Liberation a word directly correlated with freedom defines in Webster’s Dictionary as a movement seeking equal rights and status for a particular group. Thus, with freedom comes liberation that distinguishes itself through out the history of Afro American Literature especially in early periods. Activists such as David Walker, Sojourner Truth, and George Moses Horton all had one hope and prayer that could be examined in their writings: Freedom. They wanted America to see the obvious injustice of the institution of slavery. During these not so pleasant times and through the works of these writers, it is assumed that those Negroes that were able to read and write found themselves and their purpose.
Thus, with freedom also comes the need to search for an identity that in all actuality is not just a tag or a label. Readers can also catch a glimpse of the need to find one’s identity in the readings of these three particular writers. At the outset, it is obvious that freedom and the need to actually have an identity were needed desperately during the institution of slavery. Free person’s of color and free slaves were both fighting for the abolishment of slavery. Beginning with David Walker, the first to write protest in Afro American Literature with no constellation to whites. In his essay, David Walker’s Appeal in Four Sanford 2 Articles; Together with a preamble, to Coloured Citizen’s of the World, it can quickly identified that Walker was courageous enough to speak out about the injustice of the institution of slavery.
The Essay on Slavery – An Institution Creating Its Own Culture
SLAVERY - AN INSTITUTION CREATING ITS OWN CULTURE Slavery was a period of great profits for Southern whites and disastrous times for black people. Being deprived from their human rights, black slaves had to find a way to maintain equilibrium between the inhumane conditions of living and their existence as human beings. In the hardships of slavery and lack of educational opportunities for the ...
” Now I appeal to heaven and earth, and particularly to the American people themselves, whose cease not to declare that our condition is not hard, and that we are comparatively satisfied to rest in wretchedness and misery under their children… .” (Walker 183) In this instance, it is inevitably evident that the first point that Walker is making to white America is that he and thus all Negroes are aware that they are not even considered people. Negroes are not satisfied with being in bondage, and now that he has the opportunity to give his view on the institution of slavery, Walker will not rest until every Negro understands and comprehends what life could be like with such mechanisms as Freedom and Liberation, and what it is like to have an Identity; a purpose. Walker states clearly that the institution of slavery is to be truthful wretched and dehumanizing. ” I have been troubling with historians, to find out what our fathers have done to the white Christians of America, to merit such condign punishment as they have inflicted on them, and do continue to inflict on us their children.” (Walker 187).
Now, Walker is pleading for an answer to what did Negroes in previous years to warrant such harsh treatment.
Walker challenges Negroes to draw their own conclusions of why they are being mistreated, and to plan and make solutions that will stop the institution of slavery. While Walker takes the road less taken by protesting, Sojourner Truth takes an entirely different path towards the freedom of Negroes and abolition of slavery in her essay Ar ” nt I a Woman. Through a women’s rights convention in Akron, Ohio, Truth makes known that slaves are not just slaves, but human also. Sanford 3 ” I have plowed, and planted, and gathered into barns, no man could head men-Ar ” nt I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man (when I could get it), an bear de lash well-ar ” nt I a woman? I have borne thirteen chilean and seen ’em mos’ all sold into slavery, and when I cried out with mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard – and ar ” nt I a woman.” (Truth 200) Truth describes all the trials and tribulations that she had endured at the hands of slaveholders. She is pleading to the convention attendants to take a deeper perspective when judging Negroes as if they were less human. She is asking a room full of so called liberators that she is not considered a woman just because she is in fact Negro.
The Term Paper on Women In Slavery Girls Did Mrs Horniblow
The Perils of Slavery A recurring theme in, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is Harriet Jacobs's reflections on what slavery meant to her as well as all women in bondage. Continuously, Jacobs expresses her deep hatred of slavery, and all of its implications. She dreads such an institution so much that she sometimes regards death as a better alternative than a life in bondage. For Harriet, ...
Truth emphasizes to the audience that being Negro does not lessen her humanity, but the fact that she can suffer so much as still be alive should make her more than human, more than a woman, more than Negro. Through Walker and Truth, readers are able to catch sight of the drastic measure that was taken to acquire freedom. Identity was also necessary need for free people of color and slaves. George Moses Horton makes this point evident in his works of African American literature. In his poem, George Moses Horton Myself, Horton states of his need to explore the world and search for his identity. ” I feel myself in need Of the inspiring strains of ancient lore, My heart to lift, my empty mind to feel, And all the world to explore.” (Horton 195) Horton illustrates to readers his need to rid his mind of depressing thoughts of bondage.
He needed to find what life has in store for him without the musings of the institutions of slavery. Horton goes on Sanford 4 to explain that regardless of his age and current status, Horton still describes his need to find who he really was to readers. Most slaves were limited to their thoughts and aspirations. Not many were able to conjure up a life different then the one they were given by slaveholders.
After countless Negroes obtained their freedom whether by escaping, payment, or just being given their freedom, theses freed men and women felt they were obligated to try to live the life that they were never given the chance to live. These writers are only a glimpse of early Afro American Literature, which mostly focused on freedom, liberation, identity, empowerment and other strong adjectives that can only be used when describing the opposite of the institution of slavery. To end, David Walker, Sojourner Truth, and George Moses Horton all sought out freedom and identity for both slaves and FPC’s. These early writings in Afro American Literature set a pace for writers such as Frederick Douglass, W. E.
The Term Paper on Theme Of Freedom From American Point Of View
It has been custom for American authors to depict the theme of freedom in their literary works. Although the theme of freedom is carried out in various works, it changes from author to author in the role that it plays. In Nathaniel Hawthorne s The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne exercises her right to free will which ironically causes her to loose her freedom to live and become a part of society. ...
B DuBois, Zora Neale Hurston, etc. to do more in the fight for Afro Americans.
