Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black AtlanticOxford University Press, 2007 M09 27 - 304 pages The first slaves imported to America did not see themselves as "African" but rather as Temne, Igbo, or Yoruban. In Becoming African in America, James Sidbury reveals how an African identity emerged in the late eighteenth-century Atlantic world, tracing the development of "African" from a degrading term connoting savage people to a word that was a source of pride and unity for the diverse victims of the Atlantic slave trade. In this wide-ranging work, Sidbury first examines the work of black writers--such as Ignatius Sancho in England and Phillis Wheatley in America--who created a narrative of African identity that took its meaning from the diaspora, a narrative that began with enslavement and the experience of the Middle Passage, allowing people of various ethnic backgrounds to become "African" by virtue of sharing the oppression of slavery. He looks at political activists who worked within the emerging antislavery moment in England and North America in the 1780s and 1790s; he describes the rise of the African church movement in various cities--most notably, the establishment of the African Methodist Episcopal Church as an independent denomination--and the efforts of wealthy sea captain Paul Cuffe to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that would forge ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America; and he examines in detail the efforts of blacks to emigrate to Africa, founding Sierra Leone and Liberia. Elegantly written and astutely reasoned, Becoming African in America weaves together intellectual, social, cultural, religious, and political threads into an important contribution to African American history, one that fundamentally revises our picture of the rich and complicated roots of African nationalist thought in the U.S. and the black Atlantic. |
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Page 10
... Philadelphia—and the efforts of the sea captain, Paul Cuffe, to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that he hoped would forge persistent ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America, helping to create an “African ...
... Philadelphia—and the efforts of the sea captain, Paul Cuffe, to initiate a black-controlled emigration movement that he hoped would forge persistent ties between Sierra Leone and blacks in North America, helping to create an “African ...
Page 11
... Philadelphia became increasingly convinced that they and their fellow black parishioners would never be allowed to worship freely within white churches. Daniel Coker, Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, and a host of less prominent blacks ...
... Philadelphia became increasingly convinced that they and their fellow black parishioners would never be allowed to worship freely within white churches. Daniel Coker, Absalom Jones, Richard Allen, and a host of less prominent blacks ...
Page 12
... Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and the way that he expanded beyond that movement by contacting black leaders in Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina. It traces the parallel and related efforts of black religious ...
... Philadelphia, New York, and Boston, and the way that he expanded beyond that movement by contacting black leaders in Richmond, Virginia, and Charleston, South Carolina. It traces the parallel and related efforts of black religious ...
Page 13
... Philadelphia, Daniel Coker in Baltimore, Peter Williams Jr. in New York—were also inclined to view the Colonization Society as a potentially useful ally, but immediate, overwhelming, and unyielding opposition from the black public ...
... Philadelphia, Daniel Coker in Baltimore, Peter Williams Jr. in New York—were also inclined to view the Colonization Society as a potentially useful ally, but immediate, overwhelming, and unyielding opposition from the black public ...
Page 46
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Contents
3 | |
17 | |
2 Toward a Transformed Africa | 39 |
3 An African Homeland? | 67 |
4 Out of America | 91 |
5 Becoming African in the English Atlantic | 131 |
6 African Churches and an African Nation | 157 |
7 Becoming American in Liberia and in the United States 18201830 | 181 |
Epilogue | 203 |
Notes | 211 |
Bibliography | 255 |
Index | 277 |
Other editions - View all
Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic James Sidbury Limited preview - 2007 |
Becoming African in America: Race and Nation in the Early Black Atlantic James Sidbury Limited preview - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
African identity African Masons African Methodist African nation African Union African Union Society American Colonization Society antislavery asserted Atlantic Atlantic slave trade authors Baltimore Bethel black Americans black discourse Black Loyalists brethren British Carretta chap Christian claim coast of Africa colony Colored Company Company’s congregations Cuffe's Logs Cuffe’s cultural Daniel Coker diaspora discourse on African discussions emigration England enslaved Equiano and Cugoano evangelical filiative free black freedom Freetown George God’s governor Gronniosaw hoped Hundredors Huntingdonian ibid Ignatius Sancho Interesting Narrative James Forten John Clarkson John Marrant Jones kinship Kizell land leaders Liberia living Logs and Letters London Lott Cary movement native Nova Scotians offered Olaudah Equiano oppression Paul Cuffe Peters Philadelphia political Prince Hall promised Pybus race racial racism reel religious Russwurm Savannah settlers shared Sierra Leone slave trade slavery Society’s sought Temne transformation Tythingmen United vision Wheatley and Sancho Wheatley’s William Zachary Macaulay