The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865

Chapter 7: African American Voices in the American Crisis, 1850–1861

257 7 African American Voices in the American Crisis, 1850–1861  Beginning in 1850 the developing political crisis in the United States over slavery had profound effects on African American writers and on the role of the African American voice in American life. Important continuities from the preceding decades still framed much that characterized African American literary forms. Thematic constants based on the experiences of slavery and oppression remained key elements in African American writing. Issues of authority and independence that had been taking shape within abolitionism for the preceding twenty years were further elaborated and debated as the movement matured and black participation increased. Nevertheless, the 1850s brought concerns of their own, from the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, to a revival of colonization activity among whites, to an increasing factionalism in the movement’s final years. All helped to shape, and in some ways to reshape, tendencies in literature and thought. Most significantly, the debate over slavery itself grew increasingly strong and increasingly vitriolic during the decade as American expansion, American party politics, and the very success of abolitionism produced a more assertive proslavery position, in the North as well as the South. This aggressive proslavery position also helped to define a war of words in which the African American voice played a prominent role, for both sides. Bruce REV.PAGE 07 (257-300) 9/26/01 7:27 AM Page 257 I At the center of this war and also at the center of continuity and change in regard to African American letters was the experiential evidence blacks could provide against slavery and prejudice. The evoked black voice, especially the evoked voice of the slave, continued to be a critical part of the antislavery effort. The unique authority that fugitives brought to the argument against slavery remained particularly crucial. Figures whose careers had begun during the preceding decades, including Frederick Douglass and William Wells Brown, were joined by more recent escapees to lend the weight of their experiences to images of slavery as a brutal, dehumanizing institution. The ongoing power of the fugitives’ testimonies was exerted in several arenas. They continued to take to the stump, supplementing argument with narrative to bring home the brutality of the slave system. Their efforts continued to receive special recognition. The fugitive Samuel Ringgold Ward, touring with Henry Bibb in 1850, reported a good turnout for a meeting in Lowell, Massachusetts. He also heard, however, “that more persons would have attended, had they known that the S. R. Ward, advertised to speak, was a black man. Supposing me to be nothing but a white man, they did not take pains to attend. Well.”1 Fugitives’ published narratives also continued to play a major role in the literary efforts of the abolition movement, both in the United States and abroad, especially in Britain. An American critic quoted approvingly by a British writer suggested in 1850 that the “fugitive slave literature is destined to be a powerful lever,” adding that “argument provokes argument , reason is met by sophistry; but narratives of slaves go right to the hearts of men.” The opinion was widely echoed. An editorialist for the Canada-based Voice of the Fugitive, perhaps its editor Henry Bibb, noted that “all the literary productions of the colored population of this country are purely original with themselves, which renders them more interesting to the unprejudiced reader; not so with the white population —their writings are mostly made up of speculations.” The narratives of life in slavery, this writer added, “have called the attention of the civilized world to its enormity” in ways nothing else could.2 Thus, the appeal of the narratives continued to be great, and as Bibb’s words indicate, the fugitives’ stories were seen by abolitionists to give The Origins of African American Literature 258 Bruce REV.PAGE 07 (257-300) 9/26/01 7:27 AM Page 258 people of African descent a special place in the world of American letters . Wendell Phillips made this point in 1853, when he approvingly cited Fredrika Bremer’s opinion that “the fate of the negro is the romance of our history.” A few years later, the abolitionist Thomas Wentworth Higginson , recounting the escape of William and Ellen Craft, wrote, “The romance of American history will, of course, be found by posterity in the lives of fugitive slaves.”3 Moreover, the narratives continued to sell well. Frederick Douglass...