Becoming America - An Exploration of American Literature from Precolonial to Post-Revolution, 2018a

BECOMING AMERICA
REVOLUTIONARY AND EARLY NATIONAL PERIOD LITERATURE
4.8 DAVID WALKER
(c. 1796–1830)
David Walker’s father was a slave;
his mother, a freed slave. Due to his
mother’s status, Walker was also granted
status as a free black upon birth. How he
was taught to read and write is unknown,
as are the places where he traveled
around the South before electing Boston
as his home. In 1826, he married Eliza
Butler, daughter of a well-respected
black family in Boston. Walker started
a clothing store and involved himself in
the Abolition movement. He supported
the newspaper Freedom’s Journal
and joined the Massachusetts General
Colored Association. Most signicantly,
he wrote An Appeal to the Colored
Citizens of the World, but in Particular,
and Very Expressly, to Those of the
United States (1829).
In his Appeal, Walker particularly
took issue with Thomas Jeerson as
a racist and hypocrite—as indicated
especially by Jeerson’s Notes on the
Image 4.7 | Frontispiece from David
Walker’s An Appeal to the Colored
Citizens of the World
Artist | David Walker
Source | Wikimedia Commons
License | Public Domain
State of Virginia. Walker expanded that indictment against whites in America
who owned slaves or who supported slavery, particularly attacking their religious
hypocrisy and betrayal of the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. He also
directly addressed blacks, advocating resistance—even violent resistance—if
necessary. After its publication, Walker worked to disseminate it throughout
the United States but particularly in the South, relying on the mail and on black
sailors. The remarkable militant attitude of his Appeal gained Walker dangerous
notoriety, as pro-slavery Southerners sought either his capture or death. It also
inspired other black Abolitionists like Henry Highland Garnet (1815–1882) who
also advocated blacks’ violent resistance to slavery.
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