1 Prof.dr.

Rodica Mihaila American Civilization Curs 6 /outline 2010-2011

The Issue of Slavery 1. History of Slavery> before 1860 slavery was the most dramatic issue facing Am - in August 1619 > 20 blacks brought to Jamestown by the Dutch. - By mid 1700s slavery in all North Am colonies - Throughout the 18th century- slave trade boomed (Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas) 2. Attempts to justify slavery advocates of Am freedom lived within a system of slavery (Washington, Jefferson) Opinions: -slavery accepted as economic necessity -blacks were secure and happy as slaves -blacks were not fully human beings pseudo-religious arguments: blacks were inferior and suited to be slaves. 3. Blacks raised to positions of influence in Am society - Benjamin Banneker (1731-1806)=a free man. Fame as astronomer, mathematician, author and inventor. Helped designed Washington DC - Paul Cuffe (1759-1817)- one of the 10 children of a former slave. Grew up poor in Mass. But by 1800 became a very wealthy man. Helped blacks>built public school. His solution: Back to Africa to set a new nation. After his death > Republic of Liberia. Between 1820-60> only 11000 blacks went there out of 4 million - Frederick Douglass (1817-1895) born a slave in Maryland; escaped at 21; went to New Bedford, Ma. Became a writer and speaker. He demanded full freedom: slavery was morally wrong. Rejected the Back to Africa solution 4. Forms of protest and rebellions of the Black -Nat Turner (1831) lead a small band of slaves in Virginia, who raised a violent reaction. Captured and hanged. 60 white men were killed and 200 blacks were murdered by white vigilantes. Styron Confessions of Nat Turner (1967, Pulitzer)based on a brief contemporary pamphlet presented to a trial court and published in Virginia in 1832. -John Browns rebellion of 1859 Attack at Harpers Ferry, West Vg., where Brown, an antislavery fanatic , with the help of a few abolitionist extremists seized the federal arsenal. Was hanged (predicted the bloodshed of the Civil War admired by Thoreau) -Escape to the North in 1780, starting with Penn. Several northern states abolished slavery. 1793 The congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law (to arrest and return the fugitives> it led to bounty /reward hunting) 1808 foreign slave trade was ended, but internal slave trade=multimillion $ business . In 1820=1.5 mill slaves>1860=4 mill. (1 slave produced on average $80 in cotton earnings per year) in the 1830s system of escape routes =underground railroad; hiding places=depots; guides to lead fugitives=conductors (ex. Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave. Helped 300 escape) 1

2 Consequence: 1850 a tougher Fugitive Slave Law: Severe penalties to be imposed on anupone assisting Negroes to escape from bondage. -Hariet Beecher Stowe: Uncle Toms Cabin. Life among the Lowly (1852)sold 300000copies in one year. Tom=a noble, high-minded Christian black. Flogged to death (good master: Shelby; bad master: Lagree) -Beloved (Pulitzer, 1987) Sethe escaped with 4 children in 1855(in 73 in Ohio after Sethes liberation). 5. Abolitionism and Emancipationism Abolitionism best represented by the radical group of William Lloyd Garrison. -abolitionism was not a general northern doctrine. -abol. and racism- were not mutually exclusive> Racism=the idea that the black race is inherently inferior (equally prevalent in the North and the South). Race prejudice of various kinds was endemic among the white abolitionists Van Woodward; Lincoln, the Great Emancipator, could never accept the idea of racial equality Emancipationism (Jefferson,Emerson,Melville,Lincoln=emancipationists) - abolitionism= a special form of emancipationism. For an abolitionist slavery was the immediate, paramount problem (theological reasons: slave-holding=the prime sin) - the emancipationist : treated slavery in a general context- soc, ec, pol, moral. Ex. Jefferson, Lincoln (took defence of the Union, not the freeing of the slaves in the Civil War) Frederick Douglass FREDERICK DOUGLASS (1817-1895) 1. His importance: a. Runaway slave - Proved by his example what the blacks once free could achieve. - the most famous black activist in the antislavery movement 184o-61(founded The North Star a black organ) b. attracted national attention as an orator (intellectual power, magnificent voice), journalist, autobiographer and later statesman c. today he is most important for his role in the dev. of black literature: 1845- Narrative of the Life of FD 1855- My Bondage and My Freedom 1881, 1941- The Life and Times of FD 2. The Tradition of Slave Narratives; 1837- Moses Roper; Harriet A.Jacobs: Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl written by Herself (1861, 1987) escaped in 1857 3. My Bondage and My Freedom Importance: a. the first slave narrative to make a general impact (its merits and its timing) b. a compelling human document c. introduced autobiography as a characteristic form for black writers from Booker T.Washington through WEB Du Bois to Richard Wright and James Baldwin (- the slave had only one story to tell: his own (but whereas all autobiographies deal with the identity of the author, black autobiographer has to establish that he has an authentic identity, that he exists at all) ; -the theme of black autobiography has been ironically double: to show that the black man is underground and invisible; to show that he can still be revealed as existing and visible Structure - like all slave narratives: a chronological, episodic structure 2

3 - the important events structuring his narrative: a. birth and early childhood on the Lloyd Plantation (no father); b. at 8 sent to Baltimore the Auld family; c. at 16 hired out to Edward Covey Negro Breaker; d. at 21 escaped to New Bedford, Mass. Literary Merits: - dispassionate accounts of even violent facts. -Purpose: Credibility - the inhuman character of slavery, not identity - Skill in appropriating the language and symbolism of Am. middle-class culture and religion to denounce the evils of slavery and racism -a kind of Jeremiad - denounces American society for its lapses and it affirms its original promise. He distinguishes bet. true and false Americans and christians; bet. those who would affirm the dream and those who would destroy it. A prophet who warns Am. society against perversity and error.