A Man of Feeling, A Man of Colour: James Forten and the Rise of African American Deliberative Rhetoric

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
pp. 297-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen McClish
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Rhetorical Practice ◽  
Political Traditions ◽  
American Blacks ◽  
Deliberative Rhetoric

This study examines the rhetorical practice of James Forten, an African American activist of the early republic. Focusing on four texts written between 1800 and 1832 for white audiences and considering Forten's efforts to align white readers with the plight of both free and enslaved American blacks, I explore pathos (particularly as conceived by eighteenth-century Scottish rhetoricians), the suppliant ethos, appeals based on Pennsylvania and U.S. legal and political traditions, and arguments addressing the practical concerns of the audience. Through such analysis, I demonstrate Forten's pioneering role in the development of African American deliberative rhetoric.

Eighteenth-Century Sierra Leone English

1999 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Montgomery
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Nova Scotia ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Sierra Leone ◽  
American English ◽  
African American English ◽  
History Of ◽  
Nova Scotian

This essay examines the language of an expatriate community as found in letters and petitions written by African Americans who migrated to Sierra Leone by way of Nova Scotia in 1792. These documents provide some of the earliest first-hand evidence of African American English and contribute to debates about the history of that variety. The paper compares selected grammatical features in that variety to modern-day African Nova Scotian English for insights to the history of African American English and develops a case for the principled use of manuscript documents for reconstructing earlier stages of colloquial English.

scholarly journals Native Bondage, Narrative Mobility: African American Accounts of Indian Captivity

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-25
Author(s):  
ASTRID HAAS
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
Print Culture ◽  
North American ◽  
Captivity Narrative ◽  
John Marrant

The article studies African American narratives of indigenous captivity from its emergence in the mid-eighteenth century to the mid-nineteenth. Taking accounts by Briton Hammon, John Marrant, Henry Bibb, and James Beckwourth as examples, the essay charts the development of this body of writings, its distinction from white-authored narratives, and its contribution to North American autobiography. In so doing, the article argues that the black-authored texts strategically employed only certain elements of the Indian captivity narrative and that they blended these with aspects of other types of Western autobiography to claim black people's agency and discursive authority in white-dominated print culture.

scholarly journals Problems of Assimilation and Difficulties of Becoming a Man in LeRoi Jones’s Dutchman

2020 ◽  
pp. 57-65
Author(s):  
Madhav Prasad Dahal
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
African American History ◽  
Way Of Life ◽  
Amiri Baraka ◽  
Racial Hatred ◽  
American Perspective ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Major Argument ◽  
American Blacks ◽  
Ways Of Life

This article attempts to explore the obstacles of an African American in becoming a Man in the white community in LeRoi Jones’s play Dutchman. In doing so, it analyzes the text from African American perspective, which is a black cosmological lens applied to critically examine African American history, culture and the literature, primarily with its focus on cultural assimilation and its aftermath. LeRoi Jones, also known with his new name Amiri Baraka, in this play exposes how the black Americans fall victim of racial hatred in the process of assimilating themselves with the mainstream white ways of life. The major argument of this article is an African American’s process of assimilation with the white culture is not only a detachment from his/her origin but also his/her failure to be accepted by the new culture. It argues that in adopting a new culture, a colored American is twice the victim of his/her past and the present. To justify this stark predicament of colored American population, the article briefly looks back at the situation of the American blacks in the 1960s. It ponders on the entire behavior of Clay, a twenty years old black boy in the play, his fondness in choosing to imitate the white world as a model. His craze for white way of life is reflected in the dress up he is putting on, his mastery over the use of cosmetic language of the whites, his eating of apple given by Lula, a thirty years old white lady who morbidly tempts him for sexual intercourse, his attempt to forget his own ancestral history to make him look more like an American than a descendent of slave. The article also analyses Lula’s stereotyping of Clay and the way she dictates white values and norms.

Playing with Race in the Early Republic: Mr. Potter, the Ventriloquist

2016 ◽  
Vol 89 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-285
Author(s):  
Paul E. Johnson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Show Business ◽  
Entertainment Culture

The first American-born stage magician and ventriloquist was an African American named Richard Potter. Potter's stage career (1811–1835) coincided with the transition from an entertainment culture grounded in a metropolitan Atlantic world to an American show business that was nationalist and racist. This essay traces Potter's strategies and experiences within that transformation.

Elizabeth Montagu's Study of Cicero's Life: The Formation of an Eighteenth-Century Woman's Rhetorical Identity

2008 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-187
Author(s):  
Tania Smith
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Identity Formation ◽  
Careful Analysis ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Rhetorical Practice ◽  
Eighteenth Century Britain ◽  
Insight Into

Abstract Popular eighteenth-century British biographies of Cicero had a significant impact on the rhetorical identity formation of Elizabeth Montagu (1720–1800). As the acknowledged founder of the “Bluestocking” salon, Elizabeth Montagu played a key role in forming the conversational and epistolary eloquence of her broad and influential network of men and women. A careful analysis of the young Elizabeth's epistolary discussion of biographies of Cicero and Atticus, especially Conyers Middleton's Life of Cicero, provides insight into Montagu's mature rhetorical practice as well as neo-Ciceronian influences on men's and women's rhetorical identity formation in eighteenth-century Britain.

Passing as a Pastor: Clerical Imposture in the Colonial Atlantic World

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas Kidd
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
North America ◽  
Atlantic World ◽  
Early Republic ◽  
Religious Authority ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
Early American Republic ◽  
Early American ◽  
True Value ◽  
Cultural Power

AbstractMany impostors in the eighteenth century tried to pass as pastors in North America's churches. This phenomenon showed how increasing engagement with the broader Atlantic world could carry ominous implications for colonial religious leaders, implications that would become manifest in the itinerancy of the evangelical revivals and, in the early republic, finally crush any hopes of centered American religious authority. Eighteenth-century episodes of clerical imposture help illuminate the increasing loss of cultural mastery faced by religious elites as a result of Atlantic anonymities, itinerant ministries, and democratic sensibilities. This article considers why so many in the eighteenth century attempted to pass as pastors, from British wanderers like the supposed brick-maker Samuel May to notorious criminals like Tom Bell or Stephen Burroughs. Understanding the conditions that led to these cases of clerical imposture leads to greater understanding of the nature of religious and cultural power in colonial North America and in the early American republic. The eighteenth century brought a crisis to America concerning the implications of cultural and demographic fluidity as elites worried more and more about assigning true value and uncovering conspiracy in a world newly dependent on appearances to establish authority. The increasing cosmopolitanism, immigration, and commerce helped make the colonial elites more wealthy and powerful, but they also now had to scramble to resist the potential for deception and imposture that the new engagements created. Such conditions made new room for con men, many of whom posed as pastors to access the power of religious authorities.

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