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30 2 Revising Rhetorical Education Lydia Maria Child and The Freedmen’s Book —Scourge them as they have scourged us. —I’ve heard many preachers white and black; an’ they all tell me Jesus said, “Do good to them who do evil to you.” —Why should I go in coarse rags, to clothe my master in broadcloth and fine linen, when he knows and I know, that we are sons of the same father? —May be de British lan’ and may be de British no lan’. But I tell ye, boys, de white man can’t keep his foot on de black man ’ef de black man git de knowledge. —Lydia Maria Child, The Freedmen’s Book, 1865 In Lydia Maria Child’s short story “The Meeting in the Swamp,” four slaves speak to a group of their peers concerning what to do about their masters if they decide to escape to nearby British ships. As displayed above, each character offers a different procedural argument to his audience, advocating outright violence, religious forgiveness, overt resistance, or educational freedom. After these men assert their points—a debate that runs for four pages of the six-page short story—there follows one short paragraph that reveals the group’s decision: “There was a good deal of speaking afterward, and some of it was violent. A large majority were in favor of being merciful to the masters; but all, without exception, agreed to join the British if they landed” (Freedmen’s Book 109). This short story is one of many contributions included in Child’s 1865 educational tract for newly freed slaves entitled The Freedmen’s Book. The lengthy discussion that makes up most of “The Meeting” is emblematic of both Child’s text and her teaching strategy. Although the conclusion of the story tells readers that most “were in favor of mercy,” Child dedicates the majority of “The Meeting” to the four major characters and their debate over how they should treat their masters. The entire text of The Freedmen’s Book Revising Rhetorical Education 31 offers a similar kind of conversation. On a structural level, Child composed the text using an amalgam of genres and writers. A collection of biography, autobiography, prayer, fiction, and nonfiction, it includes the work of Child, Frederick Douglass, Frances Harper, Harriet Jacobs, James Montgomery, and Henry Wilson, among others. On a thematic and rhetorical level, Child offers her readers a debate much like that in “The Meeting.” The various writers and genres that make up The Freedmen’s Book involve readers in a complex and multivocal conversation concerning the social, political, and intellectual place of freed men and women in their post–Civil War world. Such a structure disallows Child’s text to promote a consistent message. Some voices in the text replicate the argument of one debater from “The Meeting” by proposing conservative religious forgiveness—a position seen in most popular literacy tracts of the day. Pages later, though, other voices interrupt this viewpoint and question white demands on the black community , challenging educational discourses in particular and social and political discourses more generally. It is through this process of exposing her readers to a range of conservative and radical positions that Child constructs a two-pronged rhetorical education that prepares her readers for an active and engaged public life. First, when she introduces her readers to such varying and often divergent viewpoints, she includes them in an impassioned discussion over the definitions of and ideas about black participation in American society. In bringing her readers into these debates, she creates a rhetorical education that prompts them to reflect on these discussions and to decide for themselves what the terms of their participation should be. Second, as Child exposes her readers to these ideas about participation, she presents them with an expansive variety of rhetorical strategies that enables them to engage in their communities in new ways. Instead of offering her readers a limited set of rhetorical options, as dominant pedagogical texts tended to do, Child makes available to her readers revolutionary rhetorical tactics that prompt them to contribute to and shape civic and communal conversations. Through the rhetorical education she advances in The Freedmen’s Book, Child not only makes a significant departure from the more popular pedagogical practices for newly freed men and women but also expresses her hesitations with her role as a freedmen’s teacher. Dominant educational institutions such as the American Missionary Association (AMA) and the...

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