Slaves’ captivity histories were retold to Egyptian elite children as soothing bedtime stories.

Evidence

Both African and Circassian slaves worked in the house. They were industrious, “completing their duties with sincerity,” and “respectful of their employers.” They loved the children of their employers, whom they brought up in their hands, “and we returned that love and that sincerity.” The governesses, maids, and wet nurses who took care of them had been with the family since well before the children’s birth and knew the history of all the household’s members. Interestingly, the children knew a great deal about the slaves too, but the pasts of the slaves became nursery tales, told to soothe the children: “Our nurses used to tell us stories about how they had been captured, and about what their own countries had been like and the customs of their people, until we grew exhausted and they would tuck us in our beds.” — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 852

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on household slavery and intimate servitude vs. plantation slavery constructions in African colonial contexts.
• FICTION: The image of enslaved nursemaids telling capture-stories as lullabies to the children who will inherit them is a potent narrative device.