Maria W. Stewart and the Roots of Black Political Thought by Kristin Waters

Author:Kristin Waters
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: University Press of Mississippi
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Wheatley lyricizes against the “disgrace” in God’s eyes of those who “hold in bondage Afric’s blameless race,” in keeping with Stewart’s admonition, “Oh America, America, foul and indelible is thy stain! … for thy cruel wrongs and injuries.”47 Christopher Cameron describes how, in a 1774 letter to Samson Occom, Wheatley wrote, “In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance.”48 Wheatley’s poem in praise of George Washington prompted a meeting with the Revolutionary War hero—and so, by her embodiment of African American high literary achievement—she forced Washington face-to-face to see what his own slaves might achieve, given the opportunity. She forced him to face the hypocritical instantiation of his revolutionary Enlightenment ideals. This can only be called subversive. Like Wheelock, Cameron’s work is exemplary in reclaiming this foundational voice. He demonstrates the ways in which Wheatley’s work

[s]poke to the central political ideologies of the day, especially republicanism and natural rights. But I would argue that her critical importance lies in inaugurating the tradition of “black prophetic witness,” to use Cornel West’s phrase. Intimately tied to this tradition is the use of the jeremiad. For white Puritan ministers in the colonial era, the jeremiad relied on notions of providentialism and articulated a worldview whereby God was intimately involved in earthly affairs, an outlook that would have accorded well with traditional African cosmology, as scholars have noted a similar lack of distinction between sacred and secular realms in African thought.49

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