Unit Content
We will begin the unit with a discussion around the definition of resistance. I expect students to come into this unit with a specific definition and understanding of resistance to slavery, similar to what Kenneth Greenberg discusses in the podcast Teaching Hard History. He explains that “historians writing in an earlier time generally defined resistance as slave rebellions. That’s the iconic moment of resistance, when someone rises up with a gun, or an ax, or a sword, and kills the master. That’s an act of resistance which is violent, and that can lead to slave rebellions if you get other people to do it as well. That’s the iconic moment of resistance.” [4] But he goes on to explain that resistance was much more complicated than that. He says, “Only when you change the definition of what resistance is do you begin to get a different picture of what slavery is all about.”[5] Adam Sanchez, editor of Teaching a People’s History of Abolition and the Civil War by Rethinking Schools divides methods of resistance into the following seven categories: theft/property destruction; maintaining the family; culture music, religion, education; resistance at work (such as purposely working slowly, damaging tools, etc.); running away; verbal and physical confrontation; and revolt.[6] While my aim is not for students to memorize a specific list of types of resistance, I want them to start to think on their own about what resistance looks like and the different ways enslaved people were able to resist beyond armed rebellion. As we go through this unit students will consider the guiding questions: What is our definition of resistance? What is this author saying about resistance? How do the author’s choices emphasize this message? As students move through our texts, they will not only be considering those questions but collecting evidence of resistance that appears throughout these texts.
Text Overview
In this unit we will be reading multiple texts at once. The overall structure will be:
- Kindred: pages 1-74
- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Chapter I
- Kindred: pages 75 - 107
- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Chapters VI and VII
- Kindred: pages 108 - 120
- The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: Chapter IX
- Kindred: pages 121 - end
- Selections from David Walker’s Appeal
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The main text in our unit is Kindred by Octavia Butler, published in 1979. In this text the protagonist, Dana Franklin, mysteriously travels back in time from her home in the 1970s in California to a Maryland plantation in the 1800s. She continues to be transported back on six different occasions. She pieces together that she is pulled into this time period to protect Rufus Weylin, the son of a slave-owning plantation family, who she soon realizes is her great-great grandfather. Dana has a complicated relationship with Rufus throughout the novel as she deals with his oppressive behaviors towards the enslaved people, while also feeling the need to keep him alive until he has the child that will eventually be Dana’s great-grandmother.
Butler spoke in interviews about her motivation to write this novel and her feelings of shame around her mother’s domestic work. In an interview Butler says, “Kindred was a kind of reaction to some of the things going on during the sixties when people were feeling ashamed of, or more strongly, angry with their parents for not having improved things faster, and I wanted to take a person from today and send that person back to slavery.”[7]. In an interview with Charles Henry Rowell, Butler discusses going into work with her mother. Butler said she would hear “people talk about or to my mother in ways that were obviously disrespectful. As a child I did not blame them for their disgusting behavior, but I blamed my mother for taking it…As I got older I realized that this is what kept me fed, and this is what kept a roof over my head.”[8] Butler discussed this shame and anger many young people in the sixties felt at their parents and the older generations for not “doing more” to fight against racism and oppression. She recalls a peer at Pasadena City College who was blaming his parents for acceptance of “disgusting behavior on the part of the employers and other people. He said, ‘I’d like to kill all these old people who have been holding us back for so long. But I can’t because I’d have to start with my own parents.’ That was actually the germ of the idea for Kindred. I’ve carried that comment with me for thirty years. He felt so strongly ashamed of what the older generation had to do, without really putting it into the context of being necessary for not only their lives but his as well.”[9] This inspiration is clear in Kindred, as Butler highlights the different ways characters chose to fight back against slaveholders and the institution of slavery: “I wanted to take a character, when I did Kindred, back in time to some of the things that our ancestors had to go through, and see if that character survived so very well with the knowledge of the present in her head.”[10]
In Kindred, rather than looking back at generations with contempt about “not doing enough” Butler shows the power of survival as a resistance tactic. Dana sees first hand that her being alive is directly connected to her ancestors choosing to live every single day, despite these horrific conditions. Through the different characters, Butler complicates the idea of resistance and specifically that there is one “correct” way to resist slavery. As Megan Behrent writes in The Personal is Historical, “Dana, like other characters in Kindred, struggles with near daily decisions to revolt, which might be suicidal, or to submit and live to fight another day. As a character who at times advocates for violent self-defense and at others a strategy of accommodation in the interest of survival, Dana forces the reader to grapple with the complexity of strategies of resistance while never forgetting that the real culprit is the slave-holding class and the dehumanizing daily reality it enforces.”[11]
Throughout the novel, Dana experiments with different methods of resistance against the slaveholders. One strategy was trying to build a cordial relationship with Rufus, the slaveholders’ son who later becomes the slaveholder when his father passes. Dana tries to act as a mediator between Rufus and the enslaved people. Dana views this as a means to protect the slaves, serving as a type of advocate to help other slaves. But Dana receives significant pushback from the other slaves on the plantation, who see this as being on the side of the white slaveholders. Alice Jackson, Dana’s great-great grandmother who spent years being raped by Rufus, calls into question this strategy calling Dana, “Doctor-nigger . . . Reading-nigger, White-nigger!” Later Alice tells Dana “Do your job! Go tell him!”...“That’s what you for—to help white folks keep niggers down. That’s why he sent you to me. They be calling you mammy in a few years.”[12] Alice is questioning Dana’s strategy, arguing that Dana is not resisting, and in fact working to aid the white slaveholders. Sam, a slave working in the field, also questions Dana about her cooperation and relationship with Rufus. Dana responds saying ““Hold on.” I was suddenly angry. “I don’t want to hear what ‘some folks’ say. ‘Some folks’ let Fowler drive them into the fields every day and work them like mules.’ “Let him . . . ?” “Let him! They do it to keep the skin on their backs and breath in their bodies. Well, they’re not the only ones who have to do things they don’t like to stay alive and whole. Now you tell me why that should be so hard for ‘some folks’ to understand?”[13]
This tension serves as an important point of discussion for students. Is cooperating a legitimate way to resist? Do they see Dana’s perspective or is she too compliant and too forgiving of Rufus? Can you work within an oppressive system effectively? Is that even possible in such a brutal dehumanizing system? In the end, Butler seems to argue that this strategy is not useful as Rufus continues to act in morally corrupt ways. He sells Sam after feeling jealous witnessing conversation between Dana and Sam and continues to rape Alice.
We also see Dana resisting when she teaches the young children to read in secret. Learning to read was a crucial method of resistance, allowing the enslaved citizens to learn more about the systems keeping slavery in place, write slave passes, and read publications condemning slavery. This will serve as a theme throughout the unit as, “Educating Black children has always been a political act. From the moment literacy was banned for enslaved people, the work of getting Black children educated could be met with danger and even deadly force by white supremacists who wanted a subjugated Black class.”[14] In Kindred, “Dana takes great risks in teaching Nigel and Carrie to read, leading to a beating so violent it sends her back to 1976. Despite Dana’s failures, she creates lasting relationships with Nigel and Carrie, who resist slave codes by learning to read while simultaneously “passing” as acquiescent slaves—at least enough to ensure their own survival.”[15] We will explore this method further with Frederick Douglass’ narrative as this was pivotal in his resistance. We will also address this with Walker’s Appeal, thinking about how the ability for enslaved people to read this publication was so dangerous to the institution of slavery.
We also see running away as a key method of resistance in Kindred with multiple characters attempting to run away, risking great punishment if caught. “Flight is one of the most common forms of Black resistance. Flight is about enforcing choice. During slavery, truancy, and short stints of absence played a major role in the lives of enslaved people. Maybe running away to the North was not possible, but running away to swamps, forests, or a neighboring plantation was. Truancy was a way of withholding labor or leaving without permission to visit a loved one.”[16] In Chapter 3 of “The Fight,” Dana encounters Alice and Isaac when she arrives back in Maryland. Alice was trying to run away with her husband, Isaac, a free man. Five days later they were caught. The judge wanted to send Alice further South, but Rufus paid to bring her back to the plantation. Dana witnesses her return to the plantation, describing “where Alice lay bloody, filthy, and barely alive.”[17] Isaac is punished severely, sold into slavery with his ears cut off. “He fought. Strong boy, even if he didn't show much sense. The judge’s son hit him, and he struck back. And he said some things he shouldn’t have said.”[18] Dana shows how enslaved people continued escaping, despite knowing the consequences. On page 170 Dana attempts to run away herself. Butler writes, “I felt almost sick to my stomach with fear, but I kept walking.”[19] She is soon caught and brutally beaten. “I had been thrown over Rufus’ horse like a grain sack, head and feet hanging, blood dripping from my mouth.”[20] She is taken back to the plantation and whipped. “He beat me until I swing back and forth by my wrists, half-crazy with pain, unable to find my footing, unable to stand the pressure of hanging, unable to get away from the steady slashing blows.”[21]
Butler also shows us the way the enslaved people resisted by maintaining their family despite a system built on tearing them apart. We see people getting married, celebrating, and having children despite the daily atrocities they are facing. As Greenberg says, “one of the great stories of slavery is despite the fact that it’s structured so that families are destroyed, in fact families are not destroyed, they thrive, and people try to stay together with their families.”[22]). For example, Alice marries Isaac. She tells Dana, “‘My name was Greenwood when you saw me last,’ Alice continued. ‘I married Isaac last year…just before Mama died.’”[23] Nigel, an enslaved person on the same plantation, marries Carrie, an enslaved young woman who cannot speak and they have several children. Butler writes, “Carrie and Nigel named their thin, wrinkled, brown son, Jude. Nigel did a lot of struggling and happy babbling until Weylin told him to show up and get back to work.”[24]
Butler demonstrates the way joy was used as a tool of resistance. Sheila Carter Jackson writes, “Joy is not the denial of Black pain, trauma, or death, but the hope that comes with activism, resistance, and refusal.”[25] In the text, Dana recounts celebrations on the plantation. “At Christmas, there was another party– dancing, singing, three marriages.”[26] While this party was approved by Rufus, Jackson writes about “illicit and illegal dance parties during slavery. No enslaved person could be off the plantation without permission, and of course, permission to party would have never been granted. Thus, enslaved people had to carefully plan their soirees and hold them deep in the woods in the middle of the night. Some enslaved people brought musical instruments such as banjoes, fiddles, and tambourines.”[27]
Butler highlights how` survival in itself as a means of resisting. We see many of the characters trying to survive the day-to-day atrocities of slavery and stay alive - dealing with whippings and beatings, families broken apart, children separated from their parents. Despite this, people kept living. Which was a choice. At one point in the text, during the present day, Dana speaks to her husband about Rufus and says, “He has to leave me enough control over my own life to make living look better to me than killing and dying.” “If your black ancestors had felt that way, you wouldn’t be here,” said Kevin. “I told you when all this started that I didn’t have their endurance. I still don’t. Some of them will go on struggling to survive, no matter what. I’m not like that.”[28] This conversation is precisely connected to Butler grappling with her mother and the older generation “not doing enough.” She seems to be acknowledging that survival is in fact a method of resistance. This provides another point of discussion among students. Does this fit their definition of resistance? How is surviving day to day a method of fighting back? Why does this matter?
In Kindred, Butler addresses violence as resistance both against the slaveholders as well as against oneself. Behrent writes, “For both Alice and Dana, violence against the self becomes a rebellion of last resort after other means of resistance have failed.”[29] We see Dana slitting her wrists as a method of resistance, a tactic that she hopes will cause her to return to present day but could easily have killed her. Dana eventually returns to the plantation with a knife on her, prepared to kill Rufus or other slaveholders. Throughout the text she grapples with the idea of killing him and risking the survival of her ancestors. Near the end of the text, Alice’s final act of resistance is committing suicide to release herself from Rufus’ control. After Alice is dead, “Rufus tries to rape Dana, she kills him, thus asserting her own authority over history and returning herself to the present—scarred and missing an arm. In the end, violent resistance is the means by which both Alice and Dana assert their subjectivity and free themselves from Rufus’s yoke.”[30] Herbert Aptheker explains that the act of harming oneself was in fact a method of resistance used among enslaved people. He writes, “Self-mutilation was another method which at times appealed to slaves as a method of shortening their own misery, and hurting their oppressors…Because of the possibility of imitation, planters tended to keep news of suicides from the other Negroes. On at least one occasion, in 1807 in Charleston, mass suicides occurred; in this case two boatloads of newly-arrived Negroes starved themselves to death.”[31] This is another point of discussion for students. Why does Butler choose to end the story with violence? What is she saying about violence as a means of resistance? Is choosing to take your life an act of resistance? As we read, I also plan to add smaller stories that provide more examples of enslaved people resisting. For example, students will read about the woman aboard a 1683 English ship carrying 135 people from Africa who dropped a lit pipe into the gunpowder hold and blew up the ship. Only a few Englishmen survived.[32] Students will read a range of excerpts like this to see the myriad ways people resisted and to understand that resistance was always happening.
The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave by Frederick Douglass
As we read Kindred, students will stop to read excerpts of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass. Douglass escaped slavery in 1838 and published his narrative in 1845. Within a year of publication, it sold out of 13,000 copies and within five years reached 30,000 copies. With his brilliant rhetoric and education, Douglass defied the expectations that white citizens had of African Americans, especially a formerly enslaved person. In addition to documenting the atrocities of slavery, this text also served as a clear argument against racial inferiority and clearly proved the intellectual capabilities of African Americans. Douglass’ intelligence could not be questioned. In a June 1845 review in The New York Tribune, Margaret Fuller calls it an “excellent piece of writing…to be prized as a specimen of the powers of the Black Race, which prejudice persists in disputing. We prize highly all evidence of this kind and it is becoming more abundant.”[33]
There are countless ways to use this text in the classroom. For the purposes of this unit, I will be focusing on 1) how Douglass resists slavery and 2) the narrative itself as a form of resistance. I will be focusing on four chapters.
Chapter I
We will pause Kindred on page 74 at the end of Chapter 3 of “The Fall” to read Chapter 1 of Douglass. Chapter 1 provides background information on Douglass as well as the dehumanizing nature of slavery. He recounts the parts of his identity that were taken from him as an enslaved person. He does not know how old he is, as this information was kept from enslaved people, and he does not know his mother well, as she was separated from him and died when he was only seven years old. While he has suspicions that his father was his slave master, he does not know his identity for sure.[34] Douglass begins his narrative showing the reader how slavery works to destroy one’s self-identity and prevent a sense of belonging. He makes it clear that the emotional damage starts at an early age. Douglass recalls the death of his mother, who he only met four or five times. He writes, “Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.”[35]
Douglass continues this chapter, forcing the readers to witness the physical violence of slavery through a child’s eyes. He recounts in painful detail seeing his Aunt Hester stripped naked, tied up and whipped continuously by a slave holder. This is a difficult passage to read which should be acknowledged with students before reading. This is a point of discussion. Why is Douglass recounting this in such detail? Why is he forcing his readers to read these difficult details? Students should be reminded that this book was published in 1845, during slavery. What is the impact of reading these words during the 1840s? What about now? Who is the intended audience? How does this make the opening chapter even more powerful? Why start the narrative in this way?
Chapter VI and VII
We will pause Kindred at page 107, the last page of “The Fall,” when Dana is caught teaching children how to read and is severely beaten. This is a natural place to read about Douglass’ journey to read and write. Douglass first learns to read from the slave master’s wife, but once her husband found out what was happening, he immediately put an end to it. But the seed had been planted within Douglass. He writes about reading, “From that moment, I understood the pathway from slavery to freedom.”[36] Learning to read and write was life-changing for Douglass. This ultimately helped him to escape from slavery and then use writing as a tool to persuade others about the evils of slavery. It is important to center discussions with students about why learning to read and write was such a powerful form of resistance.
Education, specifically the denial of education, was a strategic tool used by slaveholders to both perpetuate an idea of Black people as subhuman and to prevent enslaved people from gaining the knowledge to question the institution of slavery. “To justify the institution of slavery, Africans and African Americans needed to be seen as lesser beings and nonhuman beasts compared to white slaveholders so the injustices done to them by their white slaveholders would not be seen as inhumane since Africans and African Americans were not regarded as human. Literacy was used then as the white man’s way of asserting dominance over those they enslaved…which made keeping slaves illiterate crucial to slaveholders to fortify these negative conceptions of Africans and African Americans.[37]
Enslavers were terrified of enslaved people gaining knowledge to further understand the systems of slavery. This is clear when Mr. Auld, Douglass’ slave master says “A n**** should know nothing but to obey his master - to do as he is told to do. Learning would spoil the best n**** in the world…It would forever unfit him to be a slave. He would at once become unmanageable, and of no value to his master.”[38] With literacy, Douglass was able to start questioning his reality. He was able to understand the systems of oppression he was a part of. “Had Douglass not become literate, he would have never fully understood the harsh realities of enslavement and would have never written his much-needed narrative that brought light to his and other slave conditions and allowed others to see African Americans as more than beasts or slaves. By using writing and literacy, Douglass escapes slavery and begins his journey to freedom, a process that would have been impossible without the literacy provided to him by those around him.”[39]
Douglass goes on to teach himself how to read by giving food to the poor white boys in town in exchange for reading lessons. And as Mr. Auld predicted, reading opened up a new world for Douglass. He writes “the more I read, the more I was led to abhor and detest my enslavers.”[40] But this knowledge also became a burden for Douglass. He writes, “I would at times feel that learning to read had been a curse rather than a blessing. It’s given me a view of my wretched condition, without the remedy. It opened my eyes to the horrible pit, but to no ladder upon which to get out.”[41] While painful, this opened up a whole new all-consuming desire for freedom. He writes, “The silver trump of freedom had roused my soul to eternal wakefulness…It was every present to torment me with a sense of my wretched condition. I saw nothing without seeing it, I heard nothing without hearing it, and felt nothing without feeling it.”[42] MK Asante, author and filmmaker says, “Reading was illegal because if you limit someone’s vocab, you limit their thoughts. They can’t even think of freedom because they don’t have the language to.” It is not as if enslaved people never knew slavery was wrong. But reading allowed them to understand the larger system of slavery, put words to the horror they endured, and started picturing freedom. It gave them a voice and a language.
Literacy as resistance may be a new idea for students, but it cannot be emphasized enough. A background of anti-literacy laws helps to underscore this. “Enslaved African Americans faced myriad barriers, both legal and extrajudicial, in their quest to attain literacy. In many cases, these restrictions took the form of anti-literacy laws, which were either passed on their own or as parts of larger slave codes. In several notable cases these anti-literacy laws were passed in the direct aftermath of major revolts. Those laws include the 1740 Negro Act, an 1832 anti-literacy measure passed in Virginia, the 1833 Alabama Slave Code, and an 1833 measure in Georgia.”[43] If enslaved people were caught reading, they were subject to severe punishment - whippings and even death. This chapter should include extensive discussion around why reading and writing is a form of resistance. This requires a little deeper probing and discussion to understand the magnitude of literacy as a means of fighting back. Discussion questions can include: How do you convince a group of people they are inferior? Why would people start to believe that? How might reading give you a new understanding of your reality? Why was it so “dangerous” for white people if enslaved people learned how to read? How did learning how to read change Douglass’ life?
The act of Douglass writing and publishing a narrative is also a form of resistance. Douglass used his writing to expose the violence of slavery, describe its psychological toll, and insist on narrative control over how Black history would be remembered.[44] Through his narrative he was able to shed light on the realities of slavery in the United States and inspire others both to escape from slavery and to fight against the institution. “Douglas uses writing not only to convey a message, but to reveal his intelligence, which portrays Douglass and all African Americans differently than they had been looked at in the past. Now, through writing, Douglass turns the ‘beasts,’ as they were seen to white Americans, into humans giving African Americans a sense of humanity.”[45] Students should discuss why this narrative was so important. How is it powerful to hear about slavery from a formerly enslaved person? Why does that matter? How would this be different a white abolitionist wrote this? What about this narrative made it so influential? Who is the intended audience?
Chapter IX
We will stop Kindred on page 120, to read our final section of Douglass’ Narrative. In Kindred, students will have just read the section where Dana returns to the 1800s to find Rufus is in a physical altercation with Isaac, a free Black man and Alice’s husband, after Rufus rapes Alice. This is a stopping point to show how Douglass also used physical confrontation to resist.
When Douglass’ enslaver felt he was “unsuitable” as a slave because of his carelessness, he sent Douglass to Edward Covey for a year, a poor man who had a reputation for “breaking young slaves.” One day, Douglass was working fanning wheat on Covey’s farm. His strength fails him, and Douglass falls to the ground from a severe headache and dizziness. When Covey finds him lying down, he begins to severely beat him, blood pouring from Douglass’ head. Douglass escapes and returns to his enslaver, Mr. Thomas, and asks for permission to leave Covey’s property, arguing that Covey will surely kill him. Douglass is denied and he returns to Covey’s farm. When Douglass returns and sees Covey, Covey begins to tie him up. Douglass writes, “at this moment – from whence came the spirit I don’t know – I resolved to fight...I seized Covey hard by the throat; and as I did so, I rose…. My resistance was so entirely unexpected, that Covey seemed taken all aback. He trembled like a leaf.”[46] The two continue fighting for two hours. Douglass says, “This battle with Mr. Covey was the turning-point in my career as a slave. It rekindled the few expiring embers of freedom and revived within me a sense of my own manhood. It recalled the departed self-confidence and inspired me again with a determination to be free.”[47] Douglass shares that for the rest of the six months he lived with him, Covey did not lay a finger on him. It is impossible to tell the story of resistance to slavery without violence. While Douglass risked his life in this physical confrontation, he found new confidence, and the determination that he would rather die than let another white man put a hand on him. Douglass writes, “I did not hesitate to let it be known of me, that the white man who expected to succeed in whipping me, must also succeed in killing me.”[48] Students should discuss why this scene is so powerful. What led to this? Why was this a turning point for Douglass? What did Douglass realize about himself?
David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World by David Walker
After finishing Kindred, we will move on to read excerpts of David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World to explore his view of resistance and the impact of this famous anti-slavery pamphlet. The goal of reading this text is to pay attention to 1) what Walker is arguing about resistance; 2) how writing this pamphlet was an act of resistance in itself; and 3) the choices Walker makes that contribute to the persuasiveness of the text. While reading this text, students will work to comprehend and analyze this persuasive text. In addition, they should learn about the impacts of this text - both with enslaved people and White governments.
Because many enslaved citizens were forced to be illiterate, Walker intended this document to be read aloud, not quietly to oneself. Many members of the Black community were exposed to the document by having literate individuals read it to them. Walker would have known about social reading patterns in the Black community and expected large groups of people to gather to have the materials read aloud to them.[49] He structured his document to be preached like a sermon, intended to inspire an audience.[50] He encouraged educated and religious leaders among Black populations to read the text to others. He hoped they could use their authority to convince others about the importance of the text. Walker writes, “Men of coulour, who are also of sense, for you particularly is my Appeal designed. Our more ignorant brethren are not able to penetrate its value. I call upon you therefore to cast your eyes upon the wretchedness of your brethren, and to do your utmost to enlighten them – go to work and enlighten your brethren! Let the lord see you doing what you can to rescue them and yourselves from degradation.”[51]
David Walker was born free in North Carolina and then moved North to Boston, Massachusetts. He wrote and published his famous pamphlet, Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, in Boston on September 28, 1829. Walker was particularly interested in disseminating the Appeal in the South, where he felt his messages of resistance were most needed. But the pamphlet also moved around the North easily.[52] David Hinks, a historian, writes, “No one else more directly confronted the problems of how to motivate a people to pursue freedom and power who had become accustomed to not having it.”[53] Walker’s pamphlet was revolutionary for the way he encouraged enslaved people to take up arms and be willing to die for their freedom. He writes “Now, I ask you, had you not rather be killed than to be a slave to a tyrant, who takes the life of your mother, wife, and dear little children? Look upon your mother, wife and children, and answer God Almighty; and believe this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man, who is trying to kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty.”[54] He argued for armed resistance and believed in the possibilities of wide-scale organizing among Blacks in the South.[55]
But his Appeal was not just about armed rebellion. Walker believed that real change could not occur until African Americans were able to "acknowledge and describe the conditions and systems under which they existed.”[56] In this way, the text serves as a means for “waking people up” to the atrocities of slavery and the hypocrisy of white religion that was used to maintain slavery in the United States. Students will notice the fiery language, filled with exclamation points, italics, and capital letters. According to Hinks, “Unleashing anger was essential to getting ‘the Blacks started.’ Only through full experience of this powerful emotion in which they rejected the structures and definition imposed on them by other people could they begin to move toward a clearer sense of what their true identity was.”[57] As students read this text it is important that they are able to identify the tone of the text and not only the emotions of Walker, but the emotions it brings up in readers. Discussion questions include: What do you think made this text so revolutionary? Why was it so persuasive? What is the purpose of anger?
The Appeal was also about education. Walker wanted to “attack the ignorance and apathy of his people.” [58] He writes, “I appeal to Heaven for my motive in writing – who knows that my object is, if possible to awaken in the breasts of my afflicted, degraded, and slumbering brethren, a spirit of inquiry and investigation respecting our miseries and wretchedness in Republican Land of Liberty!!!!!!””[59] Walker believed that in order to carry out a unified resistance, people needed to “awaken” to better understand their conditions. He wanted them to start questioning the systems around themselves. Hinks writes, “The biggest problem Walker addressed was the one of the individual psyche: how to transform the consciousness of individual Blacks mired in the paradox of powerlessness amid power into personalities unified around an awareness of their own strength, integrity, and freedom.”[60] Students should reflect on these ideas. What information has been fed to enslave people? Why is understanding the system of slavery so important? How do whites benefit when enslaved people don’t question these systems? Why is this so important to resistance?
Walker focuses on the false ideas that whites spread about Black people being unable to learn. He addresses the contradiction when he says “See the inconsistency of the assertions of those wretches - they beat us inhumanely, sometimes almost to death, for attempting to inform ourselves…and at the same time tell us we are beings void of intellect.”[61] Walker argued that whites did not want enslaved people to read so they could not want more than their present conditions in life. He argued education would inspire enslaved people to resist as they would refuse to continue to be oppressed.”[62] This connects directly to Douglass, an idea students should be familiar with. Walker writes in a footnote, “Why do the Slave-holders or Tyrants of America and their advocates fight so hard to keep my brethren from receiving and reading my Book of Appeal to them?--Is it because they treat us so well?--Is it because we are satisfied to rest in Slavery to them and their children?--Is is because they are treating us like men, by compensating us all over this free country!! for our labours?--But why are the Americans so very fearfully terrified respecting my Book?--Why do they search vessels, &c. when entering the harbours of tyrannical States, to see if any of my Books can be found, for fear that my brethren will get them to read.”[63] Walker specifically addresses his writing. Why were they working so hard to keep his writing away from people? What made it so “dangerous” to the institution of slavery? What thoughts and ideas were they trying to prevent from spreading? What would happen if enslaved citizens got a hold of this text?
Part of teaching the Appeal is teaching about the reactions and aftermath to the publication. The Appeal was stealthily distributed in the South. It first surfaced publicly in Savannah, Georgia. On December 11, 1829 the Savannah police department seized sixty copies.[64] By the end of the year the state had written new laws for the “quarantining all Black sailors entering Georgia ports, punishing with serious penalties the introduction of seditious literature into the state and tightening laws against slave education.”[65] By March 1830, The Louisiana State Legislature passed two very restrictive acts. One of them threatened anyone who might “write, print, publish, or distribute anything having a tendency to create discontent among the free coloured population of this state of insubordination among the slaves therein" with life imprisonment or death. They also reinforced laws against slave literacy.[66] There was also legislation against free Blacks. Cincinnati attempted to legislate the removal of its free Black population. Louisiana lawmakers passed laws that expelled free Blacks from the state who had moved there after 1825. Those refusing to leave or those migrating to the state risked imprisonment and hard labor for life.[67] Students should have conversations about this backlash. Why create these laws? What were they afraid of?
As Walker hoped, there was also a strong reaction to the text among enslaved people. Hinks writes that “conspiracy and resistance flourished in March and April after its discovery.”[68] At the end of March a group of African Americans and a handful of white allies led a revolt north of New Orleans. Nineteen Blacks and several whites died in the conflict and fifteen of the ringleaders were executed. There were plans for an uprising that were uncovered and a slave was executed for murdering his master.[69] Many scholars argue the connection between Nat Turner’s well-known rebellion in August of 1831 and the Appeal, believing that Walker’s Appeal directly influenced Turner. They cite similarity in philosophy between the two, the way they both used religion, and the timing of Turner’s Rebellion.[70] Turner’s Rebellion took place in Southampton, Virginia and involved around 70 slaves. They went from plantation to plantation killing slave masters and their families, heading toward the armory in Virginia. Turner was eventually caught and executed.[71]
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