. This concept traced back to the late 1800s, introduced by black elites, such as W. E. B. Du Bois, Booker T ...
, faith, and education. "It is a rare portrait of a former slave who moved between the highly urbanized environment of
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and the rural South."
References
Further reading
*Andrews, William L., ed. ''Six Women's Slave Narratives'' (1988).
*DePriest, Tomika. "Drumgoold, Kate", ''Black Women in America: An Historical Encyclopedia'', ed.
Darlene Clark Hine
Darlene Clark Hine (born February 7, 1947) is an American author and professor in the field of African-American history. She is a recipient of the 2014 National Humanities Medal.
Early life and education
Darlene Clark was born in Morley, Missouri ...
. Brooklyn, New York: Carlson Publishing, 1993, 356–357.
*Drumgoold, Kate.
A Slave Girl's Story. Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold'' Brooklyn: The Author, 1898.
*Fleischner, Jennifer. ''Mastering Slavery: Memory, Family, and Identity in Women's Slave Narratives'', New York: New York University Press, 1996
*Gwin, Minrose C. "Drumgoold, Kate," ''The Oxford Companion to African American Literature'', New York: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 237.
*Jones, Sharon L. "Mastering Slavery: Memory, Family and Identity in Women’s Slave Narratives". ''
MELUS'' (2000): 307 in Context.
*Malburne, Meredith
"Summary of A Slave Girl's Story. Being an Autobiography of Kate Drumgoold" ''Documenting the American South''. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Drumgoold, Kate
1850s births
19th-century American slaves
Year of death missing
People who wrote slave narratives
People from Dinwiddie County, Virginia
19th-century American women writers
19th-century African-American writers
19th-century African-American women writers