Walker’s Appeal... is the main manifesto of radical African-American abolitionism

About the author:

Andrey A. Shumakov, Cand. Sci. (Hist.), Associate Professor, Department of Humanities, Tula Branch of the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics; takamori@rambler.ru

Abstract:

This work is about one of the key episodes of African-American history and the history of American abolitionism associated with the publication in September 1829 in Boston of Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World. The appearance of this “revolutionary appeal” undoubtedly marked a new milestone in the development of the anti-slavery movement and the actual emergence of such a trend as radical African-American abolitionism. The reaction to the release of this document by the authorities of the Southern States can be called unprecedented in its scale and consequences. It found expression in the adoption of a number of repressive laws, which, in turn, marked the beginning of a period of prolonged reaction in the American South, which would end only after the end of the Civil War of 1861–1865. The significance of this event is difficult to overestimate. After almost two centuries, the figure of David Walker and his Appeal still arouse increased interest from Western researchers and not only. However, no serious works on this topic have been published in Russian historiography up to the present moment.
This study aims to identify and examine the causes and circumstances of the writing of the Walker’s Appeal…, to analyze the main provisions of this document and the consequences caused by its dissemination. In addition, the author pays special attention to the review of the historiography of this issue. The source base is newspaper publications, letters and bills of the period under review, as well as the text of the Appeal.
The methodological basis of the research consists of causal, historical-descriptive, historical-genetic, historical-typological, retrospective, and comparative-historical methods. The materialistic dialectic plays the main role, showing the development of the abolitionist movement in dynamics and the influence of related factors.
The author concludes that Walker’s Appeal… became an expression of the most important trend in the development of American abolitionism at the end of the first third of the nineteenth century. The appearance of this document clearly demonstrated the radicalization of the African-American community itself and its willingness to join the struggle for the abolition of slavery and its rights.

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