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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 ...
David Walker's Appeal,
Excerpts from the Appeal
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 under those ancient and
heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened
and Christian nation, no more than a cypher -- or, in other words,
those heathen 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!
... I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the
philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page
of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found,
which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family.
Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us
to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as
descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs?
O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable?
Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they
have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us
we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. -- Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the
world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of
our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such
great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should
speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it
to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will
be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go,
and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So
far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon
their slaves, that Pharaoh's daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for
her own, as will appear by the following.
Are we MEN! ! -- I ask you, 0 my brethren I 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? How we could be so submissive
to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as
ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with
the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell -- but I declare, we judge men
by their works.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/index.html
The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful,
avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power
and authority.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931t.html
Excerpts from the Appeal
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 under those ancient and
heathen nations, were, in comparison with ours, under this enlightened
and Christian nation, no more than a cypher -- or, in other words,
those heathen 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!
... I call upon the professing Christians, I call upon the
philanthropist, I call upon the very tyrant himself, to show me a page
of history, either sacred or profane, on which a verse can be found,
which maintains, that the Egyptians heaped the insupportable insult upon the children of Israel, by telling them that they were not of the human family.
Can the whites deny this charge? Have they not, after having reduced us
to the deplorable condition of slaves under their feet, held us up as
descending originally from the tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs?
O! my God! I appeal to every man of feeling-is not this insupportable?
Is it not heaping the most gross insult upon our miseries, because they
have got us under their feet and we cannot help ourselves? Oh! pity us
we pray thee, Lord Jesus, Master. -- Has Mr. Jefferson declared to the
world, that we are inferior to the whites, both in the endowments of
our bodies and our minds? It is indeed surprising, that a man of such
great learning, combined with such excellent natural parts, should
speak so of a set of men in chains. I do not know what to compare it
to, unless, like putting one wild deer in an iron cage, where it will
be secured, and hold another by the side of the same, then let it go,
and expect the one in the cage to run as fast as the one at liberty. So
far, my brethren, were the Egyptians from heaping these insults upon
their slaves, that Pharaoh's daughter took Moses, a son of Israel for
her own, as will appear by the following.
Are we MEN! ! -- I ask you, 0 my brethren I 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? How we could be so submissive
to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as
ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with
the Lord, and we cannot precisely tell -- but I declare, we judge men
by their works.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/index.html
The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful,
avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power
and authority.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part2/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/index.html
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4h2931t.html
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