This study examines the relationship between collective memory and slavery as a cultural trauma in female-authored African American life narratives in the earlier decades of the development of this tradition in African American literature. The literary corpus focuses on Harriet Jacobs’ slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and Susie King Taylor’s Civil War account, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. (1902). Both texts reveal African American women’s underground memories (POLLAK, 1989) of antebellum period and the period of the American Civil War that challenge the national memory and American history-writing.Este estudo examina a relação entre memória coletiva e escravidão como um trauma cultural em textos autobiográficos afro-americanos de autoria feminina no início do desenvolvimento dessa tradição na literatura afro-americana. O corpus literário enfoca, respectivamente, a narrativa de Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861), e o livro de memórias da Guerra Civil de Susie King Taylor, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops Late 1st S. C. (1902). Ambos textos trazem memórias subterrâneas (POLLAK, 1989) de mulheres afro-americanas do período antebellum e do período da Guerra Civil Americana que desafiam as memórias nacionais e a história americana.