Black American writing, early 1800s

Disclaimer: This is a work in progress, my own place for making such a list. Suggestions are welcomed.

During this period, from 1800 to 1849, the vast majority of Black people in the US were slaves. Literacy rates were low: in many states it was against the law to teach a slave to read and write. Which makes this period a blind spot – and makes whatever writings we do have all the more precious.

Here is some of what was written during this period:

• Slave narratives: These were huge, especially from 1830 to 1860. Many were ghost-written by White abolitionists, but some were “Written By Himself”, like those by Frederick Douglass, Henry Bibb, and William Wells Brown. These narratives in turn drove the abolitionist movement and informed Harriet Beecher Stowe’s tear-jerker, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” (1852), a Christian pacifist work that helped put the nation on the road to war. Here are a few of the slave narratives from this period:
  • 1825: William Grimes
  • 1836: Charles Ball
  • 1837: Moses Roper
  • 1842: Lunsford Lane
  • 1845: Frederick Douglass
  • 1847: William Wells Brown
  • 1849: James W.C. Pennington
  • 1849: Henry “Box” Brown
  • 1849: Josiah Henson
  • 1849-50: Henry Bibb
  • Those of Sojourner Truth (1850), Solomon Northup (1853), and Harriet Jacobs (1861) came out later but talk about this period.
• Other published works:
  • 1791-1802: Benjamin Banneker – Almanack
  • 1829: George Moses Horton – The Hope of Liberty (book of poems, written by a slave)
  • 1829: David Walker – Appeal
  • 1831: Nat Turner – Confessions (just before he was hanged)
  • 1835: Maria W. Stewart – Productions (speeches and lectures)
  • 1836: Jarena Lee – The Life and Religious Experience of Jarena Lee (based on her journals, updated in 1849)
  • 1837: Victor Sejour – The Mulatto (written in French)
  • 1837: Hosea Easton – A Treatise On the Intellectual Character, and Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the U. States; And the Prejudice Exercised Towards Them; With A Sermon on the Duty of the Church To Them
  • 1841: James W.C. Pennington – The Origin and History of the Colored People (considered the first history of Black America)
  • 1841: Frederick Douglass – The Church and Prejudice (speech)
  • 1843: Henry Highland Garnet – An Address to the Slaves of the United States (speech, online)
  • 1845: Frances E. Harper – Forest Leaves (poetry, rediscovered in the 2010s)
• Newspapers: Some were abolitionist, some pushed respectability politics on the Black working class. A big issue was whether Blacks should be sent “back” to Africa.
  • 1827-29: Freedom’s Journal (New York City)
  • 1829-30: The Rights of All (New York City)
    
  • 1837-42: The Colored American (New York City) – online!
  • 1847-51: The North Star (Rochester, upstate New York) – Frederick Douglass’s newspaper. It is online!
  • The Weekly Anglo-African, also based in New York City, did not start till 1859.
• Diaries: These must exist, right? But so far as I know none for this period have been published. Benjamin Banneker’s journals go up to at least 1800 (he died in 1806). Those of Charlotte Forten and Amos Webber do not start till 1854. Webber’s “Thermometer Books” were not discovered till 1985, so I hold out hope.

Influences:

• 1611: The King James Bible
• 1619-1807: West African folklore, especially the trickster motif, which appears in slave narratives
• 1776: Thomas Jefferson – Declaration of Independence
• 1829: The Black counter-frame

– Abagond, 2021.

See also:

• Frederick Douglass’s library
• September 12th 1855 – from Charlotte Forten’s diary
• American abolitionists
• American slavery
• Back to Africa
• respectability politics
• set in this period:
  • The Feast of All Saints
  • 12 Years a Slave
  • Kindred
• coloured
• Phillis Wheatley

537