David Walker

Class was a little hectic towards the end today -- thankfully we still have Thursday to discuss David Walker's incredible pamphlet. As I suggested in class, the mostly mysterious young Walker was known as having been born to a free mother and enslaved father (remember: legally, the child follows the condition of the mother) in Wilmington, North Carolina in the Cape Fear region. Some people suggest that his father might have been Anthony Walker, who lived in that region and was a Nigerian Ibo named "Obato" or "Umboto," but Anthony Walker married a Native American woman who had been adopted by the Revolutionary War Major General Robert Howe. He is not listed as a legitimate child of Walker's marriage to this Native American, though he could have been born out of wedlock. On the other hand, Henry Highland Garnet's biography of Walker in his reprint of the "Appeal" claims that he was very dark and likely not of mixed race. It also suggests that his father died before he was born, and Anthony Walker lived for some time afterward.

Cape Fear Region of North Carolina, from Peter Hinks's edition of the "Appeal"

And as Jackie pointed out, the southeastern seaboard (the states on the coast) were notorious in past centuries for their swamplands. In particular, the Great Dismal Swamp was known as a hotbed for Maroon or fugitive activities -- the word Maroon coming from the American/Spanish word marronage, literally meaning a fugitive or runaway who lives on mountaintops (dry land in the swamps).

Great Dismal Swamp, Fugitive Slaves, Virginia -- by David Edward Cronin, 1888

And here's the title page of the 1856 novel Dred; a Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp by Harriet Beecher Stowe (the (much better) book that she wrote after Uncle Tom's Cabin:

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Dred; A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp

I reference Stowe here to bring up the subject of this book. Dred takes place in the Carolinas around the Great Dismal Swamp and it describes the efforts of the son (Dred, possibly named for Dred Scott) of executed insurrectionist Denmark Vesey to continue his father's revolutionary legacy. Vesey was active in the early 1820s in Charleston where the site of his former home was named a National Historic Landmark in 1976. At the time, Vesey was Public Enemy #1, and he, like David Walker, was an active member of the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) church in Charleston. This church was razed to the ground after the conspiracy was revealed -- in case you were wondering why Walker really hates snitches. Afterwards, a lot of free blacks in Charleston got as far away as possible.

You'll read about what happened to the slaves after an insurrection was discovered in Harriet Jacobs' narrative -- she lived in Edenton, North Carolina around this time. Basically their homes were ransacked, many of their possessions were stolen by white mobs, and sometimes their worship places were closed on account of their being places where uprisings could be plotted. David Walker fled from this oppression and likely traveled around for a few years, going south (likely to Savannah), west (he writes of the "west" at this time with familiarity), and ultimately north. He probably visited Richard Allen, the founder of the AME denomination -- which split from white Methodism on account of increasing efforts by white church leaders to control black churches -- in Philadelphia before settling in Boston.

What we do know is that by 1825 (according to the residence and tax rolls) Walker was living in Boston and had already started up a used clothes shop. Used clothes dealers, hairdressers, barbers, and bootblacks were actually middle class and could afford to live in racially mixed areas of the city at this point in time.

From Hinks's edition of the "Appeal"

Walker also made good professional decisions -- he was a Prince Hall Mason or African Lodge Mason. Although most of his powerful professional contacts were Black Baptists (also known as African Baptists), Walker remained devoted to the AME church -- an indicator that he had likely been exposed to it while in the South and remained loyal to his denomination.

Several quick points about the AME church and Walker's education in the South:
- The AME church frequently ran programs to educate free blacks and some slaves. These programs were sometimes called the Associates of Dr. Bray - a literacy promotion program that went on about this time.
- Walker was probably educated in one of these programs, though no records exist. Public schools in North Carolina in the early 1800s were closed to blacks.
- Walker probably associated with slaves in his early life -- free blacks in NC typically were socially grouped with slaves and sympathized with their condition.

In the reading for Thursday, you'll see a mention of a Camp Meeting in Charleston. Scholar Peter P. Hinks uses deductive logic on Walker's reminiscence of  the Camp Meeting, "for which [he] embarked on a Steam Boat at Charleston, and having been five or six hours on the water, we at last arrived at the place of hearing"(Walker 59) -- a large Camp Meeting (like a revival, but typically continuing over several days).

Hinks suggests that the event could not have occurred before 1816 or 1817 because there were no steamboats on the rivers up to that point. Hinks also notes a newspaper advertisement in the April 17th and April 21st issues of the Charleston City Gazette that mentions revivals at Goose Creek and Sullivan's Island. The trip to Sullivan's Island would have taken much less than five or six hours, so Hinks argues that Walker went to Goose Creek. This places him in Charleston in the early 1820s, around the time of the Vesey conspiracy. Evangelical Camp Meeting religion is quite relevant to Walker's appeal, as is the background of slave insurrection.

Title page of the third edition (1830), from UNC DocSouth

On Thursday, we'll discuss Walker's blend of evangelicalism and natural rights discourse as well as the fact that Walker, like Vesey, acknowledged that change might require a violent uprising or revolution. I am curious how all of you will situate Maria Stewart into this framework. Like Walker, she was born free (in Hartford, Connecticut), but she was soon orphaned and raised by a white minister and his family.