Personally, I think we can trust the information in "To Be A Slave". My reasoning for this is mainly, though there may be some exaggeration on the recounts of the slaves, why would the slaves themselves make things up? They just wanted people to know about the grueling, difficult lives they lead. Another reason I think that these are valid stories, is that many of the stories are the same, or have similar notes in them. These are slaves spread out all over the US, from Louisiana to Virginia, and I don't think there was ever a big slave conference where they all decided to tell the same stories over and over again to get validity.
Also there is an extensive bibliography in the back of the book, and all the names of the slaves are quoted as well as the Library of Congress, which I think lends a certain level of trust to the book.
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