Ethnic Literature Midterm
Tammy J
The Nation’s Contradictions
Do the founders of our nation know how confused they must have seemed to the outside world? Historically we are taught that one of the major reasons for the development of the colonies in North America was the promise of freedom to practice religion in your own way. As we will see in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, “The 1805 Oration of Red Jacket,” by Red Jacket, and “A Short Narrative of My Life,” by Samson Occom, the European groups that colonized our nation were unwilling to afford that freedom, or any other freedom, to people of color. These three authors use their writing to appeal for a national reform of how we view people of color, because although the nation and its’ citizens profess to believe that God entitles all men to certain rights, they actually oppress the people of color by continually feeding into the general misconceptions about them.
The Declaration of Independence, written in 1776 by the Representatives of the United States of America, clearly states “all men are created equal” (Jefferson 481). Unfortunately, we see immediate proof of the hypocrisy of our nation in the Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, where he uses the word “inhabitants” instead of the word “people” in the phrases “enslaving the inhabitants of Africa” (Jefferson 480), and “bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers” (Jefferson 482). This wording helps showcase the rhetoric of the time period by enforcing the first misconception of the white people, that Africans and Native Americans are somehow less human because of their skin color. Equiano illustrates the error of the theory about skin color and it’s relation to humanity, when he writes about the way a person’s coloring can become darker in different climates. He uses as an example an account from a book that he read, about the Spanish who have settled in the southern parts of America. It seems
The Nation’s Contradictions
Do the founders of our nation know how confused they must have seemed to the outside world? Historically we are taught that one of the major reasons for the development of the colonies in North America was the promise of freedom to practice religion in your own way. As we will see in The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written by Himself, “The 1805 Oration of Red Jacket,” by Red Jacket, and “A Short Narrative of My Life,” by Samson Occom, the European groups that colonized our nation were unwilling to afford that freedom, or any other freedom, to people of color. These three authors use their writing to appeal for a national reform of how we view people of color, because although the nation and its’ citizens profess to believe that God entitles all men to certain rights, they actually oppress the people of color by continually feeding into the general misconceptions about them.
The Declaration of Independence, written in 1776 by the Representatives of the United States of America, clearly states “all men are created equal” (Jefferson 481). Unfortunately, we see immediate proof of the hypocrisy of our nation in the Autobiography of Thomas Jefferson, where he uses the word “inhabitants” instead of the word “people” in the phrases “enslaving the inhabitants of Africa” (Jefferson 480), and “bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers” (Jefferson 482). This wording helps showcase the rhetoric of the time period by enforcing the first misconception of the white people, that Africans and Native Americans are somehow less human because of their skin color. Equiano illustrates the error of the theory about skin color and it’s relation to humanity, when he writes about the way a person’s coloring can become darker in different climates. He uses as an example an account from a book that he read, about the Spanish who have settled in the southern parts of America. It seems