280 Political Activity and Resistance to Oppression: From the American Revolution to the Civil War
Hence, in tandem with the extraordinary physical acts
that challenged the institution of slavery, blacks were forced
to resist the intellectual underpinnings of the social order,
such as those put forth by Professor Dew. Indeed, David
Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World con-
tested Th omas Jeff erson’s assertion in his Notes on Virginia
that between black and white, “the diff erence is fi xed in na-
ture, and is as real as if its seat and cause were better known
to us.” Refuting this claim, Walker insisted that it was not
nature that produced these distinctions, but in fact, the un-
derstanding of what it meant to be human that determined
the treatment of blacks. “Have they [whites] not, aft er hav-
ing reduced us to the deplorable conditions of slaves under
their feet, held us up as descending originally from the
tribes of Monkeys or Orang-Outangs?” Th us, according to
Walker, blacks had to “contradict or confi rm him by our
own actions” for “unless we try to refute Mr. Jeff erson’s ar-
guments respecting us, we will only establish them.”
And contradict them, they did. Walker had been an
agent for Freedom’s Journal, the fi rst newspaper owned
and operated by blacks in the United States. Established by
Samuel E. Cornish and John B. Russwurm in March 1827
(the same year that the state of New York abolished slav-
ery), the newspaper sought to give an alternative perspec-
tive of the situation of blacks to the one presented in the
white press. In this vein, the paper advocated the right to
vote as well as opposed the predominantly white-supported
colonizationist movement that sought to solve the “prob-
lem” of free blacks by “emigrating” them from the United
States to Africa (although the impetus for the American
Colonization Society was a benevolent one based on the
feeling that blacks would never be accepted as citizens in
the United States and could have a better life in Africa).
More important, Freedom’s Journal helped to initiate a
counter-discourse that off ered another interpretation of the
social reality of blacks, and not only in the United States,
as the newspaper adopted a Pan-African perspective before
such an ideology was conceptualized a century later. Th us,
on the heels of the journal, a plethora of slave narratives,
newspapers, and journals sought to challenge the dominant
system of representation that legitimated slavery by off er-
ing vivid descriptions of the empirical social conditions to
which slaves were subjected. Th ese writings, together with
powerful speeches, served an indispensable role in the abo-
litionist movement, which emerged in its fi rst form in the
wake of the Revolution of 1776.and a minister who had purchased his freedom with lottery
winnings in 1799, aft er having been brought to South Caro-
lina (via St. Th omas and St. Domingue). Purportedly, aft er
establishing a following in a Methodist church he helped
to found, he planned to attack the arsenal at, and the plan-
tations surrounding, the city of Charleston. Because “the
plot” was discovered, the attack was prevented. Although
doubt has been cast over the validity of the plot, the bru-
tality of the response over the imagined plot has not been
disputed. Th irty-fi ve men, including Vesey, were hanged,
and another 40 were sent into exile “beyond the limits of
the United States.” As was the case with Gabriel’s Rebellion
and Deslondes’s rebellion, “the leaders” had to be hanged.
Indeed, in the case of Deslondes, he and approximately 20
rebels were decapitated, with their heads placed on mile
markers along Bayou St. John as a warning for those who
had the unmitigated gall to breach the sacred belief of the
plantocracy that the natural position of the black was as
a slave.
Yet such brutal responses did not deter blacks from
continuing to mount challenges to the institution of slavery.
Nat Turner’s August 1831 revolt demonstrated the extent
to which many would go to bring an end to their enslaved
status. Turner, impelled by visions of spiritual battles, led
more than 70 slaves in an attack on plantations, marching
toward the nearby town, named ironically, Jerusalem. Be-
cause more than 50 whites had been killed by the end of the
assault, the response was severe. In the end, more than 50
blacks were executed by the state, but in addition to this ac-
tion, vigilante groups murdered more than 200 blacks, most
of whom could have had nothing to do with the rebellion.
Moreover, the legislature of the state of Virginia was debat-
ing proposals for the gradual abolition of slavery. It was in
this context that Th omas Dew, professor of political econ-
omy at the College of William and Mary, authored his inno-
vative defense of slavery in which he argued that abolition
of slavery would cause greater injury to slaveholders and
the enslaved. Dew insisted that “no rule of conscience or
revealed law of God” could condemn slaveholders. Indeed,
slavery with its racial hierarchy provided a “badge of dis-
tinction, the true mark of aristocracy,” for “all who are white
are equal in spite of the variety of occupation.” Slavery and
racial hierarchy therefore served as an organizing principle
that gave rise to and integrated the society, which then pro-
duced, as Dew stated, a “spirit of equality which is both the
generator and preserver of the genuine spirit of liberty.”