On Slave Narratives and Phillis Wheatley Essay Example

and encompass the collective experiences of Africans in the slave exodus to America, which is embodied, for instance, in her poem “On Being Brought From Africa to America” (1770). In the poem, Wheatley talks of her journey from her native land to a country which distinguishes the apparent importance of race and the color of one's skin.She also writes, ironically, of being introduced to the existence of God, and the redemption afforded by the said savior to people like herself, who come from the 'pagan' country that was Africa. Her writings, as well as that of other African American writers at the height of slave trade and the slave labor system, contributes to the shaping not only of our histories, but of the present system, and correspondingly, the future as well.

The narratives and personal experience of the writers who lived at a time when civil rights and equality for every individual wasn't recognized affords its readers more than a brief glimpse to the struggles of African Americans at the time. And more importantly, an ideology which ultimately appeals to the instance of humanity, and the preservation of it.