America’s history is, without a doubt, tainted. Chances were, if you weren’t a white man on the wealthy side, you were susceptible to judgement, hatred, cruelty, and other goodies. And as much as America would like to burn its bridges with its awful past, the fact and the matter is that America was shaped – and continues to be shaped – by this history. It affects the way we treat different groups of people to this day.
There are ways to combat the continued injustices in America, and one way is by lifting up and empowering the voices of those who have historically been silenced. With everything going on in the country right now – sexual assault allegations and heavy racial tension, for a start – I think it’s a good time to start contributing to that empowerment.
There’s no better place to start than from the beginning, right?
Hannah Bond – more commonly known by her pen name, Hannah Crafts – was responsible for quite a few “firsts” in American history, and she was a pioneer in the field of literature. Oh, you haven’t heard of her? Yeah, that’s probably because she was a black woman in the mid-1800s. Any guesses to what a black woman would be doing in America at that time?
That’s right – she was a slave! Bond was the actually first well-documented female fugitive slave. Not only that, but the reason she was so well-documented was that she herself had documented her experiences. Bond’s psuedo-autobiographical manuscript eventually became a novel titled The Bondwoman’s Narrative. However, this wasn’t until 2002, after a literary historian, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., bought the newly discovered manuscript at an auction.
As if waiting nearly 200 years for recognition wasn’t enough, it took historians even longer to identify the author of the manuscript. So, even though it took a while to figure out, Bond was officially the first African-American female author, and the first (and only) female fugitive slave author. The Bondwoman’s Narrative is also the only completely original slave narrative, free of any white editors throwing in their two cents.
And if being a black female author in the 1850s isn’t amazing enough to you, it’s important to remember that it was illegal for slaves to learn how to read and write, yet Bond was able to pen an entire novel. She, against all odds, created a work comparable in style to Dickens and Charlotte Brontë.
Which is all very impressive. But did I mention that she was a runaway slave who documented her own story? I mean, being a pioneer for both black female writers and the slave narrative genre is amazing, but it’s time to get to the best part – the autobiography.
In her novel, Bond created a characterized version of herself and named her Hannah
Crafts. From the account, the audience learns that Hannah was born into slavery and was separated from her parents.
Hannah had a strange fascination with receiving an education. Recognizing this, Hannah’s neighbors – a friendly, older, white couple – secretly taught her how to read and write. As mentioned above, educating a slave was against the law, so when people found out this couple had done so, they were thrown in jail.
But it was too late. Hannah couldn’t unlearn what she had been taught, and her intelligence only grew with time. A combination of this and her lighter complexion allowed her to climb the ranks (as much as that’s even possible) within the world of servitude and become a house servant.
Hannah eventually ended up being sold to a new mistress, who treated her like a close friend. This is because the mistress was secretly biracial and was passing for white with her new husband, the slave master. Afraid of what would happen to the woman when her husband discovered her secret, Hannah helped her escape the plantation.
Though they survived some horrifying things while on the run (like staying in a creepy shack in the middle of a forest that still bore the bloodstains of the recent murder that had occurred there) and were eventually caught, Hannah remained strong. She was sold to another family, and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. She witnessed her new mistress inadvertently don blackface, and so, afraid that Hannah would blab, the mistress “demoted” her.
Hannah was forced to become a field laborer, and even worse, her mistress planned for her to marry and bear children with a fellow slave named Bill. Quite the demotion. Understandably, arranged marriage and rape weren’t very appealing to her, so Hannah fled once again – only this time, she disguised herself as a man.
As is the way of the world, her light-skinned, male persona got considerably less unwanted attention than her female self. Using a clever disguise and her cunning survival skills, Hannah ended up escaping to the North, reuniting with her mother, marrying a Methodist minister (on her own terms), and settling down in New Jersey.
So, yeah, pretty damn impressive.
Of course, no one can be entirely sure which parts of Bond’s narrative are true and which are fictional. However, some “characters” in the novel were in fact real people and Crafts’ story matches up closely with that we know of Bond’s.
No matter what, it’s safe to say Bond was a badass fugitive of the law and an inspirational, resilient black woman. It’s about damn time we tell her story.
Herstory Untold 
Leave a comment