Fugitive Slave Abolitionism: The role of fugitive slave narratives and slave testimony in the American antislavery campaigns (1812-1861)

Fugitive slave narrators operated as a textual community within the abolitionist movement to contribute to the construction of broad and coherent arguments for the immediate abolition of slavery in the Southern states. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a textual community is "a place or social circle where manuscript texts are or were produced, read, and circulated by and for a certain group." Through the production of fugitive slave narratives, the fugitive slave textual community formed a coherent discourse within the abolitionist movement that sought to persuade northern readers to support the abolition of slavery through the pluralistic nature of the production of slave narratives and the construction of overlapping forms of consensus. At the same time, by presenting themselves to the outside world, the narrators created a new collective identity of (ex)slaves. It was precisely by not focusing entirely on forming antislavery arguments that it resulted in becoming one of the...Show moreFugitive slave narrators operated as a textual community within the abolitionist movement to contribute to the construction of broad and coherent arguments for the immediate abolition of slavery in the Southern states. According to the Oxford Dictionary, a textual community is "a place or social circle where manuscript texts are or were produced, read, and circulated by and for a certain group." Through the production of fugitive slave narratives, the fugitive slave textual community formed a coherent discourse within the abolitionist movement that sought to persuade northern readers to support the abolition of slavery through the pluralistic nature of the production of slave narratives and the construction of overlapping forms of consensus. At the same time, by presenting themselves to the outside world, the narrators created a new collective identity of (ex)slaves. It was precisely by not focusing entirely on forming antislavery arguments that it resulted in becoming one of the most powerful antislavery arguments: through the manifestation of political agency and collective identity by writing themselves into a shared history, there was both expression in resistance to slavery and an important form of identification with northern readers.Show less

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Fugitive Slave Abolitionism: The role of fugitive slave narratives and slave testimony in the American antislavery campaigns (1812-1861)