The rage of blacks in slavery-era America is not something we today must merely imagine: we can read their angry words in documents like these. David Walker, born to a free black woman, was by the 1820s a leading black intellectual and a proponent of black unity as a necessary precursor to throwing off the shackles of slavery. His Appeal, published in 1829, warned of a violent and bloody slave insurgency, and startled even abolitionists with its vehemence. He was rehabilitated by Henry Highland Garnet two decades later, when he-a runaway slave since childhood-republished it, in the single 1848 volume of which this is a replica, along with his own Address to the Slaves of the United States of America. Garnet's call for massive slave uprisings had been similarly rebuffed several years earlier, but worsening tensions between the North and the South, and between slave owners and abolitionists, created an atmosphere in which rising militancy was more welcome. In their passionate writings, the bitter wrath of Walker and Garnet echoes across the decades, reminders of the shameful past that continues to haunt America as a nation to this day.
Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America : Third and Last Edition, Revised and Published by David Walker, 1830
Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America : Third and Last Edition, Revised and Published by David Walker, 1830
In 1829 David Walker, a free black born in Wilmington, North Carolina, wrote one of America's most provocative political documents of the nineteenth century, Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Decrying the savage and unchristian treatment blacks suffered in the United States, Walker challenged his 'afflicted and slumbering brethern' to rise up and cast off their chains. Walker worked tirelessly to circulate his book via underground networks in the South, and he was so successful that Southern lawmakers responded with new laws cracking down on 'incendiary' anti-slavery material.
David Walker's Appeal is a landmark work of American history and letters, the most radical piece of writing by an African American in the nineteenth century. Startling in its intensity, unrelenting in its attacks on slavery and white racism, it alarmed Southern slaveholders, inspired Northern abolitionists, and hastened the sectional conflicts that led to the Civil War. In this new edition of the Appeal, the distinguished historian Sean Wilentz draws on a generation of innovative research to throw fresh light on Walker's life and ideas--and their enduring importance.
Such is the very high esteem which is entertained for the memory of DAVID WALKER, and so general is the desire to preserve his Appeal," that the subscriber has undertaken, and performed the task of re-publication, with a brief notice of his life, having procuredpermission from his widow, Mrs. Dewson. The work is valuable, because it was among the first, and was actually the boldest and most direct appeal in behalf of freedom, which was made in the early part of the Anti-Slavery Reformation. When the history of the emancipation of the bondmen of America shall be written, whatever name shall be placed first on the list of heroes, that of the author of the Appeal will not be second...
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The rage of blacks in slavery-era America is not something we today must merely imagine: we can read their angry words in documents like these. David Walker, born to a free black woman, was by the 1820s a leading black intellectual and a proponent of black unity as a necessary precursor to throwing off the shackles of slavery. His Appeal, published in 1829, warned of a violent and bloody slave insurgency, and startled even abolitionists with its vehemence. He was rehabilitated by Henry Highland Garnet two decades later, when he-a runaway slave since childhood-republished it, in the single 1848 volume of which this is a replica, along with his own Address to the Slaves of the United States of America. Garnet's call for massive slave uprisings had been similarly rebuffed several years earlier, but worsening tensions between the North and the South, and between slave owners and abolitionists, created an atmosphere in which rising militancy was more welcome. In their passionate writings, the bitter wrath of Walker and Garnet echoes across the decades, reminders of the shameful past that continues to haunt America as a nation to this day.
In this sensitive intellectual biography David W. Blight undertakes the first systematic analysis of the impact of the Civil War on Frederick Douglass' life and thought, offering new insights into the meaning of the war in American history and in the Afro-American experience. Frederick Douglass' Civil War follows Douglass' intellectual and personal growth from the political crises of the 1850s through secession, war, black enlistment, emancipation, and Reconstruction. This book provides an engrossing story of Douglass' development of a social identity in relation to transforming events, and demonstrates that he saw the Civil War as the Second American Revolution, and himself as one of the founders of a new nation. Through Douglass' life, his voice, and his interpretations we see the Civil War era and its memory in a new light.
Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America : Third and Last Edition, Revised and Published by David Walker, 1830
Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, But in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America : Third and Last Edition, Revised and Published by David Walker, 1830
In 1829 David Walker, a free black born in Wilmington, North Carolina, wrote one of America's most provocative political documents of the nineteenth century, Walker's Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World. Decrying the savage and unchristian treatment blacks suffered in the United States, Walker challenged his 'afflicted and slumbering brethern' to rise up and cast off their chains. Walker worked tirelessly to circulate his book via underground networks in the South, and he was so successful that Southern lawmakers responded with new laws cracking down on 'incendiary' anti-slavery material.
David Walker's Appeal is a landmark work of American history and letters, the most radical piece of writing by an African American in the nineteenth century. Startling in its intensity, unrelenting in its attacks on slavery and white racism, it alarmed Southern slaveholders, inspired Northern abolitionists, and hastened the sectional conflicts that led to the Civil War. In this new edition of the Appeal, the distinguished historian Sean Wilentz draws on a generation of innovative research to throw fresh light on Walker's life and ideas--and their enduring importance.
In Black Prophets of Justice, David E. Swift examines the interlocking careers and influence of six black clergymen, two of them fugitive slaves, who lived in the antebellum North and protested the racism of the time. Samuel Cornish, Theodore Wright, Charles Ray, Henry Highland Garnet, Amos Beman, and James Pennington had much in common: all were noted for their education and eloquence, all were ministers of the earliest black Presbyterian and Congregational churches, and all were activists toward social change.Preachers as well as activists, these men fought, Swift argues, for the melding of religious life and social protest that informed their own lives. As leaders of the black congregations in the primarily white Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, they bore witness to the power of God and the essential oneness and worth of all human beings. As activists, they embraced a wide variety of issues -- including abolitionism, education, fugitive classes, and the civil and political rights -- that greatly affected the lives of Afro-Americans. As editors of the first black newspapers, they unmasked the racism implicit in the movement to colonize freed slaves outside of the United States and in the segregation of black worshipers in white churches. They organized vigilance committees to help escaped slaves, and they held conventions of free blacks in New York and Connecticut that aimed to win rights for blacks through legislation. By teaching Afro-Americans about the glories of their African past and the achievements of more recent individuals of African descent, these leaders grappled with the pernicious heritage of blacks' self-doubt caused by generations of enslavement and white insistence on black inferiority.While they opened the eyes of some influential whites, these activists effected little change in the attitudes and practices of white Americans in their own time. But their contribution to the advancement of the black cause, argues Swift, was substantial. They fed black aspiration, sharpened black discontent, and harnessed both to the creation of new black institutions. Indeed, they laid the foundation for such twentieth-century movements as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.Black Prophets of Justice is a biography of six widely respected clergymen as well as an important discussion of Afro-American activism in the North before the Civil War. Well-researched and well-written, it will be of interest to American church historians, and to all those concerned with Afro-American history or with the social impact of religion in America.
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award 2014 With this volume, Davis presents the age of emancipation as a model for reform and as probably the greatest landmark of willed moral progress in human history. Bringing to a close his staggeringly ambitious, prizewinning trilogy on slavery in Western culture Davis offers original and penetrating insights into what slavery and emancipation meant to Americans. He explores how the Haitian Revolution respectively terrified and inspired white and black Americans, hovering over the antislavery debates like a bloodstained ghost. He offers a surprising analysis of the complex and misunderstood significance the project to move freed slaves back to Africa. He vividly portrays the dehumanizing impact of slavery, as well as the generally unrecognized importance of freed slaves to abolition. Most of all, Davis presents the age of emancipation as a model for reform and as probably the greatest landmark of willed moral progress in human history.
No one can doubt that the Bible has exerted a tremendous influence on Western civilization since the dawn of Christianity. But few of us have considered the precise nature of that influence in particular historical contexts. In this book, David Kling traces the fascinating story of how specific biblical texts have at different times emerged to be the inspiration of movements that have changed the course of history. By examining eight such pivotal texts, Kling elucidates the ways in which sacred texts continue to shape our lives as well as our history. Among the passages he discusses are: * "Upon this rock I will build my church" (Matthew 16:18), which inspired the formation of the papacy and has served as its foundation for centuries * "The righteous will live by faith" (Romans 1:17), which caught the imagination of Martin Luther and sparked the Protestant Reformation * "Go to Pharaoh and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord: Let my people go, so that they may worship me'" (Exodus 8:1), which has played an important and diverse role in African American history from early slave spirituals through the modern civil rights movement and beyond * "There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Galatians 3:28), which has been adopted by feminists as a rallying cry in the battle for women's ordination Each of the historical episodes he explores--from the beginning of Christian monasticism to the emergence of Pentecostalism--is evidence of the dynamic interplay between Scripture and the social and cultural context in which it is interpreted. Kling's innovative study of this process shows how sacred texts can give life to social movements, and how powerful social forces can give new meaning to Scripture.
First published in 1979, this volume offers students and teachers a unique view of American history prior to the Civil War. Distinguished historian David Brion Davis has chosen a diverse array of primary sources that show the actual concerns, hopes, fears, and understandings of ordinary antebellum Americans. He places these sources within a clear interpretive narrative that brings the documents to life and highlights themes that social and cultural historians have brought to our attention in recent years. Beginning with the family and the issue of socialization and influence, the units move on to struggles over access to wealth and power; the plight of &"outsiders&" in an &"open&" society; and ideals of progress, perfection, and mission. The reader of this volume hears a great diversity of voices but also grasps the unities that survived even the Civil War.
In the early morning of April 12, 1861, Captain George S. James ordered the bombardment of Fort Sumter, beginning a war that would last four years and claim many lives. This book brings together a collection of voices to help explain the commencement of Am.
An authoritative new examination of John Brown and his deep impact on American history.Bancroft Prize-winning cultural historian David S. Reynolds presents an informative and richly considered new exploration of the paradox of a man steeped in the Bible but more than willing to kill for his abolitionist cause. Reynolds locates Brown within the currents of nineteenth-century life and compares him to modern terrorists, civil-rights activists, and freedom fighters. Ultimately, he finds neither a wild-eyed fanatic nor a Christ-like martyr, but a passionate opponent of racism so dedicated to eradicating slavery that he realized only blood could scour it from the country he loved. By stiffening the backbone of Northerners and showing Southerners there were those who would fight for their cause, he hastened the coming of the Civil War. This is a vivid and startling story of a man and an age on the verge of calamity.
In 1848, Henry David Thoreau twice delivered lectures in Concord, Massachusetts, on “the relationship of the individual to the state.” The essay now known as Civil Disobedience is a significant and widely admired contribution to abolitionist literature, as well as an anti-war tract, but Thoreau’s focus is less on political organization and solidarity than it is on personal choice and individual responsibility. Cultivating personal integrity in the face of political injustice is the project Thoreau defends in Civil Disobedience; this focus has made the work highly influential for twentieth- and twenty-first-century political movements. Bob Pepperman Taylor’s new Introduction explains the work’s specific political context, helping readers to understand the text as Thoreau wrote it. The edition also offers a number of historical documents on Thoreau’s abolitionism; the war with Mexico; and Thoreau’s philosophical development in relation to other thinkers.
Contesting Slave Masculinity in the American South demonstrates the significance of internal divisions, comparison, and conflict in shaping gender and status in slave communities of the American South. David Stefan Doddington seeks to move beyond unilateral discussions of slave masculinity, and instead demonstrates how the repressions of slavery were both personal and political. Rather than automatically support one another against an emasculatory white society, Doddington explores how enslaved people negotiated identities in relation to one another, through comparisons between men and different forms of manhood held up for judgment. An examination of the framework in which enslaved people crafted identities demonstrates the fluidity of gender as a social and cultural phenomenon that defied monolithic models of black masculinity, solidarity, and victimization. Focusing on work, authority, honor, sex, leisure, and violence, this book is a full-length treatment of the idea of 'masculinity' among slave communities of the Old South.
This book examines the many ways in which African Americans made the Civil War about ending slavery. Abraham Lincoln's primary goal was to save the Union rather than to absolve the institution of slavery, yet slaves who escaped to Union lines refused to fight for the Union while remaining enslaved, ultimately forcing Lincoln to disband the institution.
Examines the life of a former slave who became a radical abolitionist and Union spy, recruiting black soldiers for the North, fighting racism within the Union Army and much more.
In Glorying in Tribulation, Stetson presents a new dimension of Sojourner Truth's character. Much of the information regarding this oft-quoted African American woman is either the stuff of legend or is in dispute. This important new biography takes both legend and fact and sets them into a larger historical context. The authors utilize archival sources, and other forms of direct and indirect evidence to create a better understanding of Truth. We see her victories as well as her defeats--we see her as a real person. Truth comes alive in the pages of this book through her poignant, prophetic words and we realize that what she spoke of in the nineteenth century is just as relevant to us today. Glorying in Tribulation offers students, scholars, and teachers of American history and culture studies a comprehensive look and a new perspective on Truth's contribution to American history. It is a long-overdue, exciting interpretation of the meaning of Sojourner Truth's life.
Cover -- Half Title -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Chapter 1: Gwine to Liberty -- Chapter 2: Crowded with Refugees -- Chapter 3: Driven into Exile -- Chapter 4: Confederacy of Refugees -- Chapter 5: In Good Hands, in a Safe Place -- Chapter 6: A Home for the Rest of the War -- Epilogue -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y
Many scholars believe that the existence of slavery stymied the development of the American state because slaveholding Southern politicians were so at odds with a federal government they feared would abolish their peculiar institution. David Ericson argues to the contrary, showing that over a seventy-year period slavery actually contributed significantly to the development of the American state, even as a "house divided." Drawing on deep archival research that tracks federal expenditures on slavery-related items, Ericson reveals how the policies, practices, and institutions of the early national government functioned to protect slavery and thereby contributed to its own development. Here are surprising descriptions of how the federal government increased its state capacities as it implemented slavery-friendly policies, such as creating more stable slave markets by removing Native Americans, deterring slave revolts, recovering fugitive slaves, enacting a ban on slave imports, and not enacting a ban on the interstate slave trade. It also bolstered its own law-enforcement power by reinforcing navy squadrons to interdict illegal slave trading, hiring deputy marshals to capture fugitive slaves and slave rescuers, and deploying soldiers to remove Native Americans and deter slave rescues and revolts. Going beyond Don Fehrenbacher's The Slaveholding Republic, Ericson shows how the presence of slavery indirectly influenced the development of the American state in highly significant ways. Enforcement of the 1808 slave-import ban involved the federal government in border control for the first time, and participation in founding a colony in Liberia established an early model of public-private partnerships. The presence of slavery also spurred the development of the U.S. Army through its many slavery-related deployments, particularly during the Second Seminole War, and the federal government's own slave rentals influenced its labor-management practices. Ericson's study unearths a long-neglected history, connecting slavery-influenced policy areas more explicitly to early American state development and more fully accounting for the money and manpower the federal government devoted to those areas. Rich in historical detail, it marks a significant contribution to our understanding of state development and the impact of slavery on early American politics.
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