In the latter half of the 18th century, we see an
increase of slave narratives in novels and poetry with an abolitionist theme. These literary forms served as the catalyst for
the spread of anti-slave trade/anti-slavery ideas by connecting foreign
distress to the middle-class social realms. In an earlier post, someone noted
the use of shock value in Cowper’s poem, “The
Slave Trader in the Dumps.” With the use of shock value and slave
narratives to “defamiliarize” the status quo perceptions of slaves, and
slavery, there came a certain Euro-American sentimentalism spreading via novels
and poetry regarding the conditions of the slaves. Because of these horrific
conditions, while on the ships and even after they have landed, suicide among
the slaves was quite common. The Africans saw suicide not only as a means to
escape the wretchedness of their inhumane treatment, but also, according to their
religious beliefs, a way to return to Africa (provided that their corpse
maintained its integrity). The idea of corporeal integrity was mainly caused by
a fear of European cannibalism (why else would the Europeans capture and treat
the Africans like they did?) *this actually did happen, when the sailors had
run out of food, for them or for the slaves*. In addition to the use of suicide
for freedom, the slaves also used suicide to punish their masters; the slaves
were a commodity, bought and maintained for the specific purpose of the accumulation
of wealth. I believe that some of the slaves had an understanding of this and
killed themselves for this reason. However, suicide was not always the
solution, because no matter what the master did to the slaves, they were still
human beings – with the intelligence and resentments of human beings. *Enter
slave revolts*
The cultural importance of this
literature in the 18th century added with the slave revolts,
specifically with the success of the Haitian slave rebellion, and with the work
of the abolitionists allowed for the legal abolition of the slave trade and the
abolition of slavery in British colonies.
I found your post to bring a up a very interesting point, specifically the idea of slave suicides as a way to "get back" at those that had enslaved them. I find the idea very plausible,in that there were reports in slave merchant logs about masses of slaves refusing food as a sort of hunger strike against there opression. The deplorable conditions and high mortality rate also could have contributed to a mass outbreak of depression that would have robbed the slaves of their desire to revolt against there captors.
ReplyDeleteI thought that your post about the slaves' suicides were really insightful of their upbringings on the ship. I knew about the ship conditions, but I never knew about the fear for cannibalism. The African culture really interested me as well with their notion of suicide bringing them back to their homeland or to get back at their masters. I decided to do some research to see how much suicide had followed the slaves after they reached land, and there were interviews given even in the early 1900s of slaves who had killed themselves to escape getting punished by the whites. They would rather die by their own hands with integrity than at the hands of their owners, and from what I've read, it's this urge to keep fighting for their own independent doing whether it was with the revolts or with their own end to their life which helps add to 18th century literature.
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