Cultures of Nationalism, Movements of Reform, and the Composite–Federal Polity: From Revolutionary Settlement to Antebellum Crisis

Brooke, John L.

doi:10.1353/jer.0.0052

Cited by 11 publications

References 98 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

Arguing Slavery's Narrative: Southern Regionalists, Ex-slave Autobiographers, and the Contested Literary Representations of the Peculiar Institution, 1824–1849

Schermerhorn¹

2012

J. Am. Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

AbstractIn the twenty-five years before 1850, southern writers of regional literature and ex-slave autobiographers constructed a narrative of United States slavery that was mutually contradictory and yet mutually influential. That process involved a dynamic hybridization of genres in which authors contested meanings of slavery, arriving at opposing conclusions. They nevertheless focussed on family and the South's distinctive culture. This article explores the dialectic of that argument and contends that white regionalists created a plantation-paternalist romance to which African American ex-slaves responded with depictions of slavery's cruelty and immorality. However, by the 1840s, ex-slaves had domesticated their narratives in part to sell their works in a literary marketplace in which their adversaries’ sentimental fiction sold well. Scholars have not examined white southern literature and ex-slave autobiography in comparative context, and this article shows how both labored to construct a peculiar institution in readers’ imagination. Southern regionalists supplied the elements of a pro-slavery argument and ex-slave autobiographers infused their narratives with abolitionist rhetoric at a time in which stories Americans told about themselves became increasingly important in the national political crisis over slavery extension and fugitive slaves. It was on that discursive ground that the debates of the 1850s were carried forth.

show abstract

Arguing Slavery's Narrative: Southern Regionalists, Ex-slave Autobiographers, and the Contested Literary Representations of the Peculiar Institution, 1824–1849

Schermerhorn¹

2012

J. Am. Stud.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“To Put into Complete Practice Those Hallowed Principles”: Edward Coles and the Crafting of Antislavery Nationalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century America

Guasco

2010

American Nineteenth Century History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Mr. Ely’s amendment: Massachusetts Federalists and the politicization of slave representation

Vrevich

2018

American Nineteenth Century History

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Cultures of Nationalism, Movements of Reform, and the Composite–Federal Polity: From Revolutionary Settlement to Antebellum Crisis

Cited by 11 publications

References 98 publications

Arguing Slavery's Narrative: Southern Regionalists, Ex-slave Autobiographers, and the Contested Literary Representations of the Peculiar Institution, 1824–1849

Arguing Slavery's Narrative: Southern Regionalists, Ex-slave Autobiographers, and the Contested Literary Representations of the Peculiar Institution, 1824–1849

“To Put into Complete Practice Those Hallowed Principles”: Edward Coles and the Crafting of Antislavery Nationalism in Early Nineteenth‐Century America

Mr. Ely’s amendment: Massachusetts Federalists and the politicization of slave representation

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About