Posted: May 13th, 2021

SURVEY OF AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE ASSIGNMENT essay

AMH2092 OER: African American History and Culture Module 6: Primary Resource Document

David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, 1829

Source Overview: David Walker was the son of an enslaved man and a free black woman. He

traveled widely before settling in Boston where he worked in and owned clothing stores and

involved himself in various reform causes. In 1829, he wrote the remarkable Appeal to the

Colored Citizens of the World. In it, he exposed the hypocrisies of American claims of freedom

and Christianity, attacked the plan to colonize black Americans in Africa, and predicted that

God’s justice promised violence for the slaveholding United States. (1)

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!

… But against all accusations which may or can be preferred against me, I appeal to Heaven for

my motive in writing—who knows what 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!!!!!!

…Will any of us leave our homes and go to Africa? I hope not. Let them commence their attack

upon us as they did on our brethren in Ohio, driving and beating us from our country, and my

soul for theirs, they will have enough of it. Let no man of us budge one step, and let slave-

holders come to beat us from our country. America is more our country, than it is the whites—

we have enriched it with our blood and tears. The greatest riches in all America have arisen from

our blood and tears:—and will they drive us from our property and homes, which we have

earned with our blood? They must look sharp or this very thing will bring swift destruction upon

them. The Americans have got so fat on our blood and groans, that they have almost forgotten

the God of armies. But let them go on…

I count my life not dear unto me, but I am ready to be offered at any moment. For what is the use

of living, when in fact I am dead. But remember, Americans, that as miserable, wretched,

degraded and abject as you have made us in preceding, and in this generation, to support you and

your families, that some of you, (whites) on the continent of America, will yet curse the day that

you ever were born. You want slaves, and want us for your slaves!!! My colour will yet, root

some of you out of the very face of the earth!!!!!!

AMH2092 OER: African American History and Culture Module 6: Primary Resource Document

I also ask the attention of the world of mankind to the declaration of these very American people,

of the United States. A declaration made July 4, 1776. It says, “When in the course of human

events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected

them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the earth, the separate and equal station

to which the laws of nature and of nature’s God entitle them. A decent respect for the opinions of

mankind requires, that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.—We

hold these truths to be self evident—that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by

their Creator with certain unalienable rights: that among these, are life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness ….” See your Declaration Americans!!! Do you understand your own language? Hear

your language, proclaimed to the world, July 4th, 1776—”We hold these truths to be self

evident—that ALL MEN ARE CREATED EQUAL!! that they are endowed by their Creator

with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness!!”

Compare your own language above, extracted from your Declaration of Independence, 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!!!!!!

Now, Americans! I ask you candidly, was your sufferings under Great Britain, one hundredth

part as cruel and tyranical as you have rendered ours under you? Some of you, no doubt, believe

that we will never throw off your murderous government and “provide new guards for our future

security.” If Satan has made you believe it, will he not deceive you? Do the whites say, I being a

black man, ought to be humble, which I readily admit? I ask them, ought they not to be as

humble as I? or do they think that they can measure arms with Jehovah? Will not the Lord yet

humble them? or will not these very coloured people whom they now treat worse than brutes, yet

under God, humble them low down enough? Some of the whites are ignorant enough to tell us

that we ought to be submissive to them, that they may keep their feet on our throats. And if we

do not submit to be beaten to death by them, we are bad creatures and of course must be damned,

&c. If any man wishes to hear this doctrine openly preached to us by the American preachers, let

him go into the Southern and Western sections of this country—I do not speak from hear say—

what I have written, is what I have seen and heard myself. No man may think that my book is

made up of conjecture— I have travelled and observed nearly the whole of those things myself,

and what little I did not get by my own observation, I received from those among the whites and

blacks, in whom the greatest confidence may be placed.

The Americans may be as vigilant as they please, but they cannot be vigilant enough for the

Lord, neither can they hide themselves, where he will not find and bring them out.13

AMH2092 OER: African American History and Culture Module 6: Primary Resource Document

Attributions (1) Content by Florida State College at Jacksonville is licensed under CC BY 4.0

(13) David Walker, Walker’s Appeal (Boston: David Walker, 1830) taken from

http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html/en-en/menu.html is in the Public Domain.

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
http://docsouth.unc.edu/nc/walker/walker.html/en-en/menu.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_domain
David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, 1829
Attributions

Order | Check Discount