The late eighteenth century was the period when the free blacks in America increased sharply and the ‘black Atlantic’ was born. The living sphere of Afro-Americans expanded to Canada, Europe, and Africa crossing Atlantic ocean not limited to America and West Indies, thus became cosmopolitan ‘black Atlantic.’ They experienced various lives as ‘noble savage’ of Africa, ‘naive victims’ of European slave merchants, prisoners of American Indians, priests in Nova Scotia, sailors of merchant ships, and abolitionists, etc. They expressed their experiences including slave life, economic accomplishments, and conversion to Christianity into self-narrative and autobiographical writing. Stories of religious conversion by James Gronniosaw and John Marrant were published by white editors who wrote down oral statements of authors, and intended to prove spiritual redemption of blacks. Thus they failed to show black's unique thoughts on their experience of various ethnicities such as American Indians, English, Dutch, and Spaniard. While autobiography of Gronniosaw showed the image of typical black who were assimilated to Christian beliefs and culture, Marrant expressed through his address his criticism on slavery as antithesis to principles of Freemasonry and tenets of Christianity. Autobiographies by Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano were not merely written confessions of faith, but using religious discourses they indicted immorality of slavery and criticized dualism of White society. Cugoano denounced inhumane exploitation by Spanish conquering of America, and Euqiano compared the values and culture of Christian society with other cultures of various regions. The diversity of black Atlantic’s experiences reached its highest point with dynamic life of Equiano. Black Atlantic writers were not aliens or outsiders, and their consciousness shows independent assimilation and resistance to mainstream culture, not confined to so called ‘double consciousness.’ Especially Equiano lived a cosmopolitan life not comparable to any Western man at that time securing critical perspectives on White society's values and religion, thus making him near to the concept of Paul Gilroy’s ‘modern black Atlantic.’ Antiracism of Marrant and Equiano and anticolonialism of Cugoano were forerunners of counterculture to Western modernity. It is for a future study to decide whether the activities and consciousness of Equiano and others represent blacks who lived crossing Atlantic world, but the spokesperson role these ‘black Atlantic’ played for African slaves in the late eighteenth century when was the crucial period for the fate of Afro-Americans connotes an important historical meaning.

The late eighteenth century was the period when the free blacks in America increased sharply and the ‘black Atlantic’ was born. The living sphere of Afro-Americans expanded to Canada, Europe, and Africa crossing Atlantic ocean not limited to America and West Indies, thus became cosmopolitan ‘black Atlantic.’ They experienced various lives as ‘noble savage’ of Africa, ‘naive victims’ of European slave merchants, prisoners of American Indians, priests in Nova Scotia, sailors of merchant ships, and abolitionists, etc. They expressed their experiences including slave life, economic accomplishments, and conversion to Christianity into self-narrative and autobiographical writing. Stories of religious conversion by James Gronniosaw and John Marrant were published by white editors who wrote down oral statements of authors, and intended to prove spiritual redemption of blacks. Thus they failed to show black's unique thoughts on their experience of various ethnicities such as American Indians, English, Dutch, and Spaniard. While autobiography of Gronniosaw showed the image of typical black who were assimilated to Christian beliefs and culture, Marrant expressed through his address his criticism on slavery as antithesis to principles of Freemasonry and tenets of Christianity. Autobiographies by Ottobah Cugoano and Olaudah Equiano were not merely written confessions of faith, but using religious discourses they indicted immorality of slavery and criticized dualism of White society. Cugoano denounced inhumane exploitation by Spanish conquering of America, and Euqiano compared the values and culture of Christian society with other cultures of various regions. The diversity of black Atlantic’s experiences reached its highest point with dynamic life of Equiano. Black Atlantic writers were not aliens or outsiders, and their consciousness shows independent assimilation and resistance to mainstream culture, not confined to so called ‘double consciousness.’ Especially Equiano lived a cosmopolitan life not comparable to any Western man at that time securing critical perspectives on White society's values and religion, thus making him near to the concept of Paul Gilroy’s ‘modern black Atlantic.’ Antiracism of Marrant and Equiano and anticolonialism of Cugoano were forerunners of counterculture to Western modernity. It is for a future study to decide whether the activities and consciousness of Equiano and others represent blacks who lived crossing Atlantic world, but the spokesperson role these ‘black Atlantic’ played for African slaves in the late eighteenth century when was the crucial period for the fate of Afro-Americans connotes an important historical meaning.

, , , , , ,

Black Atlantic, Autobiographical Writing, Conversion to Christianity, Criticism on Slavery, Dualism of White Society, Double Consciousness, Counterculture to Western Modernity