source of excerpt:  http://www.stockton.edu/~gilmorew/0colhis/v126-c.htm

AMERICAN VALUES IN HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
THE HERITAGE OF THINKING, 1789-1865

William J. Gilmore-Lehne
Associate Professor of History, Richard Stockton College
.

ISSUE 5. "IN THEIR OWN COIN": THE HEART OF AN AFRICAN AMERICAN SPEAKS

TEXT: DAVID WALKER (1785-1830). APPEAL TO THE COLOURED CITIZENS OF THE WORLD, BUT IN PARTICULAR, AND VERY EXPRESSLY, TO THOSE OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 1829 40

CONTEXT:
Published in 1829 at his own expense, Walker's Appeal was a powerful attack on slavery and argument for black nationalism. The Appeal went through three editions within a year. William Lloyd Garrison also reprinted much of it in The Liberator, though not at the time. His official position was: "we deprecate the spirit and tendency of this Appeal. Nevertheless, it is not for the American people as a nation, to denounce it as bloody or monstrous. Mr. Walker but pays them in their own coin, but follows their own creed, but adopts their own language." Henry Highland Garnet, the major Black Nationalist Writer and Abolitionist, also kept it alive by republishing it in 1848 together with one of his own addresses.41

The Appeal, in the words of the scholar of black nationalism, Sterling Stuckey, was "one of the most important black nationalist statements of the nineteenth century." 42Walker argued that after the blacks' sufferings came to an end, "Then we will want all the learning and talents among ourselves, and perhaps more, to govern ourselves." 43 Walker advocated that the African people in America take responsibility for their own liberation. After a Preamble, the Appeal consisted of four parts, each describing "Our Wretchedness in Consequence of...slavery; ignorance, preachers of the religion of Jesus Christ, and the colonizing plan. We have chosen excerpts from all parts aimed not at the particulars, but at the overall perspective and tone of the text.

Born in North Carolina in 1785, not as a slave but as a "free black," Walker received an education, read widely, and travelled extensively before settling in Boston in 1827. Walker ran a second-hand clothing business, lectured against slavery, and wrote essays for newspapers, particularly the newly established New York Freedom'sJournal, the first African American operated newspaper. In 1830, the year after his Appeal was published, Walker was found dead near the door of his shop, perhaps the victim of poisoning.

Appeal to the coloured citizens of the world, but in particular, and very expressly, to those of the United States of America... 1829

....Though our cruel oppressors and murderers, may (if possible) treat us more cruel, as Pharaoh did the children of Israel, yet the God of the Ethiopians, has been pleased to hear our moans in consequence of oppression; and the day of our redemption from abject wretchedness draweth near, when we shall be enabled, in the most extended sense of the word, to stretch forth our hands to the Lord Our God, but there must be a willingness on our part, for God to do these things for us, for we may be assured that he will not take us by the hairs of our head against our will and desire, and drag us from our very mean, low and abject condition.

Preamble My dearly beloved Brethren and Fellow Citizens.

Having travelled over a considerable portion of these United States, and having, in the course of my travels, taken the most accurate observations of things as they exist--the result of my observations has warranted the full and unshaken conviction, that we (coloured people of these United States), are the most degraded, wretched, and abject set of beings that ever lived since the world began; and I pray God that none like us ever may live again until time shall be no more. They tell us of the Israelites in Egypt, the Helots in Sparta, and of the Roman Slaves, which last were made up from almost every nation under heaven, whose sufferings... were, in comparison with ours,.. no more than a cipher--or, in other words, those nations of antiquity, had but little more among them than the name and form of slavery; while wretchedness and endless miseries were reserved, apparently in a phial, to be poured out upon our fathers, ourselves, and our children, by Christian Americans!

These positions I shall endeavour, by the help of the Lord, to demonstrate in the course of this Appeal, to the satisfaction of the most incredulous mind--and may God Almighty, who is the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, open your hearts to understand and believe the truth....

But against all accusations which may or can be preferred against me, 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 this Republican land of liberty!!!!!!...

The fact is, the labour of slaves comes too cheap to the avaricious usurpers, and is (as they think) of such great utility to the country where it exists, that those who are actuated by sordid avarice only, overlook the evils, which will as sure as the Lord lives, follow after the good. In fact, they are so happy to keep in ignorance and degradation, and to receive the homage and the labour of the slaves, they forget that God rules in the armies of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth, having his ears continually open to the cries, tears and groans of his oppressed people; and being a just and holy Being will at one day appear fully in behalf of the oppressed, and arrest the progress of the avaricious oppressors; for although the destruction of the oppressors God may not effect by the oppressed, yet the Lord our God will bring other destructions upon them--for not infrequently will he cause them to rise up one against another, to be split and divided, and to oppress each other, and sometimes to open hostilities with sword in hand....

....All the inhabitants of the earth (except however, the sons of Africa), are called men, and of course are, and ought to be free. But we (coloured people), and our children are brutes!! and of course are, and ought to be SLAVES to the American people and their children forever!! to dig their mines and work their farms; and thus go on enriching them, from one generation to another with our blood and our tears!!!!...

The man who would not fight under our Lord and Master Jesus Christ, in the glorious and heavenly cause of freedom and of God--to be delivered from the most wretched, abject and servile slavery, that ever a people was afflicted with since the foundation of the world, to the present day--ought to be kept with all of his children or family, in slavery, or in chains, to be butchered by his cruel enemies....

Can Christian Americans deny these barbarous cruelties? Have you not, Americans, having subjected us under you, added to these miseries, by insulting us in telling us to our face, because we are helpless, that we are not of the human family?...

We, and the world, wish to see the charges of Mr. Jefferson refuted by the black themselves, according to their chance, for we must remember that what the whites have written respecting this subject, is other men's labours, and did not emanate from the blacks. I know well, that there are some talents and learning among the coloured people of this country, which we have not a chance to develop, in consequence of oppression; but our oppression ought not to hinder us from acquiring all we can. For we will have chance to develop them by and by. God will not suffer us always to be oppressed. Our sufferings will come to an end, in spite of all the Americans this side of eternity. Then we will want all the learning and talents among ourselves, and perhaps more, to govern themselves.--"Every dog must have its day," the American's is coming to an end....

Are we men!!--I ask you, O my brethren! are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master as well as ours?--What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself?....

Men of colour, who are also of sense, for you particularly is my Appeal designed....

I must close this article by relating the very heart-rending fact, that I have examined school-boys and young men of colour in different parts of the country, in the most simple parts of Murray's English Grammar, and not more than one in thirty was able to give a correct answer to my interrogations....

Here is a fact, which I this very minute take from the mouth of a young coloured man, who has been to school in this state (Massachusetts) nearly nine years, and who knows grammar this day, nearly as well as he did the day he first entered the school-house, under a white master. This young man says: "My master would never allow me to study grammar." I asked him, why? "The school committee," said he "forbid the coloured children learning grammar--they would not allow any but the white children to study grammar." It is a notorious fact, that the major part of the white Americans, have, ever since we have been among them, tried to keep us ignorant, and make us believe that God made us, and our children to be slaves to them and theirs. Oh! my God, have mercy on Christian Americans!!!...

Yes, I have known small collections of coloured people to have convened together, for no other purpose than to worship God Almighty, in spirit and in truth, to the best of their knowledge; when tyrants, calling themselves patrols, would also convene and wait almost in breathless silence for the poor coloured people to commence singing and praying to the Lord our God, as soon as they had commenced, the wretches would burst in upon them and drag them out and commence beating them as they would rattle-snakes--many of whom they would beat so unmercifully, that they would hardly be able to crawl for weeks and sometimes for months. Yet the American ministers sent out missionaries to convert the heathen, while they keep us and our children sunk at their feet in the most abject ignorance and wretchedness that ever a people was afflicted with since the world began. Will the Lord suffer this people to proceed much longer? Will he not stop them in their career?... Have not the Americans the Bible in their hands? Do they believe it? Surely they do not. See how they treat us in open violation of the Bible!!...

Perhaps they will laugh at or make light of this; but I tell you Americans! that unless you speedily alter your course, you and your Country are gone!!!!!! For God Almighty will tear up the very face of the earth!!!...

Treat us like men, and there is no danger but we will all live in peace and happiness together. For we are not like you, hard hearted, unmerciful, and unforgiving. What a happy country this will be, if the whites will listen. What nation under heaven, will be able to do anything with us, unless God gives us up into its hand? But Americans, I declare to you, while you keep us and our children in bondage, and treat us like brutes, to make us support you and your families, we cannot be your friends. You do not look for it, do you? Treat us then like men, and we will be your friends. And there is not a doubt in my mind, but that the whole of the past will be sunk into oblivion, and we yet, under God, will become a united and happy people. The whites may say it is impossible, but remember that nothing is impossible with God....

In conclusion, I ask the candid and unprejudiced of the whole world, to search the pages of historians diligently, and see if the Antediluvians--the Sodomites--the Egyptians--the Babylonians--the Ninevites--the Carthaginians--the Persians--the Macedonians--the Greeks--the Romans--the Mahometans--the Jews--or devils, ever treated a set of human beings, as the white Christians of America do us, the blacks, or Africans. I also ask the attention of the world of mankind to the declaration [of Independence] of these very American people, of the United States.... See your Declaration Americans!!! Do you understand your own language? Hear your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776--... Compare... [it] with your cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us--men who have never given your fathers or you the least provocation!!!!!!

40. Text is from the 3rd ed. (Boston: Revised and Published by David Walker, 1830).

41. The quote is from The Liberator, 8 Jan. 1831. I used Sterling Stuckey, ed., The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism (Boston: Beacon Press, 1972), "Introduction," 1-29; note of Garnet edition is from 17.

42. Stuckey, ed., Ideological Origins, 9.
 

43. Quoted in Ibid., 10.