This past fall I participated in Amazing Grace: How Writers Helped End Slavery, a masters level course offered by the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History. The course, led by Columbia Professor, and GLI President, James Basker, examined the role of abolitionist writers in the 19th century struggle to end that "peculiar institution." The final project was to compile our own abolitionist writing anthology that could be used in the classroom. I wanted to share the work I generated during this course as perhaps the primary sources I chose could prove useful in your own classrooms. In this blog "mini-series" (Amazing Grace) I will share with you my reflections, my anthology introductions, and the sources themselves. Most, if not all, of the sources I reference can be found in James Basker's book American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation. |
Putting primary sources into conversation:
James Forten’s Letters and the anonymous ballad, The African Slave
James Forten’s Letters and the anonymous ballad, The African Slave
Reflection:
In my 7th grade history class, students investigate the struggle of abolition as a process. From chattel slavery, to the North West Ordinance, the importation ban, the failed compromises, etc, until we arrive at the Reconstruction Era amendments (we pick up the civil rights struggle in the 8th grade). The two texts that best fit into this conversation and illustrate the constant push for abolition and the curious situation of free-blacks in America at the time, are James Forten’s Letters and the anonymous ballad, The African Slave.
The first person account of Itaniko’s capture, attempted escape/suicide, role in talking down a rebellion, and mancipation directly to the aversion to and surprise at the actions of these “Christian” men: “You boast of your Freedom … your mild Constitution.” Thus dispelling the philanthropic argument of Christianizing and improving the enslaved African’s lot in life. The eloquence and emotion of the ballad clearly captures well the sufferings of the Africans captured and transported into slavery.
The second piece, Forten’s Letters, is a curious continuation of the struggles of Africans in the Americas. Though the slave trade now abolished, Forten speaks of the injustices and inconsistencies in the application of the words of the Constitution. Harkening to the Constitution, Forten says “… declaring ‘all men’ free, they did not particularize white and black, because … [they weren’t supposed to] question whether we were men or not.” Forten here not only exposes the hypocrisies in the document, but illustrates that mere emancipation is not enough to elevate the enslaved peoples to the true status of citizen, or even man. Seeing Pennsylvania as one of the last bastions of liberty for free black men, he laments that the newly proposed bill would render them slaves again – in the stripping of their liberties, movements, and property.
These two documents interacting will help my students to see the slow progression towards achieving the ideals in the Constitution through emancipation. That once removed from the bonds of chattel slavery, the free African was no more free in some respects than his enslaved brethren. The long, unsteady march towards full equality would be, as with many things, two steps forward and one step back for many more years to come.
In my 7th grade history class, students investigate the struggle of abolition as a process. From chattel slavery, to the North West Ordinance, the importation ban, the failed compromises, etc, until we arrive at the Reconstruction Era amendments (we pick up the civil rights struggle in the 8th grade). The two texts that best fit into this conversation and illustrate the constant push for abolition and the curious situation of free-blacks in America at the time, are James Forten’s Letters and the anonymous ballad, The African Slave.
The first person account of Itaniko’s capture, attempted escape/suicide, role in talking down a rebellion, and mancipation directly to the aversion to and surprise at the actions of these “Christian” men: “You boast of your Freedom … your mild Constitution.” Thus dispelling the philanthropic argument of Christianizing and improving the enslaved African’s lot in life. The eloquence and emotion of the ballad clearly captures well the sufferings of the Africans captured and transported into slavery.
The second piece, Forten’s Letters, is a curious continuation of the struggles of Africans in the Americas. Though the slave trade now abolished, Forten speaks of the injustices and inconsistencies in the application of the words of the Constitution. Harkening to the Constitution, Forten says “… declaring ‘all men’ free, they did not particularize white and black, because … [they weren’t supposed to] question whether we were men or not.” Forten here not only exposes the hypocrisies in the document, but illustrates that mere emancipation is not enough to elevate the enslaved peoples to the true status of citizen, or even man. Seeing Pennsylvania as one of the last bastions of liberty for free black men, he laments that the newly proposed bill would render them slaves again – in the stripping of their liberties, movements, and property.
These two documents interacting will help my students to see the slow progression towards achieving the ideals in the Constitution through emancipation. That once removed from the bonds of chattel slavery, the free African was no more free in some respects than his enslaved brethren. The long, unsteady march towards full equality would be, as with many things, two steps forward and one step back for many more years to come.
Introduction: Anonymous, The African Slave, 1802[i] Composed by an anonymous prisoner in Trenton, New Jersey, this poem was first published as part of a larger collection (The Prisoner) in 1802. Told from the perspective of the African “Itaniko,” The African Slave tells of his capture, loading onto a slave ship attempted suicide, role in stopping a slave mutiny onboard the ship, and eventual sale as a slave in the United States. The advent of the cotton gin in 1791 had produced a boom in slave demands, as plantations in the south could easily increase production with an increase in their labor force. Though perhaps a fictionalized account, this poem offers a humanizing effect to the enslaved peoples and serves as a clear argument against the long-held rhetoric that the Africans were being “Christianized” and their lives improved through the slave trade. Penned just six years before Congress approved the ban on importation of slaves (1808) this poem gives insight into the “faultless” anguish of the captured African slaves as they were transported to the Americas and sold at auction. As you investigate this poem, consider the following questions:
[i] Basker, James G. "Anonymous ‘The African Slave’"American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation. New York: Library of America, 2012. 182-183. Print. Introduction: James Forten, Letters from a Man of Colour on a Late Bill Before the Senate of Pennsylvania [Letter II], 1813[i] James Forten (1766-1842) was born in Pennsylvania to parents who were free African Americans (Forten’s grandfather had “freed” himself from bondage and moved north). Educated at the African Free School established by Anthony Benezet (remember him from Patrick Henry’s Letter to John Alsop), Forten was indoctrinated in the Quaker belief of abolitionism. At age fourteen he joined the Revolutionary War and was captured and imprisoned by the British on a prison ship docked in Brooklyn’s Navy Yard. Upon his release Forten worked to bring true meaning to the sentiments expressed in the Declaration of Independence for African Americans, most especially in protesting the kidnapping of free Africans in the north to be sold into southern slavery. The following excerpt is from a pamphlet that James Forten published anonymously in 1813 in opposition to a bill that was to be debated in the Pennsylvania state senate. The bill, which never passed, would have restricted the rights and freedoms of freedmen living in the north out of fears that slaves were escaping to Pennsylvania and compete with whites for job opportunities. A man of word and action, Forten’s Letter II, discusses the hypocrisies (or at least misinterpretation) of the founding documents and the deplorable conditions that passed for freedoms and liberties for freed African Americans in the early 19th century. As you investigate , consider the following questions:
[i] Basker, James G. "James Forten from ‘Letters from a Man of Colour on a Late Bill Before the Senate of Pennsylvania’"American Antislavery Writings: Colonial Beginnings to Emancipation. New York: Library of America, 2012. 213-215. Print. | Source: Anonymous, The African Slave, 1802[i] Ye Sons of Columbia, who taste every blessing That Liberty, Plenty, and Peace can bestow, Give ear to my story, and think how distressing! Ah! hear the sad tale of an African’s woe: Tho’ guiltless my life was, without provocation I was torn from my country, companions, and nation And doom’d to the toils of a life’s Mancipation; Ah! such the hard fate is of Itaniko. One morn, I my juvenile gambols was playing, No ill did I bode, for no fear did I know, As thro’ the palm-forest, thus carelessly straying, A prey I was seiz’d by the steel-hearted foe: Who dragg’d me on board, where in fetters they bound me, While pale-visag’d hell-hounds in horror surround me I plung’d in the deep hoping death would have found me, They snatch’d from the billows poor Itaniko. My father! I utter’d in wild exclamation When life’s crimson current a while ceas’d flow: Awake, O my Country! in just indignation, The swift-feather’d vengeance elance from the bow! In vain all their efforts their power to vanquish. What language can picture my heart-rending anguish! In cold galling chains for my freedom to languish! Oh! such the hard fate is of Itaniko. On board of our ship there rose a dire faction, I let my curs’d fiends the conspiracy know; But mark the reward of this life-saving action. Altho’ I befriend them no pity they show; For when om the shores of Columbia we landed, The caitiffs I sav’d with what infamy branded! The christian’s base gold was the boon they demanded, And sold as a slave was poor Itaniko. You boast of your Freedom … your mild Constitution See tears undissembled for Liberty flow! Unmov’d can you witness such cruel delusion, Who feel in your bosoms Philanthropy glow? Were we not by the same common Parent created? Why then for the hue of my race am I hated? Why, faultless, to mis’ry and chains am I fated? Ah! why is thus wretched poor Itaniko? Each morn to fresh toils I awake broken-hearted The blood-streaming lash & the sweat-reeking hoe; By Country, by Hope, by all Pleasure deserted, A victim, alas! to unspeakable woe: O, GOD of Columbia! behold with compassion, The Cruelties, Insults, and Wrongs of my nation, And blast, by thy justice, that Tyrant-Oppression, That holds from his country poor Itaniko! Source: James Forten, Letters from a Man of Colour on a Late Bill Before the Senate of Pennsylvania [Letter II], 1813[i] Those patriotic citizens, who, after resting from the toils of an arduous war, which achieved our independence and laid the foundation of the only reasonable Republic upon earth, associated together, and for the protection of those inestimable rights for the establishment of which they had exhausted their blood and treasure, framed the Constitution of Pennsylvania, have by the ninth article declared, “that all men are born equally free and independent, and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying life and liberty.” Under the restraint of wise and well administered laws, we cordially unite in the above glorious sentiment, but by the bill upon which we have been remarking, it appears as if the committee who drew it up mistook the sentiment expressed in this article, and do not consider us as men, or that those enlightened statesmen who formed the constitution upon the basis of experience intended to exclude us from its blessings and protection. If the former, why are we not to be considered as men. Has the God who made the white man and the black, left any record declaring us a different species. Are we not sustained by the same power, supported by the same food, hurt by the same wounds, pleased with the same delights, and propagated by the same means. And should we not then enjoy the same liberty, and be protected by the same laws.—We would wish not to legislate, for our means of information and the acquisition of knowledge are, in the nature of things, so circumscribed, that we must consider ourselves incompetent to the task: but let us, in legislation be considered men. It cannot be that the authors of our Constitution intended to exclude us from its benefits, for just emerging from unjust and cruel emancipation, their souls were too much affected with their own deprivations to commence the reign of terrour over others. They know we were deeper skinned than they were, but they acknowledged us as men, and found that many an honest heart beat beneath a dusky bosom. They felt that they had no more authority to enslave us, than England had to tyrannize over them. They were convinced that if amenable to the same laws in our actions, we should be protected by the same laws in our rights and privileges. Actuated by these sentiments they adopted the glorious fabric of our liberties, and declaring “all men” free, they did not particularize white and black, because they never supposed it would be made a question whether we were men or not. Sacred be the ashes, and deathless be the memory of those heroes who are dead; and revered be the persons and the characters of those who still exist and lift the thunders of admonition against the traffic in blood. … It seems almost incredible that the advocates of liberty, should conceive the idea of selling a fellow creature to slavery. It is like the heroes of “Vive la Republic,” while the decapitated Nun was precipitate into the general reservoir of death, and the palpitating embryo decorated the point of the bayonet. Ye, who should be our protectors, do not destroy.—We will cheerfully submit to the laws, and aid in bringing offenders against them of every colour to justice; but do not let the laws operate so severely, so degradingly, so unjustly against us alone. Let us put a case, in which the law in question operates peculiarly hard and unjust—I have a brother, perhaps, who, resides in a distant part of the Union, and after a separation of years, actuated by the same fraternal affection which beats in the bosom of a white man, he comes to visit me. Unless that brother be registered in twenty four hours after, and be able to produce a certificate to that effect, he is liable, according to the second and third sections of the bill, to a fine of twenty dollars, to arrest, imprisonment and sale. Let the unprejudiced mind ponder upon this, and then pronounce it the justifiable act of a free people, if he can. To this we trust our cause, without fear of the issue. The unprejudiced must pronounce any act tending to deprive a free man of his right, freedom and immunities, as not only cruel in the extreme, but decidedly unconstitutional both as regards the letter and spirit of that glorious instrument. The same power which protects the white man, should protect the black. |