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Frederick Douglass,
William
Lloyd Garrison,
and
Formation
of
the
Abolitionist Discourse,
1841-1851
Ni/gun Anadolu-Okur
DISMANTLING
SL AV ERY
“On a question of shame and honor—liberty and
oppression—reasoning is sometimes useless and
worse. I feel the decision in my pulse, it throws no
light upon the brain, it kindles a re in the heart . . .”
—William Lloyd Garrison
e North Star Masthead, June 2, 1848
e Liberator Masthead, January 21, 1859
DISMANTLING
SL AV ERY
Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and
Formation of the Abolitionist Discourse, 1841–1851
Nilgün Anadolu-Okur
e University of Tennessee Press / Knoxville
Copyright © 2016 by e University of Tennessee Press / Knoxville.
All Rights Reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America.
First Edition.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Anadolu-Okur, Nilgün, 1956- author.
Title: Dismantling slavery : Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and formation of the
abolitionist discourse, 1841-1851 / Nilgun Anadolu-Okur.
Description: First edition. | Knoxville : e University of Tennessee Press, 2016. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identiers: LCCN 2016008494 | ISBN 9781621902362 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Antislavery movements—United States—History—19th century. | Douglass,
Frederick, 1818-1895. | Garrison, William Lloyd, 1805-1879. | Abolitionists—United States—
History—19th century.
Classication: LCC E449 .A55 2016 | DDC 326/.80922—dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016008494
To my son Ali Murat
CONTENTS
Preface ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Dismantling the Discourse of Unfreedom 1
Chapter 1. Formation of the Alliance 23
Chapter 2. Discourse on Slavery and Democracy 69
Chapter 3. Prose, Poetry, and Protest 141
Chapter 4. Discourse on Women’s Rights 213
Chapter 5. Dissent in the Alliance 245
Notes 265
Bibliography 307
Index 317
PREFACE
is book has grown out of my conviction that the potential for societal benef-
icence inheres in discourse. Perhaps most benecial in this regard is the cog-
nizance of how various discourses have been created and how these discourses
enable those who engage in them to implement change in a particular society,
within an order. In writing this book, my goals coincide with the objectives of
other scholars who observe discourse as a phenomenon created within a socio-
political context in its potential to radiate change and generate criticism of societal
structures through a particular methodological structure. e text is organized
around the notion that the decade-long alliance between the antislavery advocates
Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison gave rise to the emergence of an
abolitionist discourse that positioned abolition of slavery as the center of a series
of critical progressive social concerns throughout the rst half of the nineteenth
century. is study is one account of the ways in which abolitionist discourse was
shaped and put to the purposes of moral and democratic reforms.
Dismantling Slavery was conceived as a result of a series of questions I had
raised at academic conferences in the late 1990s. My disappointment about the
signicant lack of panels and papers, both in quantity and quality, on nineteenth
century African American literature served as the basis for an inspirational and
personal agenda. In an individual eort to validate the remarkably inuential
intellectual background which precipitated the extant plethora of works, I began
my research on abolitionists and their extensive struggles to dismantle the ap-
paratus of slavery. eir long and arduous journey took me to a hallowed space
where I discovered the precedent of their commitment to the cause. rough
my ndings I was able to appreciate the preeminence of their discourse and the
transformative power of language, intermixed with the proer of spirit entailed
in the fashioning of a functional discourse. e discourse on abolition move-
ment before the Emancipation Proclamation is so vast that it was necessary to
select from those trends and individuals that best reveal the type of discourse in
question to illustrate the ramications of its manifestation as a whole. As a result,
the reader will nd extensive treatment of Douglass and Garrison during the
Prefacex
ten-year period between 1841 and 1851 that culminated in their alliance, and
the constructive discourse generated through their interactions with a distin-
guished circle of abolitionist personages. rough their collaboration, and deter-
mination, the war on slavery was won.
Despite its signicance, the relationship between William Lloyd Garrison
and Frederick Douglass has not been investigated comprehensively. Many ques-
tions concerning their mutual understanding, and signicant aspects of their
collaboration on abolition have been left either unanswered, or partially and
even inaccurately addressed. e ten-year period was a crucial time in American
democracy, and generated a wealth of information on dissent and protest, all
within the framework of abolitionist discourse concerning slavery, race, gender
equality, freedom, and democracy. As an interdisciplinary study, Dismantling
Slavery is likely to appeal to a wide range of scholars. It will be of interest to
literary historians of the antebellum United States and those who study the birth
of the Civil Rights Movement; more specically, to scholars who study enslave-
ment, abolitionism, and other reform movements, as well as African American
history and women’s history; nineteenth century literature, antislavery prose and
poetry, as well as abolitionist theory and rhetoric. Interdisciplinary scholars in
American Studies, Women’s Studies, and African American Studies will nd
Dismantling Slavery of particular interest, as will a more general audience in
search of scholarship on varied genres—biographies, journals, prose, and po-
etry—that rose throughout the Douglass-Garrison alliance from 1841 and 1851.
e terms African American, and black are used throughout this book as the con-
text dictates. “Slavery” and “slave” are replaced with enslavement and enslaved,
where applicable.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
During the past decade my approach to interpreting the discourse between
Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison has been deeply informed by
Temple University’s African American Studies Department, which I have been
fortunate to belong to since 1991. e long journey of this manuscript took
me to the heights, depths, and limits of intellectual wisdom and forbearance. I
thank many people whose minds and skills are infused into its making in various
forms of support, assistance, and encouragement at some point during the pro-
cess. However, rst and foremost I owe gratitude to omas Wells, acquisitions
editor at the University of Tennessee Press, who believed in the merits of this
study, and selected an excellent and helpful team of reviewers for the manuscript.
anks are due to him for his insight, patience and thoughtful guidance at var-
ious stages of the manuscript. I also thank Emily Huckabay who responded to
my various inquiries with grace and style.
I am deeply indebted to my colleagues Katherine Henry, who provided
well-informed suggestions and assistance that illuminated my task, and Baris
Günersel, who kindly reviewed an earlier version of the manuscript. Mole K.
Asante’s leadership in the eld of African American communication, and Af-
rocentric theory has opened up untold opportunities for a generation of schol-
ars. I thank Aslaku Berhanu at Charles L. Blockson Collection, as well as Judy
Murphy and Justin H. Hill at Paley Library for their assistance in having access
to signicant research material. Esteemed colleagues Andy Waskie, Craig and
Sharon Caba have in their distinctive ways contributed more than perhaps they
know to the development of the arguments on abolition presented here. anks
are also due to former Temple students Pauline, April, Yagˇ mur, and Ahmet Emin
Ahlatc
i; to Gail Gallo and her team of professionals at Temple’s ISC—Shawn
Ta, Lauren Keefe, Jaclyn Hansberry, Edward Lieber, Angelina Cionci, Nicole
Cionci; to Lorraine Ford, Johanna Inman, Joe Williams, and Peter Hanley who
cared, and responded prociently to all of my inquiries; to area libraries, and
their special collections in Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Central Pennsylvania,
Boston, Rochester, Cleveland, and Washington, D.C. I also thank Dr. omas
Acknowledgmentsxii
Graziano and Meegan Gamble in Broomall who restored the “spirit of life” in
me during the course of nal countdown.
As for my son, Ali Murat Okur, I am grateful for his sharp eye, patient
cooperation, and his abiding condence in the outcome. I simply have a moth-
er’s gratitude for the inspiration you continue to provide—for your exceptional
skills in IT technology, your amazing courage, commitment to perfection, and
outstanding sense of direction that sustained me, and justied my forward drive
since the beginning. I thank you for standing by me.
Philadelphia, PA
October 2016
Introduction
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE
OF UNFREEDOM
A few months after his arrival in New Bedford as a fugitive slave, twenty-one-
year-old Frederick Douglass took out a subscription to William Lloyd Garrison’s
abolitionist paper e Liberator and, by his own account, his “soul was set all on
re.” “e paper,” as he wrote in his Narrative, “became my meat and my drink.”
ree years later, Garrison observed Douglass with “extraordinary emotion” as
the latter rose to speak before a white audience in Nantucket. “I shall never for-
get,” Garrison later recalled, “the powerful impression it created upon a crowded
auditory, completely taken by surprise.” us, began the ten-year collaboration
between the two men, revolutionizing the course of the abolitionist movement,
where a new discourse of social reform and critique was initiated. Despite its
signicance, the formation of an abolitionist discourse between Garrison and
Douglass has not been studied comprehensively. is book is about that coali-
tion and its far-reaching eects.
Nineteenth-century American literature, and its reform-oriented discourse is
scarcely studied in its entirety without mention of abolitionists. is fact hints at
the magnitude of the abolitionist struggle, and the painstaking eorts of those
who continuously agitated law and law-makers in order to disarm the discourse
of unfreedom. e initiators of this tradition in American literature need to
be recognized initially as catalysts of change and reorganization. Garrison met
Douglass while he was attending an antislavery lecture in August 1841. Recall-
ing the day, Garrison remarked: “Fortunate, most fortunate occurrence!—fortu-
nate for the millions of his manacled brethren, yet panting for deliverance from
their awful thralldom! . . . of universal liberty! . . . for the land of his birth . . .
fortunate for the multitudes, in various parts of our republic.”1
Douglass had been in the North for little more than three months working
at odd jobs while he was preaching in a neighborhood church in Bedford, Mas-
sachusetts. e North, still laden with its own peculiar forms of prejudice and
racial bias was unwilling to welcome a black fugitive into its midst. Yet after
hearing Douglass speak, Garrison asked the audience if they would allow this
Introduction2
man to be sent back to captivity, and the crowd roared “in thunder-tones—
‘NO!’”2 Upon Garrison’s call the audience unanimously promised to protect him
as “brother-man—a resident of the old Bay state.” us began the destined jour-
ney of the two friends. eir friendship wrought valleys as deep as misty rivers
despite the rugged sociopolitical context and the constraints surrounding them.
eir discourses roared through thick and dense forests of prejudice, sprawled
over the mountain peaks of racial bigotry, and at last reached to quiet gorges.
Eventually the two friends’ names were entered into the chronicles of history as
initiators and accomplices in an exceptional dialogue that continued for at least
a decade. In this study I attempt to investigate the link between the reverence
of an African for nommo, the power of the spoken word, and a white man’s de-
termination to bring truth and justice to his nation through moral conviction.
us, as my work underscores the evolution of abolitionist discourse, it unveils
the true nature of friendship between Douglass and Garrison, a key ingredient
often overlooked by scholars.
Discourse is often dened, and by various scholars, as “communication of
thought by words,” or as “speaking or writing authoritatively about a topic.” It is
about production and deliverance of ideas, in a dialogue, conversation, discussion
or debate. It is important to recognize that it is through ideas that discourse is
created. In this study I will use discourse not simply as “language,” or “linguis-
tics,” but primarily as clusters of coherent ideas that relate to a self-determining
account of reality generating concepts with which to analyze it. Discourse is an
experiential, communicative, and social entity. From ancient Egyptian philoso-
phers including Ptahhotep, Imhotep, Merikare, Khun-Anup, and Akhenaten, to
Greeks such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, and Herodotus, and Europeans includ-
ing Descartes, Kant, and Foucault, discourse has been well dened and studied.
My goal is not to delve into the history of discourse. I intend to explore the ways
how the antislavery discourse in early nineteenth century generated solidarity and
collaboration among two people from dierent backgrounds, who became leaders
of their communities, while actively contributing to the advancement of anti-
slavery discourse to eect sociopolitical changes in nineteenth-century American
society.
Ultimately, this study explores how the abolitionist rhetoric generated by
Douglass and Garrison created new forms in a variety of genres. Poets, writ-
ers, and activists as well as common men and women who stepped into
Garrison-Douglass sphere of inuence contributed to the antislavery narrative
through journal essays, newspaper editorials, diaries, letters, poems, plays, au-
tobiographical pieces, and novels, gradually expanding the breadth and volume
of a discourse on freedom throughout the nineteenth century. As we look back,
plenty of material has to be sifted through in order to release the energy which
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 3
supplied the wells of ideology and doctrines for abolitionists. ey were excep-
tionally dedicated; they feared none and they were willing to take risks. Nat-
urally antislavery discourse shaped the literature, arts, and social trends of the
era. As anti-slavery discourse grew in magnitude, it sparked plenty of pro-slavery
discourse.
In African American discourse the force of the spoken word is believed to be
so inuential that it breeds and radiates an epistemological inquiry into the heart
of any discussion related to the enslavement of African people. For the enslaved
person, the rudimentary eects of epic memory are transformed into words, call-
ing forth what is essentially a discourse of memory. is is why autobiographical
narratives written by former slaves are not to be referred to as “slave narratives,”
as it has become customary in the West. Two factors dictate the necessity: rst,
the signier is centered in historical consciousness of the African people, or is a
member of the community. Second, he owns the agency of his people while he
is recalling his story. No one ought to distance himself from his own true self,
by naming himself a “slave.” People are not born slaves; they are forced into en-
slavement. Conversely, no enslaved person would haphazardly label the pinnacle
of his most personal suering—and by that token a creative work—simply a
“narrative” unless the term is generated by an outsider. “Narrative,” when used
as a term to express, among other things, human suering, clearly minimizes
the brutality of slavery and diminishes the impact of a formal autobiography.
Moreover, by the time the author has the autobiography published, he or she is
technically a free person thus invalidating his former status. Is not autobiography
more than narrative, and the author more than chattel?
For an African brought to America against his will, the proprieties of “right
living” under the white gaze were fused with a strong inner drive to achieve
freedom by all means necessary. In realization of the perils surrounding his or
her being, the captive had to aect the liberation of the spirit; thereby, initiating
a renaissance of unfettered thought. Holding on to the ideology of victorious
consciousness constantly shaped the philosophical attitude of the enslaved in-
dividual. He tried to express it not through limitations of English language or
its nomenclature, but rather in symbols and signications relating to the psy-
chology of being a captive, as opposed to a free person. In Flash of the Spirit:
African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy, Robert Farris ompson notes,
“red, or iron, in Yoruba cosmology represents ‘supreme presence of color,’ signal-
ing áshe and potentiality.” “A thing or a work of art that has áshe,” ompson
asserts, “transcends ordinary questions about its makeup and connements: it
is divine force incarnate . . . áshe literally means ‘So be it,’ ‘May it happen.’”3
African agency and the desire to make things happen with spiritual command,
as ompson asserts, is hidden in the force of áshe. Beyond the symbolism of
Introduction4
faith in the power of a specic color, material, and spiritual element, the ability
to transcend, and overcome a major obstacle, such as captivity, necessitated supe-
rior spiritual command, in addition to psychological, philosophical, and physical
stamina. In Yoruba religion one of the Seven African Powers, the Eleggua (also
Elegba, Eshu, Eshu-Elegbara, Legba) is considered the repository of áshe, esu, or
ase.4 It is believed to make the implausible plausible, eliminate barriers, guard
the crossroads, watch the gates as one passes to safety. Transformations ought
to happen once áshe, and its underground forces are summoned; áshe eases the
tension between decision and indecision; it opens new venues.
For a captive liberation is symbolized through the need for self-expression
under dire circumstances. One of the best examples for perseverance under du-
ress is represented by Charles Fuller in his Pulitzer-winning drama Soldier’s Play
(1981). e urge to discover the mystery of truth is presented by C. J. Memphis,
the guitar player, who was arrested by Sergeant Waters on charges of insolence.
C. J. believed that his “Farmers’ Dust” amulet would protect him from evil and
that he had “Bird” in his blood. C. J. attributed the catastrophic circumstances
that eventually placed him in a jail cell to the disappearance of his “dust.” In
consequence, by committing suicide, he wanted to terminate his sense of loss, his
unfortunate parting from áshe, the energy which connected him, as he believed,
to the cosmological forces above, including his ancestral legacy, and the episte-
mological subsistence of his roots. Henceforth, áshe exemplied the reservoir of
life, energy and power over destiny, the inherited knowledge, and the guiding
spirit that was kept at bay for future sustenance as well as the staying power
essential particularly to endure conditions related to being radically abstracted
from one’s land into nonhuman captivity.
As to the role of áshe or Eshu-Elegba, (also ase, and Eshu-Elegbara)5 in
Douglass’s rhetoric, I concur that it has governed his actions, thoughts, and
speech throughout his career. It has given him the will to conquer his destiny,
and rise above it. However, áshe does not provide a single metaphor to explain
his triumph against all odds. Certain qualications about his ability to develop
his personal discourse on emancipation were derived from his earlier experi-
ences, such as his daring escape from bondage, and his decision to leave Bos-
ton for Rochester. His courage, combined with his enterprising eorts in self-
education, the fortitude of risk-taking which facilitated his escape, and passion to
seek self-determination sustained him with the ability to chart his route single-
handedly, and independently from Garrison in later stages. Douglass feared that
Garrisonians would gradually silence his inner voice, and dominate the true and
essential nature of his personal nommo. Yet Douglass’s personal voice, his self-
made nommo supplied the inspiration and motivated his vigor; his courage came
by his áshe. e social realities that governed the development of his rhetoric
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 5
dwelt in his former experience in bondage. ere were constraints upon a black
speaker who wanted to create a new rhetoric of abolition, both in style and ra-
tionale, while confronting the context of oppression. Such restrictions did not
always allow him to express his frame of mind freely before a white audience.
However social and psychological factors combined with his rhetorical skills
contributed to Douglass’s delivery of a total view of language from black cultural
standpoint as his audience was expected to understand the symbols he developed
mostly through his extemporaneous mode of speech.
Rhythm in spoken discourse is considered a basic measure of the successful
speaker.6 Douglass’s speeches “sounded good” to abolitionist audiences because
he knew when not to sound. His success as a public speaker rested on his phil-
osophical understanding of white perceptions of black patterns of communica-
tion, and their ability to recognize the theoretical phenomena related to black
language. In abolitionist speechmaking the structure and scope of the context,
the frame of mind of the speaker and his audience, as well as the presentation by
the speaker was expected to provide an opportunity for expanding human under-
standing. rough his styling, both auditory and visual; his use of indirection;
his metaphorical capabilities; his mannerism and his gesticulation, which was
primarily eected by his impeccable sartorial habits, Douglass was able to favor-
ably inuence his audiences. erefore, he established with them, to quote Mole
Kete Asante, “a kind of intimate fellowship.”7 ese elements assisted Douglass to
succeed in arousing in his audiences the desire to hear, and received vocal assent,
thus making him the prototype for the black abolitionist discourse in his era.
In yet another turn upon education and literacy, as enslavement stalled Afri-
cans’ will to be educated, it triggered a strong desire to conquer anything and ev-
erything that was outlawed and forbidden. Douglass’s fortitude to “make it hap-
pen,” as evidenced in his achievements for self-education testies to the power
of áshe, which transported the predictive experience of African slavery into the
swing between “so be it” and “may it happen.”8 Douglass’s determination to
conquer and transcend illiteracy made him not only the master of discourse on
protest, but proved to the European that his accomplishments in literacy and
self-determination were undeniably a testament to Africans’ humanity and intel-
ligence. His overall disappointment with white abolitionists’ constant reminders
about his position as a hired agent on the lecture circuit forced him to achieve
excellence by trying to improve his autobiography at least three times.
is unique trend—the ability to articulate the independent and unrestricted
voice of the African American experience illuminated by áshe—has to be retold,
and further documented as the archetypical manifestation of black consciousness,
observed in representative works of Larry Neal and Amiri Baraka, the pioneers
of the Black Arts Movement. In the 1960s and 1970s Neal, Stokely Carmichael,
Introduction6
Haki R. Madhubiti, Huey P. Newton, Maulana Karenga, Eldridge Cleaver,
Angela Davis, Bobby Seale and Kathleen Cleaver, incorporated Douglass’s
African-centered discourse into their arguments about black liberation. At the
same time Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Maya Angelou, and James Baldwin,
through their writing articulated the legitimate concerns of black society. eir
places in the shared legacy of black discourse, reminiscent of Douglass’s rst
address in 1841, was evident in their resistance to oppression, as they protested
the barriers established by the color line, including denial of agency, and equality
for the African American in the twentieth century. e example provided by
Douglass’s subsequent break from Garrison, and other abolitionists in Boston,
constituted the culmination, and eventually the eruption of a volcano, cultivated
by the force of áshe. Nevertheless, in this study the main focus of analysis is
powered with exigencies of black rhetoric built against the backdrop of a white
setting and formulated to explore the formation of the abolitionist discourse, and
the transcendent exchange carried out between the two of its major architects.
If discourse is about responding to facts, or reality, in a particular way, how
does one respond to an inhuman condition, such as enslavement? For Douglass,
his reaction to injustice brought upon his race was shaped by survival rst, and
liberation next. Garrison’s reaction involved a life-long struggle in expanding ab-
olitionist discourse, as an editor, journalist, speaker, and community organizer.
Naturally Douglass’s discourse was wrought with qualities dierent than those
of Garrison, although both men joined hands, merging their ideas as well as their
skills to attack slavery as an invincible team.
e social signicance of discourse is far greater than the text itself. Some
texts, and the discourses generated by them make substantial dierences in peo-
ple’s lives—such as the Narrative of the Life and Times of Frederick Douglass and
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. As examples of antislavery literature, these
texts struck signicant blows to deeper layers of racism shaped by Southern
slavery. At the same time, the texts generated discourses which did not simply
materialize in empty space; there were supporting and parallel discourses that
advanced social change. As Michael Bennett puts it, “the abolitionists did ev-
erything they could to promote the democratic discourses that cultivated and
magnied the cultural strains resistant to the disease of slavery.”9
Among forms of discourse which drew the public’s attention to abolition, so-
cial events, and community gatherings ranked high. e need to meet people to
discuss abolition was a primary factor. It was fostered through forums, speeches,
national and international conventions, antislavery bazaars, annual fairs, ladies’
auxiliaries, sewing circles, reading rooms, and transatlantic voyages on steamers,
of which William Lloyd Garrison was so enthusiastic that he traveled to Europe
ve times. e medium of print culture also ourished due to such diverse inter-
ests of abolitionists. Consequently, a growing interest in conversing—in reading,
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 7
writing, speechmaking and traveling—became the norm. In consequence the
need to inform and educate was expressed in publication of large quantity of
pamphlets, journals, newspaper articles, advertisements, diaries, posters, auto-
biographical sketches, and exchange of letters among abolitionists during this
period. With the expansion of the abolitionist discourse, public enthusiasm in
print culture revealed itself in a variety of ways relevant to the materials and
technology that supported its growth in mid-nineteenth century.
* * *
is study was originally inspired with the need to formulate a methodological
approach in determining the impact of the abolitionist discourse on American
literature. Chapter One sets the historical trend on abolitionist mobilization
and introduces the circumstances that led to the alliance between Douglass and
Garrison. Chapter Two delineates how slavery was expanded despite the foun-
dational principles of the nation. Chapter ree delves into an analysis of repre-
sentative literary works in a variety of genres, from poetry to drama, to convey
the vitality of interest and optimism among major authors and essayists of the
era. Actually the interest in literary discourse owed its vigor to the antislavery
cooperation spearheaded by the alliance set between Garrison and Douglass.
Chapter Four is an exploration of the role of women, as activists and authors,
and how their abolitionist agendas inuenced the opinions of their audiences. In
the nal chapter, I demonstrate how sociopolitical circumstances and personal
transformations mounting to an inevitable climax in the early 1850s brought the
demise of the dynamic alliance between the two friends.
Although the scope of this study is limited to the ten-year catalytic encoun-
ter between Douglass and Garrison, it does not leave out signicant develop-
ments that occurred in tandem among other abolitionists and activists of the
era. Benjamin Lundy, David Walker, Robert Purvis, Ralph Waldo Emerson,
Henry David oreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, Angelina Grimké Weld, Sarah
Moore Grimké , eodore Dwight Weld, Amy Kirby Post, Julia Griths, Abby
Kelley Foster, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Maria Miller W. Stewart, Lucretia Mott,
William Still, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, John Brown, Frances Ellen
Watkins Harper, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Lydia Maria Child, and Harriet Beecher
Stowe are included in an expository narrative that highlights their relationships
to the ideologies relevant then. Most signicantly their speeches, letters, editori-
als, autobiographies and creative works are studied from the vantage point of the
decisive ten-year alliance between Garrison and Douglass that inuenced their
thinking in ways that both coalesce and diverge with others’.
e impact of Wendell Phillips, the Harvard-graduate lawyer and the cel-
ebrated debater on abolitionist discourse is also accentuated, though not as di-
rectly. Despite his inuential presence and forceful arguments as “abolition’s
Golden Trumpet,” the focus is rather on illuminating the impact of the Garrison-
Introduction8
Douglass alliance on the discourse. Phillips had an extensive role in the antislav-
ery movement. However, his recruitment into modest ranks of abolitionists from
the Boston elite was a feat accomplished largely by Garrison, who was his close
friend. In 1837, during a meeting at Faneuil Hall, Phillips praised Elijah Parish
Lovejoy who was killed in Illinois that November. In 1850s Phillips advocated
women’s rights and assisted Lucy Stone in preparing the rst petition campaign
for women’s surage in Massachusetts. His skills in speech-making and pro-
ciency in debating his opponents, as well as his participation in the 1854 attempt,
with omas Wentworth Higginson, to rescue Anthony Burns from the court-
house in Boston registered his name into the ranks of the abolitionist front.
e alliances formed for and against Garrison-Douglass collaboration are
also investigated to measure the extent of their long-lasting inuences on friends,
rivals, and opponents alike. Lastly, considerable attention is paid to the represen-
tation of abolitionist ideas in literary themes as women’s rights, motherhood, ed-
ucation, moral reform, temperance, and antislavery campaigns swept the North
from the 1830s onwards. While assessing the contributions of smaller streams
rushing toward the formation of a major ooding in abolitionist discourse, I
attempted to maintain my conviction that, contrary to what has been said so far,
neither Douglass nor Garrison loathed each other even after they separated their
ways. eir creative energies had weaved for them dierent levels of individual
consciousness, while they jointly tried to demonstrate that there is yet more work
to accomplish. In 1859 on the day of John Brown’s execution, Garrison still
remarked: “I am a Non-Resistant—a believer in the inviolability of human life,
under all circumstances; I disarm John Brown and every slave at the South . . . I
also disarm, every slaveholder and tyrant in the world. . . . no oppressed and no
oppressor in the nature of things.”10
Ultimately Dismantling Slavery evolved out of a plan to illuminate the prop-
ositional discourse conceptualized through a mutually rewarding, decade-long
expression of solidarity between the two masterminds of the Northern antislav-
ery movement. I hope in the process to demonstrate the underlying thesis of the
book, that through the stages of an extraordinary partnership between Garrison
and Douglass, the antislavery mobilization was accelerated reaching its height
between 1841 and 1851. Centering their arguments on emancipation, women’s
equality, and surage the two men worked tirelessly to publicize and join new
recruits to their cause.
Dening the Median
Primarily by analyzing the development of the alliance between Garrison and
Douglass a number of internal dynamics about nineteenth century race rela-
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 9
tions can also be evinced. From implications of an extraordinary friendship that
easily transcended the color line, to lesser known aspects of their alliance, such
an analysis adds epistemological and axiological breadth to my literary analysis
from the standpoint of discourse, but one that is not necessarily related solely to
rhetoric. Much of the current scholarship on Garrison and Douglass tends to be
exclusively historical; besides no study seems to propose a comparative approach
to illuminate their ideologies and, therefore, they are limited in scope. is book,
however, attempts to exceed the expectations of its audience through a multi-
disciplinary and comparative analysis as it evaluates Douglass-Garrison dialogue
through a variety of sources that initiated not only a political but a moral reform
in nineteenth-century America.
It is important to recognize that Garrison’s enthusiasm in seeking Douglass’s
trust and friendship originated to a certain extent from the fact that in Douglass’s
foregoing experience with slavery and in his uninching desire to attain free-
dom, there was great potential for public endorsement. Abolitionists aimed to
harness this potential. In eect, Garrison immediately recognized the oppor-
tunity of vocal assent in Douglass and planned to advance the antislavery dis-
course. Undoubtedly Douglass’s electrifying life-story, and the perilous account
of his escape stood as the ultimate testament to slavery’s dehumanizing eects
on human and society. roughout his crusade, Garrison assiduously aimed
to convey this message to his audiences. Additionally, by way of Douglass’s
African-ness and the time he spent in captivity, Garrison was able to validate not
only the disparity between freedom and unfreedom, man and property, power
and powerlessness, but expose the ill-eects of exploitation of the African by the
European. At the same time, Garrison knew that he would be able to carve out
for himself a signicant victory through his mentoring of Douglass because his
presence next to him on the rostrum legitimized and strengthened Garrison’s ar-
guments. He was able to intensify the inuence of antislavery discourse, project
his humanitarian identity in defense of the African, and maintain visibility as
the leader of Northern abolitionism among free blacks and white abolitionists.
In the meantime, Douglass was excited about the opportunity of being asked
to speak against slavery when he was hired as the eld agent of a major aboli-
tionist organization. Deep in his heart, however, he knew that he owed his fame
to the curiosity of white abolitionists roused by his former status. His ability to
speak eloquently was the consequence of his self-education; his heroic escape
constituted for him, as well as for his audiences, a major starting point and a
tangible physical reinforcement for the argument that slavery should be dein-
stitutionalized at once. Douglass’s literacy had delivered him humanity in the
eyes of the white power structure for whom literacy was the sign of intelligence.
us, determined to take advantage of his skills, Douglass agreed to become the
Introduction10
vehicle of change. For the next ten years, he worked to convert and transform
the advocates of slavery through moral suasion. Even his emancipation did not
change his thoughts: “My case is the case of thousands; and the case of my sis-
ters, is the case of Millions. . . . Oh! How deep the damnation of America . . .
is the wails of bondmen are on my ear, and their heavy sorrows weigh down my
heart.”11 Douglass took Garrison as his friend, mentor, and warrior comrade;
together they launched the most ecient attack on the very roots of slavery, and
attempted to dismantle it through abolitionist reform agenda.
For Douglass, however, attacking slavery meant more than the settlement
of a personal feud with his past owners. In addition to being a transcendent
journey on route to freedom, joining abolitionists entailed a commitment, and
a pledge to his friends in bondage. e prospect to prevail among whites rested
on his capacity to address and inform his audience eectively about the evils of
slavery. Besides building a life for himself and his young family, he knew that he
was contributing substantially to the cause which had allowed him to be freed
from his shackles. e vestiges of his African roots, the longing for his mother,
the songs of his grandmother, recollections about his extended family, and their
impact on his life never abandoned him. He desired to be included in the vesti-
bules of nineteenth century American society permanently as a citizen, though
he knew that he would encounter numerous road blocks. “While I am address-
ing you, four of my own dear sisters and one brother are enduring the frightful
horrors of American slavery. In what part of the Union, they may be, I do not
know; two of them, Sarah and Catherine, were sold from Maryland before I
escaped from there. I am cut o from all communication with—I cannot hear
from them, nor can they hear from me—we are sundered forever.”12
Naturally, Douglass’s speeches were cultivated within African cultural norms
and molded by brutality of captivity. His experience in and out of enslavement
was revealed through cosmological qualications he had inherited as a black
speaker. Epistemologically, both in spirit and style, Douglass’s discourse diered
from the discourses of his white colleagues. Most importantly, Douglass was not
intimidated by white audiences; his prociency in grammar and syntax, taught
earlier by e Columbian Orator, always worked to his advantage:
Seventeen millions of armed, disciplined, and intelligent people,
against three millions of unarmed ad uninformed. Sir we are often
taunted with the inquiry from Northern white men—“Why do your
people submit to slavery? And does not that submission prove them an
inferior race? . . . It is mean and cowardly for any white man to use such
language towards us. My language to all such, is, Give us fair play and
if we do not gain our freedom, it will be time to taunt us thus.13
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 11
If Garrison could persuade the crowds with his antislavery rhetoric, Douglass
had the potential to make them march in step with him. His words resonated
with a thunderous roar; his speech felt like rain soaking the land with blessings.
Such a tremendous eect was clearly a unique attribute of Douglass’s personal
discourse which he had perfected over many years. Nonetheless, it reected Af-
rican characteristics which he had transported through his ancestral kinship.
is quality rendered his speeches superior to other eld agents’. Due to the
prevalence of his experience in slavery, and his engaging style and eloquence in
rendering his thoughts, Douglass’s speeches received vocal assent among white
abolitionists more so readily than the free blacks who observed his accomplish-
ments with a certain sense of satisfaction and delight.
As Toni Morrison puts it, “Africanism is the vehicle by which the Ameri-
can self knows itself as not enslaved, but free; not repulsive, but desirable; not
helpless, but licensed and powerful; not history-less, but historical; not damned,
but innocent; not a blind accident of evolution, but a progressive fulllment of
destiny.”14 In recognizing African qualities within Douglass’s discourse, one has
to be cognizant of the element of suggestive manipulation therein. Morrison ar-
ticulates her discontent with the way in which the Africanist narrative is manip-
ulated within American literature and posits instead a new critical perspective in
discourse analysis: “e experience of being bound and/or rejected as a means
of meditation—both safe and risky—on one’s own humanity [reveals] how the
representation and appropriation of that narrative provides opportunities to
contemplate limitation, suering, rebellion . . . fate and destiny.” She states the
nature and reasons of such analyses as follows: “ey will analyze how that nar-
rative is used for discourse on ethics, social and universal codes of behavior, and
assertions about and denitions of civilization and reason. Criticism of this type
will show how that narrative is used in construction of a history and a context
for whites by positing history-lessness and context-lessness for blacks.”15
Like Morrison, Michael Bennett mentions the vast potential within African
American community to create a new contemplative narrative and recognizes
collective eorts in “formulating a democratic aesthetic much dierent from the
modernist aesthetic that guided later attempts to separate art and politics into
opposed realms.”16 One has to be cognizant of the fact that black discourse on un-
freedom was born long before the formation of antislavery societies in the North.
Fugitives spoke about their experiences; they told their stories, and often encoun-
tered immense diculties in this regard. When they wrote poetry, they bore the
brunt of establishing their “authenticity” or “ownership” of an “authentic literary
sensibility” as in the case of Phillis Wheatley who stood trial in 1772 before a jury
of white men. Besides agency and intelligence, African Americans’ aptitude for
literacy was also questioned in a variety of ways as exemplied in this study.
Introduction12
In response to prejudice and discrimination, simply because his precarious
circumstances in captivity did not allow him to express his full-edged response
to oppression under the threat of violence, the African avoided any confronta-
tion with whites by disguising his or her awareness of prevailing oddities around
him. During his enslavement, Douglass witnessed the psychological problems of
Captain Anthony, but he chose not to reveal the depth of his understanding. In
My Bondage, and My Freedom he mentioned that he was as aware of his mas-
ter’s “mutterings, attitudes and gestures” as the man himself was. Yet at an early
age he had learned the extent of communication one could initiate with a slave
master, because he knew that too much knowledge always meant trouble for an
independent-minded slave. us, Douglass asserted: “Ignorance is a high virtue
in a human chattel; and as the master studies to keep the slave ignorant, the slave
is cunning enough to make the master think he succeeds. e slave fully appre-
ciates the saying, ‘where ignorance is bliss, ‘tis folly to be wise.’”17 Only after he
attained his freedom could Douglass reect upon the days he spent in bondage
and speak his mind freely. In the rst issue of e North Star he wrote: “e man
who has suered the wrong is the man to demand redress,—that the man
is the man to —
S L. I
, , —
, .” Yet he
did not disclose the full details about his background until May 1845 during a
meeting at the American Anti-Slavery Society in New York. With his full identity
revealed he denitely compromised his safety. Meanwhile in September 1843, he
was beaten by a pro-slavery mob during a rally in Pendleton, Indiana. His right
hand was broken, and never healed fully. In 1850 he was attacked again during a
stroll with the Griths sisters at New York City’s Battery Park. White prejudice
would continue to disturb him throughout his entire life.
Douglass was aware of the fact that racial unity constituted one of the most
important steps in building a united front against slaveholders. Meanwhile, he
reiterated the fact that the struggle for collective emancipation rose on the shoul-
ders of blacks rather than whites. In the January 2, 1848 issue of e North Star,
Douglass asserted: “We are one, that our cause is one, and that we must help
each other, if we would succeed . . . If we rise, we must rise together; if we fall,
we must fall together.”19 Nevertheless, besides racial unity, humanitarian politics
constituted an important part of his antislavery discourse in which he conceived
women’s rights as equally vulnerable to white chauvinism. e cornerstone of
his approach to race and humanity was his rmly held belief that God created
all human beings as equals with inalienable rights. e Declaration of Inde-
pendence and the U.S. Constitution in particular, according to Douglass, were
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 13
written as a result of the nation’s struggle against British oppression. By the same
token universal humanism, combined with Christian benevolence, represented
one of Douglass’s major arguments against slavery. Perfection could have been
achieved since there were unlimited opportunities for the nation to seek deliver-
ance. As Douglass became a luminary abolitionist, he formulated his discourse
around the idea of universal justice, yet maintained a safe distance from support-
ers of ultra-nationalism, including David Walker and Henry Highland Garnet.
However, like Walker, throughout his abolitionist career Douglass believed
that oppression and slaveholding are both heretical and lacking in human com-
passion. Having gone through multiple stages in his personal struggle to assert
his identity—rst as a self-made man and later as a leader and spokesman for
his race—Douglass’s discourse represented the culmination of African people’s
ability to endure prevailing circumstances of captivity. On the other hand,
Douglass’s racial makeup had dictated and distinguished the complexity of his
vision rather dierently in his youth. He did not know his father; it was ru-
mored that he was his master. He met his mother only once or twice during his
childhood; she died when he was seven years old. Raised by his grandmother,
Douglass longed for his mother, and recalled her as the key person in his early
life. “ousands are ushered into the world, annually, who like myself, owe their
existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own mas-
ters.”20 Unlike others Douglass was not intimidated by his white ancestry; but
he preferred to be identied with his mother’s side, and trusted that he owed his
accomplishments to his African roots rather than his Anglo-Saxon lineage.
As he spoke of Martin R. Delany, his friend and co-editor for e North
Star, Douglass often remarked: “I thank God for making me a man simply,
but Delany always thanks him for making him a black man.” Douglass did not
lack race-pride; on the contrary, his entire life was dedicated to hold his head
high. In this regard the argument put forth by Waldo E. Martin Jr., needs to
be rescinded. He claimed that Douglass “lacked the erce race pride associated
with Martin R. Delany, [Edward Wilmot] Blyden and Alexander Crummell,
full blooded black leaders and intellectuals.”21 Since his childhood Douglass was
self-conscious about his white ancestry, but he did not dwell on it as much as he
exerted his black identity. His alliance with Boston’s white abolitionists, as well
as the attention he received from enthusiastic whites may have been responsible
for his rather cautious phraseology and language during his lectures. In his ma-
ture years, as his antislavery discourse became more robust and individually au-
tonomous, he was able to express himself freely about the plight of the black race.
rough his determination, Douglass rose to even greater prominence after be-
ing emancipated. However when his safety was compromised, he was sent on his
rst international lecture tour to Ireland, Scotland, and England which initiated
Introduction14
a whole new series of experiences and lifelong friendships for him. He was on his
way to becoming an independent-minded, and inuential black leader. Later his
move to Rochester facilitated his transformation from a hired antislavery lecturer
into a black editor, the owner of a newspaper, and to a race man. His discourse
grew more emphatic as he targeted his attacks toward specic individuals and
maintained a clear vision about his agenda which included political action to
end slavery. In his translocation from Boston to Rochester, Douglass was able
to subvert the rules and restrictions imposed upon him by white abolitionists.
However, his persistence on political action would eventually lead to his separa-
tion from Garrison.
In 1850s, Douglass grew impatient with black disenfranchisement. He wanted
African Americans to take up the ght and communicate their needs, as well
as their rights, rather than hoping for white abolitionists and politicians to help
them as they did in the past. As he addressed his brethren held in bondage, he
exclaimed: “We are One with you under the ban of prejudice and proscription—
one with you under the slander of inferiority—one with you in social and political
disenfranchisement.”22 Douglass needed a vehicle to impress and even transform
his audience; they needed to be encouraged to resist white oppression. He believed
it would happen only if he could address black society through his own paper.
e North Star thrust a new era in history of black discourse and black press.
e period was marked with early signs of the ultimate split with Garrison, but
it heralded a new chapter in Douglass’s endeavors towards self-determination.
He had mortgaged his house on Alexander Street in Rochester to secure the
funds necessary to purchase a printing press. Despite nancial diculties, he
was determined to carry out his strategy independently. On December 3rd he
printed the inaugural issue of e North Star. In the following days he began to
articulate his new ideology unapologetically, with rmer resolution and clarity.
He resolved to adopt a stronger notion of “black agency,” and merge it with his
own marque of abolitionist discourse. e rst editorial opened with a pledge:
“We solemnly dedicate the ‘NORTH STAR’ to your cause, our long-oppressed
and plundered countrymen. May God bless the oering to your good! It shall
fearlessly assert your rights, faithfully proclaim your wrongs, and earnestly de-
mand for you instant and even handed justice. Giving no quarter to slavery at
the South, it will hold no truce with oppressors at the North.”23
In August 1848, Douglass spoke of Nat Turner as a “man of noble cour-
age, who rose among his brethren in Virginia,” and recalled Turner’s prophetic
words: “e hour of our deliverance has come. Let us rise and strike for liberty.
In the name of a God of justice let us stay our oppressors.”24 A former slave’s abil-
ity to view tyranny from the perspective of the oppressed was the key element in
distinguishing African American discourse from the white abolitionist rhetoric.
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 15
Furthermore, in Douglass’s uninhibited voice one could feel a mounting dissat-
isfaction with Garrison’s nonresistant and non-political stance, regardless of his
pledge to their common cause.25
Besides agency, black discourse distinguished itself in its response to the
challenges concerning questions of identity and ownership. In her preface Harriet
Ann Jacobs, writing as Linda Brent, had to assure and convince her readers
about the authenticity of her story. She asked her friends Amy Kirby Post, and
George W. Lowther, whom she identied as “a respectable colored citizen of
Boston,” to testify for the legitimacy of her work as Lydia Maria Child provided
the Introduction for the autobiography: “Reader be assured this narrative is no
ction. I am aware that some of my adventures may seem incredible; but they
are, nevertheless, strictly true. I have not exaggerated the wrongs inicted by
Slavery; my descriptions fall far short of the facts.”26 Earlier, Jacobs had told her
story to Post, who had subsequently deemed it necessary to testify for her friend.
Her testimonial read in part as follows: “e author of this book is my highly-
esteemed friend. She was a beloved inmate of our family nearly the whole of the
year 1849. As we became acquainted, she related to me, some of the incidents in
her bitter experiences as a slave-woman.”27
Another characteristic identiable within black discourse of the era was the
quality of intended restraint, the whispered “hush,” as Anna Julia Cooper stated
“one mued strain,” “a jarring chord,” by “the one mute and the voiceless note
. . . the Black Woman of America.”28 Not that black women had been unable
to translate their personal experiences with white society; they simply did not
want to. Deborah G. White contends that, contrary to what has been argued by
white critics, “Slave women understood the value of silence and secrecy. Being
both black and female . . . they knew to be true what Simone de Beauvoir would
elaborate nearly a century after formal bondage ended.”29 White further asserts:
“Women, like slaves and servants deliberately hedge their objective reality. . . .
ey hide their real sentiments and turn toward him a changeless smile or an
enigmatic impassivity.” e case has been proved by Phillis Wheatley’s almost
inscrutable surrender to authority for the sake of nding a publisher. No doubt
she was too timid and naive to express her real sentiments relevant to her pe-
culiar circumstance: a Senegalese girl, actually a young poetess, torn from her
parents, sold into eighteenth-century New England to endure the impositions of
the white culture.
More peculiar, of course, is Jacobs’s initial reluctance to share her story
with Post, who insisted that she expose to the entire world the nature of the
sexual abuse that she had suered under the pursuit of her malicious owner
Dr. Norcom (whom she named “Dr. Flint” in her autobiography) who pursued
her relentlessly. In order to enrage Norcom, Harriet befriended a white lawyer
Introduction16
named Sawyer (whom she called “Mr. Sands”) and had two children by him at
age twenty. About her predicament she later wrote: “I wanted to keep myself
pure; and, under the most adverse circumstances, I tried hard to preserve my
self-respect; but I was struggling alone in the powerful grasp of the demon Slav-
ery; and the monster proved too strong for me.”30 Enslavement imposed peculiar
demands on a black woman’s sexual identity. In her decision to accept Sawyer
as her lover, Jacobs was acting as an agent, and refusing to be a victim. She had
ultimately hoped to attain her freedom through Sawyer and expected that he
would purchase her. She asserted: “ere is something akin to freedom in having
a lover who has no control over you, except that which he gains by kindness and
attachment.”31 Call it love, attachment, or temptation, her experiences were quite
agonizing, and Jacobs must have felt deeply intimidated by the social norms of
her society which scrutinized all women, let alone a slave girl caught in an ille-
gitimate relationship with a white man. us if enslaved black women could not
produce as eective an abolitionist discourse as that of black men, it was perhaps
due to their decision to keep painful memories condential, and sacred only to
themselves. Jacobs did not even reveal her true identity and published her nar-
rative under a pseudonym instead. Discourse under oppression had to follow an
elliptical and arcane path.
e meaning attached to discourse in Western aesthetic and literary sen-
sibility is not so monolithic. In search of a contemporary denition to explain
discourse, numerous philosophical assumptions, including those by Jacques
Lacan, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and other Western philosophers are
investigated. With his arguments on signicance of public sphere, deliberative
democracy, and communicative rationality in a society, Jürgen Habermas’s ideas
oer some understanding to the distinction of the Garrison-Douglass dialogue
and its egalitarian characteristics, which demonstrated the potential to revolu-
tionize the course of events pertinent to maintenance of slavery in America.32 On
the other hand in his discussion about the “formation of historical knowledge,”
Foucault examines the relationship between power, authority, democracy, and
society, concluding that history has been written, permanently, from the stand-
point of the powerful. Foucault asserts that “subjugated knowledges,” that have
been “disqualied by the hierarchy of erudition and sciences,” originate from
“domination of power.” erefore, any discourse serving the interests of society,
in defense of its constituents’ rights, regardless of their status within that par-
ticular society, is emancipatory, and must be safeguarded.33 Due to its primary
focus on coercion, and ways to dismantle it, abolitionist discourse also ranks
within emancipatory discourses.
Garrison-Douglass discourse was based upon soundness of moral principles
and reason, as well as restoration of ethics in defense of humanity and democ-
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 17
racy. By pursuing deliberative democracy both men set the stage for the inau-
guration of a democratic society, where deliberation played an essential role in
decision-making for the welfare of its citizens. My analysis too is grounded in
the centrality of morality, deliberation, and dialogue in American democracy,
and the manner in which its eects were felt in the thoughts and speeches of
Garrison and Douglass—a phenomenon which ultimately shaped their unique
brand of abolitionist discourse.
rough a multi-disciplinary interpretation of abolitionist discourse, I also
intend to focus on the African and African American aesthetic sensibility, which
distinguishes itself from other analytical theories through its particular empha-
sis on the power of the word. Nommo, “the utterance,” as an element of African
cosmology and center of discursive communication, is known as the source of
foundational energy responsible for producing signicant changes within a so-
ciety. “Beware of what you say, because there is power in the word,” is part of a
lesson to be learned in African philosophy. e utterance, as exemplied in the
speeches of Douglass and other African orators who came before him, possesses
the capability of altering the course of events in a community. Communication
theorists assert that there is a connection between black public discourse and cer-
tain African orishas (in Yoruba religion orishas include Seven African Powers, as
they are considered powerful spirits of nature, deities, and ancestors, represent-
ing ideas or concepts such as self-determination and victorious consciousness),
leading to the prevalence of nommo.34 In fact, Douglass initially relied on the
power of the word in his early speeches; subsequently he turned to emphasize
writing as well, as he moved to assert the basic ingredients of democratic unity in
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.
In analyzing the discourse between Garrison and Douglass, my focus rests on
the African American point of view and its inuence on the formation of Black
emancipation ideologies despite the barriers set up against literacy. Douglass’s
education was banned by his master; following Nat Turner’s uprising blacks were
roundly forbidden from learning the alphabet. e public frenzy about David
Walker’s pamphlet being circulated in their communities brought a major set-
back to aspirations about education. Following the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850,
restrictions about prospects of attaining knowledge were amplied. During the
Civil War Northern teachers, including Charlotte Forten Grimké and John
Greenleaf Whittier taught newly emancipated blacks at Port Royal, South Caro-
lina. Literacy being one of their primary concerns, both Douglass and Booker T.
Washington narrated their struggles and sacrices in early youth, which testied
to the fact that education had been one of the most expensive tickets for a black
man’s journey to a higher plane against the white dominant discourse that spoke
of his inferiority.
Introduction18
In his autobiographies and speeches Douglass often expressed his interest
in self-education. Imagine a young man who can read world classics, who can
speak at dierent languages when he is yet an adolescent; imagine him address-
ing rooms full of white men and women when he is only in his mid-twenties.
Test his skills, his courage, and behold. In his wearisome ordeals Douglass was
not alone. Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman did not know how to read and
write, but they were conversant with an inner drive which was in turn circulated
by the hope in their hearts. While seeking freedom each suered spiritual and
physical losses. Truth witnessed the cruel beating of the man whom she loved;
later had her son Peter taken from her arms, and she saw him sold into slavery
while he was just a baby. Tubman spent most of her adult life on the road due to
the immense responsibility she had undertaken while assisting fugitives.
Historically, American democracy excluded all women from its deliberations
on equality and independence, and Truth was no exception. In 1851 when she
was accompanying British abolitionist George ompson on a lecture tour in Ak-
ron, Ohio, Truth stood up, and asked the audience, “Ain’t I a woman?” She spoke
for all, black and white alike, despite the hisses and boos from the white audience,
including women who had initially opposed her attendance at the Akron con-
vention. Ironically, they had come to Akron to voice their opinions against male
authority. “Look at me! Look at my arm! . . . I have borne thirteen chilern and
seen em mos’ of all sold o into slavery, and when I cried out with a mother’s grief,
none but Jesus heard—and ar’n’t I a woman?”35 Truth’s speech was reminiscent
of Jacobs’s narrative; both women condemned the indierence of white society
while slave women continued to suer in isolation, and treated as “heirlooms” by
their owners. Women of childbearing age were the most valuable assets for a plan-
tation owner. Southern men usually bragged about their “breeding wenches” and
referred to them as “mines of wealth.” “Young girls,” wrote White, “were valuable
for their progeny as well as for the labor they would be expected to do in the eld.
If handled properly, females made for their masters a ‘mine of wealth.’”36
Truth and Jacobs each set good examples and spent their lives as agents of
change. Despite the abuse they endured, they were not afraid to speak harshly
against the machinery of slavery. Exploitation of black women by white men fa-
cilitated continuation of slavery despite Christian teachings against immorality.
Jacobs mentioned Southern women who allowed their husbands to have children
with slave women: “Southern women often marry a man knowing that he is the
father of many little slaves. ey do not trouble themselves about it. ey regard
such children as property, as marketable as the pigs on the plantation.”37 Tubman
took nineteen trips to the Eastern shore of Maryland, where she had originally
escaped from in 1849. She had instituted and maintained the Northeastern route
of the Underground Railroad and traveled it dozens of times, whether alone
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 19
or with passengers in her company. Her contribution to the secret network of
the Underground Railroad had been vastly reported, but lesser known was her
involvement in the Civil War both as a spy and a scout. Few scholars give her
credit as the exceptionally resourceful female leader of the land reconnaissance
operations both before and after the war. is is why John Brown always referred
to her as “General Tubman.”
African Americans called Tubman “Moses” mainly due to her eorts to se-
cure safe passage for more than three hundred slaves. Singlehandedly Tubman
transformed individual struggles for freedom into a mass exodus. Henceforth,
her involvement in the formation of the abolitionist discourse was crucial. De-
spite her illiteracy, her intelligence and astuteness assisted her to organize a dual
attack on the origins of slavery. Primarily, she was responsible for “stealing valu-
able property,” from Southern slaveholders by facilitating numerous escapes.
Secondly, she deed racial assumptions that associated intelligence with literacy.
e fact that an illiterate black woman was capable of operating a secret network
to aid captives posed a substantial threat to America’s socio-economic and po-
litical stability. e Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 was enacted to block individuals
like Tubman, whose rise to prominence as a deant “smuggler” was intolerable.
On the other hand, due to her daring eorts, she was venerated by leaders of the
abolitionist movement, including Garrison, Douglass, John Brown, and Lucretia
Mott. In the late nineteenth century, Tubman’s legacy—the resistant spirit she
had epitomized—was revisited by activist black women including Ida B. Wells
and Mary Church Terrell. e tradition of black protest and discourse on free-
dom do continue in the lifetime achievements of Fannie Lou Hamer, Angela
Davis, Toni Morrison, and Maya Angelou.
Transcendent Discourse
In this study, abolitionist discourse is analyzed from a contemporary standpoint,
with particular emphasis on the signicance and righteousness attributed to the
development of a dialogue between a white and a black man. eir discourse
was generated through an inclusive and Universalist moral framework, based
upon tolerance, mutual understanding and devotion to the cause of freedom.
is work examines how both men avoided political rhetoric throughout their
struggles, and paid attention, instead, how they could dismantle slavery. Ab-
olition movement can be viewed as the product of a discourse on freedom, or
“unfreedom,”38 a term coined by Angela Davis through her readings of Douglass
and W. E. B. Du Bois, both of whom became the leading chroniclers of African
American narrative of liberation from 1850s to 1960s. Pointing at one of the
conicts about practice of freedom(s) in Western society, Davis asserts:
Introduction20
One of the most accurate paradoxes present in the history of West-
ern society is that while on a philosophical plane freedom has been
delineated in the most lofty and sublime fashion, concrete reality has
always been permeated with the most brutal forms of unfreedom, of
enslavement. In ancient Greece, where, so we are taught, democracy
had its source . . . the majority of the people in Athens were not free.
Women were not citizens and slavery was an accepted institution.
Moreover, there was denitely a form of racism present in Greek so-
ciety, for only Greeks were suited for the benets of freedom: all non-
Greeks were called barbarians and by their very nature could not be
deserving or even capable of freedom.39
“Black literature,” Davis asserts, “provides a much more illuminating ac-
count of the nature of freedom, its extent and limits, than all the philosophical
discourses” on the theme of freedom and unfreedom in the history of Western
society. She contends that black people have exposed the truth about the dis-
crepancy between the “theoretical formulation” and the “practice of freedom.”
As Davis remarks, “If the theory of freedom remains isolated from the practice
of freedom or rather is contradicted in reality, then this means that something
must be wrong with the concept.”40
Davis’s argument on “unfreedom” echoes Douglass’s speeches from mid-
1850s where he explicitly targeted American democracy, and labeled it “democ-
racy of slavery.” Additionally, abolitionist literature provided ample evidence
about the disparity between the theory and practice of freedom in the States. e
nineteenth century abolitionist discourse illustrated the nature of the conict
between race and freedom. In the twentieth century the Harlem Renaissance
propelled the forward motion which gained further strength during the Black
Arts and Black Power movements, pointing at the gap within America’s general
discourse on individual freedoms. Such developments moved African American
literary expression to inhabit center stage on a discourse about unveiling the
truth in a democratic society.
Nevertheless, as racial prejudice, and unfreedom persist in our society, they
become, as Du Bois would argue, the problem of the twenty-rst century as well.
Unwarranted killings of black men (Martin Lee Anderson in 2009, Trayvon
Martin in 2012, Michael Brown and Eric Garner in 2014) sanction the legacy of
unfreedom in the land of the free. Davis suggests that lack of freedom for blacks
is manifest in literature as well: “Black literature in this country and throughout
the world projects the consciousness of a people who have been denied entrance
into the real world of freedom.”41 e conceptualization of protest literature as
a discipline with its roots in antislavery activism can be cited as one of the out-
DISMANTLING THE DISCOURSE OF UNFREEDOM 21
comes of the conict aroused by American slavery, and its clash with the aboli-
tionist discourse.
Over the course of my research I took into account a longer-range view of ab-
olitionist discourse as the convergence of two major streams. “Stream” conjures
the image of fresh, clean water, a vital element of body-soul cleansing. Primarily
people in bondage, with the help of free black agents communicated their resis-
tance to slavery through correspondences and alliances that they established with
black and white abolitionists. David Walker’s “Appeal,” William W. Brown’s
e Escape and Clotel, or the President’s Daughter, Douglass’s Narrative, and
Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl collectively constitute solid
examples for the undaunted spirit of African American men and women to
challenge authority. Secondly, white abolitionists, through their conviction to
oppose practices of unfreedom in America—including enslavement, oppres-
sion, injustice, inequality, mob and police violence—were engaged in social,
economic, political and literary protest throughout the nineteenth century. e
accomplishments of people in both groups ultimately merged to give birth to
abolitionist discourse. Besides the leadership roles of Garrison and Douglass, the
literary surge of the movement was maintained by distinguished authors and po-
ets such as Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Maria Miller W. Stewart, Lydia Maria
Child, Angelina Grimké Weld, Sarah Moore Grimké, eodore Dwight Weld,
Wendell Phillips, Julia Griths, and John Greenleaf Whittier.
roughout their collaboration, Douglass and Garrison became the agents
of change, transforming and reorganizing both written and oral trends of the
discourse well into the end of the Civil War. Bold, courageous, cynical, con-
templative, religious, hypercritical, metaphorical, sarcastic in tone, as well as in
style, their words, phrases, mottos, doctrines, and slogans were cited, recalled,
recanted, and circulated through books, pamphlets, leaets, lectures, letters, and
editorials, until the sociopolitical milieu of American discourse on democracy
was aptly transformed, amended and redened.
In his classic volume, History of the United States James F. Rhodes argued
that the abolitionists had an “impelling power . . . on those who were already
voters and on thinking youth who were to become voters, and who, in their turn,
prevailed upon others.”42 Rhodes stated that through their discourse abolitionists
prepared the way for “the political rising of 1854–1860 against the slave power.”
“We must picture to ourselves this process of argument,” Rhodes asserted, “of
discussion, of persuasion, going on for twenty-ve years, with an ever-increasing
momentum, and we cannot resist the conviction that this antislavery agitation
had its part in the rst election of Lincoln.” Rhodes illuminated the path I
had taken in my research, and validated my conviction with his proclamation:
“But in what a state of turpitude the North would have been if it had not bred
Introduction22
abolitionists!” One of the most revealing assessments about the discourse gener-
ated by the Garrison-Douglass alliance was articulated by Rhodes: “It was due
to Garrison and his associates that slavery became a topic of discussion at every
Northern reside.” In 1867 at a breakfast given in his honor in London, Garrison
modestly reiterated his attraction to duty and moral conviction: “I must here
disclaim, with all sincerity of soul, any special praise . . . I have simply tried to
maintain the integrity of my soul before God, and to do my duty. I have refused
to go with the multitude to do evil. I have endeavored to save my country from
ruin. I have sought to liberate such as were held captive in the house of bondage.
But all this I ought to have done.”43
In this study by combining multiple viewpoints, I plan to explore the foun-
dation that bred the grand re of the abolitionist discourse. Numerous rivu-
lets were developed by reform-minded abolitionists and former slaves, fugitives
and freedom ghters, sympathizers and agents both in the North, and in the
South. e responsibilities they undertook, as well as the challenges they faced
in forging an abolitionist front for the sake of the oppressed, stand strong. ey
envisioned themselves capable of altering the established norms of their era; they
fought for their principles, and wanted to accomplish their goals by all means
necessary. I am appreciative of the opportunity to be able to locate, as the basis
of my analysis, the force of the agency they possessed, and observe their deter-
mination to maintain the discourse on freedom, and democracy in this country.
Whereas I began with the prospect of focusing on works before mine as ana-
lytical springboards, I eventually sought to identify and reconstruct a separate
pathway to contextualize the literary streams that lled the well of abolitionist
discourse, as it was contemplated and practiced mainly by two of its principal
actors. For me their legacy has been transcendent.
