The archive can be maddening. Historians encounter interesting people there whose lives appear in mere snippets, spurring curiosity that can never be entirely satiated. Scholars of American slavery are particularly familiar with this phenomenon. The people who could give the best account of day-to-day life before emancipation were the people most directly affected by the institution: the enslaved. Yet the nature of slavery was such that these individuals were, with few exceptions, silenced.
Source : Rebellious History
