Investigating the metamorphosing black body in Frederick Douglass's Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin & Dred: A Tale of The Great Dismal Swamp

Abstract

According to John Wood Sweet, at the turn of the nineteenth century, “the number of African captives transported to North America constituted less than 5 percent of the total volume of this trans-Atlantic diaspora.” (3) Even as international slave trade grew , the overall number of captives which originated from Africa and were sent to work in North America were comparatively low. An increasing number of slaves were being conveyed across the Southern Atlantic world, with slaves often being focused upon statistically on the Northern Atlantic trade. Such a lowered percentage reflected the growth of slave families which were born into America itself, while recognising the continued accruing of new slaves on the American continent. In the early nineteenth century, some activists began to argue against the institution of slavery more vociferously . These abolitionists as they were termed, sought a complete emancipation of enslaved people. Viewing it as a stain upon the Declaration of Independence’s ideals of equality, abolitionists sought to sway public opinion against what they deemed to be the evil institution of slavery. Even as abolitionists voiced out their opinions, the complexity of their arguments were varied, with some choosing to focus on practicality rather than morality. This thesis explores the figuring of black bodies within notable abolitionists’ texts. I will consider how Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as well as Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp and Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave challenged the notion of inferiority attached to the African American race: in extension to this argument, racial consciousness is tied to the identity of the black slave body. I will examine the ways in which racial consciousness is investigated within Stowe’s works as a white abolitionist author. I will then address Douglass’ autobiography as inspiration for Stowe’s own work and discuss how he propagated different ideas of racial consciousness as an African American abolitionist author. The slave body is black first, before other biological and ideological markers separate them accordingly. To explore the concept of the black body in relation to the abolitionist texts, I will draw on the modern scholars Hazel Rose Markus Markus and Paula M.L. Moya, particularly their work Doing Race: 21 Essays for the 21st Century’s perspective of modern ethnicity and race.