What image of American slavery is being presented in this series of excerpts, republished in The Anti-Slavery Reporter (June 1, 1847)? We might assume that readers of this text would be already invested in the cause of abolition, since they are reading the periodical, but what in particular would they notice about this text? What aspects of slavery are highlighted in particular? Does there seem to be a conscious decision to underscore particular aspects of slavery in the United States? Do these idea of slavery (and, by correlation, race) resonate with the novels that we are reading or with Carlyle's essay?
What particularly struck me about this excerpt was the intense focus on the slaveowner, not the slave. Of the conference’s resolutions, all the focus is placed on the bad behavior of the slaveowner, not on the injustice to the slave. Even though they were denouncing slavery, they still were making the distinction between an “us” and “them.” The “us” would supply them with the Bible, but not invite them to join them in their service or preach to them from their pulpit. The excerpts from various American papers on the slave trade show the mistreatment of slaves and their miserable conditions, but still does not necessarily equate them to a higher status in society.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Elena's point. It seemed, especially in the section from the church, that they focused much more on keeping slaveholders out of their churches and then doing anything to right the injustice of slavery in America. This would perhaps suggest that it was a social trend that people tended to be more concerned with having the popular abolitionist view point, without really caring about the turmoils of blacks in America.
ReplyDeleteI would think that generally speaking, British citizens could not do much to actively help the abolitionist cause from where they were. This may have resulted in a fad, so to speak, of being against slavery but not actually doing anything about it for the right reasons. Many white people seemed "enslaved" by the elitist British society, but they did nothing to change the unfair system in their own country. If they were really against the idea and concept of slavery, they would have done so.
I agree with Elena that the compilation of texts focuses mostly on the slave owner and his word, but to me that is what makes the texts so effective in highlighting American hypocrisy. An abolitionist is not embellishing excerpts in order to gain sympathy for the cause. The animalistic language and clear dehumanization of the slave comes straight from the American slave owner. What struck me most are the physical descriptions of the slaves’ scar particularly the boy in “One Hundred Dollars Reward.” The scare is found on the boy’s “thigh or rump” suggesting the invasiveness of the inspections the slave goes through. I believe we get a clear image of the slave’s conditions despite being the words of the slave owner. Because the slave owner is perfectly comfortable using dehumanizing descriptions of the slaves, the texts are even more shocking.
ReplyDeleteAlso the focus on the slave owner was a common way of approaching the issue of slavery. When texts focus on the slave owner they seek to expose some flaw in the slave owner that derives from his participation in slavery. In the case of these articles, the flaw is the inability to value all human life and the hypocrisy of American freedom. Rochester employs the same technique in Jane Eyre when he argues the slave is inferior to the master but in the master’s interaction with the slave he to becomes inferior (359). Rochester chooses to focus on the negative effects slavery has on the master rather than on the slave in a similar way as the articles.