Black Girlhood in the Nineteenth Century

Nazera Sadiq Wright

• Publisher: University of Illinois Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780252099014
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Literary Criticism
• Index: Literature

Long portrayed as a masculine endeavor, the African American struggle for progress often found expression through an unlikely literary figure: the black girl. Nazera Sadiq Wright uses heavy archival research on a wide range of texts about African American girls to explore this understudied phenomenon.As Wright shows, the figure of the black girl in African American literature provided a powerful avenue for exploring issues like domesticity, femininity, and proper conduct. The characters' actions, however fictional, became a rubric for African American citizenship and racial progress. At the same time, their seeming dependence and insignificance allegorized the unjust treatment of African Americans. Wright reveals fascinating girls who, possessed of a premature knowing and wisdom beyond their years, projected a courage and resiliency that made them exemplary representations of the project of racial advance and citizenship.

1. Black Girlhood in the Early Black Press

THE BLACK PRESS EMERGED in the second half of the 1820s, when the nation was still largely perceived as a new republic that had thrown off an oppressor. When the first black newspaper, Freedom’s Journal, began publication in 1827, the values that historians refer to as republican ideology were part of everyday discourse. One of the main principles of this ideology was that the ideal republic was composed of citizens who practiced civic virtue—that is, citizens who made personal choices governed by considerations of what would benefit the greater society. Closely linked to this idea was the notion of independence: only free and independent citizens could make the choices that would enable the republic to remain free of tyranny. A man who was under the influence of another because he was in debt to that person, for example, could not say what he really thought, do the work he preferred, or even vote how he pleased. He was not truly free. Notions of freedom and independence were at the heart of the ideology that had led to the American Revolution and that shaped the ideals of the new republic.

The northern black community in the late 1820s was small in terms of proportion of the entire population, but it was large enough in a few cities to support a growing number of organizations, educational institutions, and, most significantly, a movement for the abolition of slavery. But the ideals of the new republic presented difficulties for free blacks. Most of them were pushed into low-skilled, low-status work that made it difficult for them to become property owners. Thus, their participation in the republic was challenged in two ways: their association with an enslaved race devalued them in the eyes of many whites and associated them with unfree people, and their inability to acquire property meant that they were excluded from the category of independent citizens who constituted an ideal republic.1

Leslie Harris details the difficulties work categories posed for black men in the context of republican ideology. Regardless of how many generations back a family’s free status extended, most whites assumed that free blacks had been born in slavery. Most black men were underemployed and thus had to rely on the income of wives or other female family members.2 Whites perceived free black men who worked in domestic service positions as dependents, not just in terms of work but also in terms of political guidance from employers. Each of these factors posed a challenge to free black men’s sense of themselves as independent.3

Northern black men’s sense of themselves as citizens was also attacked. In Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey—the northern states with the largest populations of free blacks—state officials moved to disenfranchise black men.4 In New York in 1821 and in Pennsylvania in 1838, new state constitutions stipulated or retained property requirements for male voters that had the effect of excluding most black men. In New Jersey, a state law disenfranchised black voters in 1807.5 Historian R. J. Young calculates that by 1840, 97 percent of free northern blacks lived in states that excluded them from voting.6

Excluded from most of the paths to masculinity that white men had access to, black men constructed their own versions of manhood. Young argues that the new definition emphasized an individual’s humanity, control of his own body, freedom of movement, and search for knowledge.7 Free blacks practiced these values in numerous ways. Choosing to live apart from whites was one strategy. In New York City, for example, free blacks settled their families in households in the 5th and 6th Wards, far from the tip of Manhattan, where former slaveholders lived. By the 1820s, an enclave of black households in what is now Central Park was known as Seneca Village, creating what Leslie Harris calls “a unique case of residential stability for black workers in New York City.”8

Another strategy was choosing to do independent work. In New Haven, Connecticut, although most black men could find employment only as waiters, sailors, and general laborers, a tiny minority were able to establish themselves in skilled trades as shoemakers, blacksmiths, and bookmakers.9 In New York City, most free blacks worked as domestic laborers or in other service occupations as the nineteenth century turned, but in the first decades of the century they sought work that gave them greater autonomy. Both men and women were self-employed as fruit peddlers, rag pickers, and day laborers. Washerwomen worked in their own homes. However, as Hillary J. Moss points out, “The price of such independence … could be unreliable income that threatened independence.”10 In Baltimore and Boston, free black men had all but abandoned work as domestic servants by 1850, choosing independent work instead.11 For most free blacks in the North, practicing the republican virtues of independence, autonomy, and control over their bodies—in essence, practicing freedom—meant a daily balancing act between honoring their humanity and earning enough to put a roof over their heads and food on the table.

For black women, too, republican ideology posed difficulties. By the end of the eighteenth century, an ideal for white women had emerged that historian Linda Kerber has labeled republican motherhood. Women could not vote or govern and most could not own property; thus, they could not aspire to be the ideal citizens of a virtuous republic. But in their roles as mothers, they could school their children in the republican ideals of virtue, monitoring their acts so they would benefit the nation, independence, and self-control.12 This ideal for women assumed the full-time presence of the wife and mother at home, which was not possible for most free black women. Most of them needed to work to supplement the low wages of male family members. Nevertheless, evidence from early newspapers shows that elite black males encouraged black women to adopt some of the behaviors of their white counterparts. Mothers were encouraged to use moral suasion, or reasoning, instead of corporal punishment as a means of shaping their children’s behavior. Wives were expected to encourage their husbands and to create a home environment that was a refuge from the racism and proslavery ideology of the outside world. Newspaper editors assumed that all free black women had innate qualities of female influence that they could use to benefit their families and the entire black community, regardless of whether or not they worked for wages. As Erica Ball notes, “On a day-to-day basis, a wife could place her domesticity in the service of her family rather than a master or employer.”13

Children do not figure prominently in republican ideology except as recipients of education and moral training that would prepare them to contribute to the republic: sons as future virtuous and independent voters and householders, and daughters as future mothers who would raise good citizens. However, in many free black households, neither parents nor children had much leisure time to focus on such ideals. Many free black children were forced to work for wages to supplement household income. Most of the chimney sweeps in New York City in the 1820s, for example, were black boys between the ages of four and ten. Black newspaper editors, aware that some children were unable to attend school, urged parents to be good examples because they were the only role models their children came into contact with.14

Despite the economic hardships created by a labor market that refused to provide adequate wages for black adults, many free black families gave their children every educational opportunity they could afford. Because most public schools in the North practiced a de facto form of segregation by the 1820s, black communities created alternative sources of education. Some black-run schools offered education that rivaled or surpassed what most white children received in public schools. For example, Watkins’ Academy for Negro Youth, which opened in Philadelphia in the 1820s, offered a classical education and rigorous training in rhetoric.15 But most black children attended schools that operated out of churches. Hilary J. Moss observes that “while white Sunday schools drifted away from teaching basic literacy after 1830 as public schools assumed that responsibility, black Sabbath schools continued to teach children to read and write throughout the antebellum period.”16 Census data makes clear that most black parents saw to it that their children learned to read and write. By 1850, over 85 percent of adults in the free black community in the Northeast were literate.17 The vast majority of the free blacks who were adults in 1850 had attended enough school in earlier decades to acquire literacy. The rates differed by region, though. In the New England states, the literacy rate was over 90 percent. But in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, where slavery and indentured servitude for blacks persisted into the early decades of the century, the literacy rate was lower.18

This chapter argues that in articles published in the early black press, black male editors wrote and reprinted articles that assigned roles to black girls that suited their framework of adopting the values and mores of the white middle class as a route to greater participation in civic life. The early black press, which was managed by men, expressed the concerns of the free black communities in the North. In addition, black newspapers were a source of information that united scattered communities of free blacks. The messages articles conveyed were intended to mobilize and unite these communities by encouraging involvement in civic life, which included property ownership, voting rights, and working toward the abolition of slavery in the South.19

Articles about black girlhood in the early black press offer a lens through which to understand the everyday struggles of African Americans in the early nation. Articles that featured black girls who promoted temperance values and who aided black male figures suggest that black men faced obstacles that made it difficult to fulfill their roles as providers for and leaders of their families and that daughters were expected to take on adult roles when their fathers struggled. Articles that portray black girls receiving moral training or training in household management reveal that editors hoped that families could raise daughters to be model mothers and wives who could create homes for men and boys that were havens from a violent white society. In fact, the model family figured prominently in these newspapers. Articles in black newspapers encouraged black readers to be temperate, industrious, and pursue intellectual development through literacy and education. In this sense, early black newspapers served as conduct manuals. Editors clearly hoped that the articles they published would help readers strengthen their families and communities. They also believed that if white Americans could see blacks emulating their own values and behaviors, they would recognize them as worthy of democratic treatment regardless of their skin color.20 Much of this literature was premised on a belief that republican values could be realized in the new nation. They believed (or hoped) that if free blacks demonstrated moral behavior, proper decorum, and correct behavior, whites would judge them on their merits and not by the color of their skin.

As early as the eighteenth century, black girls functioned in the writings of black men in relationship to the development of their masculinity. In The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano: Or, Gustavus Vassa, the African (1789), Olaudah Equiano explains how the memory of his sister’s sexual victimization in the hands of slaveholders strengthened his resolve to embrace his manliness and pursue a future of prosperity. Equiano emphasized the connection between his sister’s suffering and his budding masculinity: “Though you were early forced from my arms, your image has always riveted in my heart. While thoughts of your suffering have damped my prosperity, they have mingled with adversity and increased its bitterness.”21 Because Equiano could not protect his sister, he “commit[ed] the care of [her] innocence and virtue” to “that Heaven which protects the weak from the strong.”22 In this example, Equiano’s inability to protect his sister from her suffering motivated his quest for independence and wealth.

The relationship between the victimized virtue of black girls and black men’s roles as protectors is an ongoing trope in early African American protest literature. Scholars highlight the relationship between black manhood and men’s role as protectors, particularly in slavery, by noting how difficult it was for enslaved men to achieve a sense of manhood when they were unable to protect their mothers, sisters, daughters, and lovers against abuse. The convention that dictated the inviolability of the white woman’s body did not apply to black women. Literary historian Hazel Carby argues that the black female victim “was linked to a threat to, or denial of the manhood of the male slave. Black manhood … could not be achieved or maintained because of the inability of the slave to protect the black woman.”23 In the antebellum North, recurring representations of the physical exploitation of black girls in the black press reveal black men’s awareness of their inability to fully protect their families and achieve or maintain full manhood.

Thirty years after the publication of Equiano’s narrative, David Walker wrote David Walker’s Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World (1829), which emphasized a more radical strategy that was distinctly different from the more cautious path that black editors advocated. Walker argued that black men should rely on rebellion instead of on Equiano’s faith in heaven. Walker’s fiery manifesto instilled fear throughout the nation and created a provocative image of black men who forcibly demanded civil rights from whites through violence. He wrote: “I do declare it, that one good black man can put to death six white men; and I give it as a fact, let twelve black men get well armed for battle, and they kill and put to flight fifty whites.—The reason is, the blacks, once you get them started, they glory in death.”24 However persuasive Walker’s argument might have been, blac...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction: Toward a Genealogy of Black Girlhood
• 1. Black Girlhood in the Early Black Press
• 2. Youthful Girls and Prematurely Knowing Girls: Antebellum Black Girlhood
• 3. “Teach Your Daughters”: Black Girlhood and Mrs. N. F. Mossell’s Advice Column in the New York Freeman
• 4. Moving the Boundaries: Black Girlhood and Public Careers in Frances E. W. Harper’s Trial and Triumph
• 5. Black Girlhood in Early-Twentieth-Century Black Conduct Books
• Epilogue: The Changing Same? Next-Generation Black Girlhood
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index