Book contents
- A History of African American Autobiography
- A History of African American Autobiography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- A Chronology of African American Life Writing
- Contributors
- Chapter 1 Crafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing
- Part I Origins and Histories
- Chapter 2 Black Life Writing and Print Culture before 1800
- Chapter 3 Reading the Edited “I” in the Early Black Atlantic
- Chapter 4 Caste and Class in the Antebellum Slave Narrative
- Chapter 5 Nineteenth-Century Autobiographical Writings by Freeborn African Americans
- Chapter 6 African American Life Writing, 1865–1900
- Chapter 7 Black Life Writing in Print Cultures at the Turn into the Twentieth Century
- Chapter 8 New Negro Autobiographies
- Chapter 9 Transnational and Postcolonial Afro-Caribbean Life Writing
- Chapter 10 Writing Race and Remembrance in the Civil Rights Movement Years
- Chapter 11 The Biomedicalization of Black Life Narratives
- Part II Individuals and Communities
- Index
Chapter 2 - Black Life Writing and Print Culture before 1800
from Part I - Origins and Histories
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 September 2021
- A History of African American Autobiography
- A History of African American Autobiography
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Illustrations
- A Chronology of African American Life Writing
- Contributors
- Chapter 1 Crafting a Credible Black Self in African American Life Writing
- Part I Origins and Histories
- Chapter 2 Black Life Writing and Print Culture before 1800
- Chapter 3 Reading the Edited “I” in the Early Black Atlantic
- Chapter 4 Caste and Class in the Antebellum Slave Narrative
- Chapter 5 Nineteenth-Century Autobiographical Writings by Freeborn African Americans
- Chapter 6 African American Life Writing, 1865–1900
- Chapter 7 Black Life Writing in Print Cultures at the Turn into the Twentieth Century
- Chapter 8 New Negro Autobiographies
- Chapter 9 Transnational and Postcolonial Afro-Caribbean Life Writing
- Chapter 10 Writing Race and Remembrance in the Civil Rights Movement Years
- Chapter 11 The Biomedicalization of Black Life Narratives
- Part II Individuals and Communities
- Index
Summary
In her chapter, Thomas reads pre-1800 legal writings about people of African descent as Black life writing. She expands autobiographical writing beyond an account of an individual’s growth and development in cases of people of African descent to narratives regarding Black people as active agents forming an embodied community racialized and marginalized by the dominant culture. Thomas argues that Black writers published autobiographical writings and also wove personal narratives into legal documents from fidavits to freedom petitions, as well as into traditional literary forms such as poems and letters. However, during the same colonial and early American eras, people of European descent inscribed details about Black peoples in a variety of historical records such as the census, bills of sale, antislavery pamphlets, court records, and runaway slave advertisements to accentuate their differences from and inability to assimilate into the majority culture.
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- A History of African American Autobiography , pp. 23 - 38Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2021