The Indiana slave narratives provide a glimpse of slavery as remembered by those who experienced it, preserving insiders' views of a tragic chapter in American history. Though they were living in Indiana at the time of the interviews, these African Americans had been enslaved in 11 different states from the Carolinas to Louisiana. The interviews deal with life and work on the plantation; the treatment of slaves; escaping from slavery; education, religion, and slave folklore; and recollections of the Civil War. Just as important, the interviews reveal how former slaves fared in Indiana after the Civil War and during the Depression. Some became ministers, a few became educators, and one became a physician; but many lived in poverty and survived on Christian faith and small government pensions.