The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865

Chapter 6: Literary Expression in the Age of Abolitionism, 1833–1849

211 6 Literary Expression in the Age of Abolitionism, 1833–1849  The decades of the 1830s and 1840s were among the most complex for free people of color in the United States since the era of the American Revolution, and in ways that had great impact on literary as well as other endeavors. The most important factor in helping to shape that impact was the continuing growth of the movement for immediate abolition, a movement that, if it remained small in size, was to gain in visibility throughout the era. Black men and women participated in the earliest and most influential of the abolitionist organizations. Important leaders who remained active through the history of the movement also emerged during this time, including such now familiar names as William Cooper Nell, Henry Highland Garnet, William Wells Brown, Martin R. Delany, and, best known of all, Frederick Douglass. They contributed financially to the movement and to its efforts to spread the antislavery message. They wrote for abolitionist publications—for the Liberator, the Emancipator, the Pennsylvania Freeman, the Liberty Bell, the National Anti-Slavery Standard. They also created important publications of their own. In 1837 the newspaper veteran Samuel Cornish, along with Philip Bell, founded the Weekly Advocate, renamed the Colored American a few weeks later. Subsequent efforts included the National Reformer, the Mirror of Liberty, the Mystery, the Northern Star and Freeman’s Advocate, and the Ram’s Horn. Toward the end of the decade the North Star was created by the man who had become the most visible black abolitionist, Frederick Douglass . Reaching broad audiences, these publications too were to play a major role in the abolitionist cause. Bruce REV.PAGE 06 (211-256) 9/26/01 7:23 AM Page 211 I An overview of the immediatist movement and of black participation in it indicates a number of things about the continued growth and development of an African American literary tradition. One is the continued collaboration of black and white abolitionists in the shaping of the African American voice. Certainly, toward the end of the 1840s powerful tensions developed around issues of independence and autonomy in that voice, with real anger expressed to some extent along lines of color. Still, it is important to note that such tensions developed late in the era and involved only a few abolitionists, black or white. For the most part, collaboration rather than division marked the work, especially the literary work, of black and white abolitionists. Tensions were understood and discussed in terms of a collaborative framework. At the same time, the nature of the collaborative effort itself underwent significant change during those two decades. As James Brewer Stewart has argued, the Liberator’s ideal of helping to end racial oppression through the cultivation of a community of respectability crossing lines of color was severely challenged by the mid-1830s. The literary and other evidence shows that this ideal was not entirely abandoned by either black or white abolitionists, and such outstanding figures as James McCune Smith, Charles Lenox Remond, and Charles Purvis did much to keep it alive. Nevertheless, it was to be supplemented by a number of strategies and motifs. The decade saw, for instance, a revival of interest in some of David Walker’s ideas. This was demonstrated most famously in 1843, when Henry Highland Garnet delivered what he called an “Address to the Slaves” to an antislavery gathering. The address called for slave insurrection, deliberately rejecting earlier approaches to the abolition of slavery. These very shifts helped to create tensions within the movement, sometimes but not always involving issues of color as well.1 Finally, the multiplicity of African American voices was to be augmented by a new group of African American participants in the abolitionist cause. If black participation in the movement was significant from the beginning, most of those present at the founding were the sort of free men and women of color who had helped in the creation of the Liberator . Beginning in the mid-1830s, a new group began to assert itself and to The Origins of African American Literature 212 Bruce REV.PAGE 06 (211-256) 9/26/01 7:23 AM Page 212 find an important role in the abolitionist cause. These were fugitive slaves, bringing firsthand reports of the institution to eager abolitionist audiences. Although anticipated by an autobiographical tradition antedating the American republic, these fugitives could assume a role in...