Studying the History of Those Who Would Rather Forget: Oral History and the Experience of Slavery

Abstract

Research on oral history tends to be concerned with two very different types of sources. I would refer to them as oral traditions and oral data. Oral traditions are formally preserved, not always as narratives, but in some fixed form. They can, for example, be passed on as songs, as drum names, or as proverbs. They are part of the collective memory of the group and get passed on from generation to generation. They serve a legitimating function and must of necessity be analyzed in terms of who and what they legitimate. There is also a large body of data at any time which individuals hold in memory, data about individual experience, data that consist essentially of things that people have seen and experienced. It is not preserved in any formal way because it is not deliberately structured for legitimation or communication. Popular writers in western countries have tapped this rather rich treasure trove in recent years to write about the Depression, two World Wars, and the Spanish Civil War among other things. Oral tradition is limited in what it passes on, and once the transition from generation to generation is made, the amount of data is forever circumscribed.Oral data are largely concerned with people describing things they experienced. They are valid primarily during the lifetime of those being interrogated. They are absolutely essential for the reconstruction of the history of peoples without history, those low down in any social order who have little to legitimate.