Slave narratives are the personal accounts by black slaves as well as exslaves about their experiences of slavery and the struggles to obtain freedom. The slave narratives offer chronological incidents into an individual's experiences and they provide the audience with an understanding into the writer's mind and the structure of the slave society. Exslaves, like Frederick Douglass, wrote narratives to try to persuade his readers about the injustices and immorals of slavery and also attempted to eventually abolish the institution of slavery. Other slaves wrote narratives to earn money to buy relatives out of slavery, to support themselves in their old age, and to financially support the causes of abolition. Jacob Stroyer wasn't any different. He wrote his book, My Life in the South, to show the harsh realities of slavery and to document his life on a large slave plantation in South Carolina.

Jacob Stroyer was one of fifteen children born on a plantation in 1849. Although the Emancipation Proclamation freed Stroyer in 1864, he spent 15 horrible years in bondage. In Stroyer's book, he describes the cruel conditions he endured on a daily basis from whipping,

Stroyer and his family continued to endure severe whippings, and Stroyer was to see his family separated at his first slave trade. Stroyer describes the excitement of some of the slaves who hoped to leave their cruel slave masters for someone better. Others were crying and weeping for they knew they probably would never see their families and friends ever again. "As the cars moved away we heard the weeping and wailing from the slaves as far as human voice could be heard; and from that time to the present I have neither seen nor heard from my two sisters, nor any of those who left Clarkson on that memorable day" (Stroyer 84).

Some common words found in the essay are:
Benjamin Stroyer's, Emancipation Proclamation, Frederick Douglass, War Stroyer, Stroyer Slave, South Jacob, God Stroyer, Civil War, Jacob Stroyer, Minister Unlike, stroyer describes, civil war, jacob stroyer, stroyer family, life south, war stroyer, civil war stroyer, mother father, slave narratives, slave narrative, stroyer continued, book life south,
Approximate Word count = 1207
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)