While I'm interested in what the extent of our knowledge is, to be clear, I'm more interested in how we know, and especially how those sources and their limitations colour our understanding, and place barriers on what we can really know.

While I expect some writings of people who were enslaved survives, I'd also expect it to come from the very small minority who were not only manumitted, but also had the education and lifestyle to see them have writings survive. Which while interesting, can the recollections of a major domo given an honorable retirement really tell us much about the life of a slave worked to death in the salt mines?

In short, what do we know, but more importantly, how do we know it? Can the subaltern speak here?