Appeal by David Walker, 1829

Selection from “Article I: Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Slavery”

But let us review Mr. Jefferson's remarks respecting us some further. Comparing our miserable

fathers, with the learned philosophers of Greece, he says: "Yet notwithstanding these and other

discouraging circumstances among the Romans, their slaves were often their rarest artists.

They excelled too, in science, insomuch as to be usually employed as tutors to their master's

children; Epictetus, Terence and Phædrus, were slaves,--but they were of the race of whites. It

is not their condition then, but nature, which has produced the distinction."

See this, my brethren!! Do you believe that this assertion is swallowed by millions of the whites?

Do you know that Mr. Jefferson was one of as great characters as ever lived among the whites?

See his writings for the world, and public labors for the United States of America. Do you

believe that the assertions of such a man, will pass away into oblivion unobserved by this

people and the world? If you do you are much mistaken--See how the American people treat us-

-have we souls in our bodies? Are we men who have any spirits at all? I know that there are

many swell-bellied fellows among us, whose greatest object is to fill their stomachs. Such I do

not mean--I am after those who know and feel, that we are MEN, as well as other people; to

them, I say, that unless we try to refute Mr. Jefferson's arguments respecting us, we will only

establish them.

But the slaves among the Romans. Everybody who has read history, knows, that as soon

as a slave among the Romans obtained his freedom, he could rise to the greatest eminence in

the State, and there was no law instituted to hinder a slave from buying his freedom. Have not

the Americans instituted laws to hinder us from obtaining our freedom? Do any deny this

charge? Read the laws of Virginia, North Carolina, &c. Further: have not the Americans

instituted laws to prohibit a man of color from obtaining and holding any office whatever, under

the government of the United States of America? Now, Mr. Jefferson tells us, that our condition

is not so hard, as the slaves were under the Romans!!!!!!

It is time for me to bring this article to a close. But before I close it, I must observe to my brethren that at the close of the first Revolution in this country, with Great Britain, there were but

thirteen States in the Union, now there are twenty-four, most of which are slave-holding States,

and the whites are dragging us around in chains and in handcuffs, to their new States and

Territories to work their mines and farms, to enrich them and their children--and millions of them

believing firmly that we being a little darker than they, were made by our Creator to be an

inheritance to them and their children for ever--the same as a parcel of brutes.

Are we MEN!!--I ask you, O my brethren! are we MEN? Did our Creator make us to be

slaves to dust and ashes like ourselves? Are they not dying worms as well as we? Have they

not to make their appearance before the tribunal of Heaven, to answer for the deeds done in the

body, as well as we? Have we any other Master but Jesus Christ alone? Is he not their Master

as well as ours?--What right then, have we to obey and call any other Master, but Himself? How

we could be so submissive to a gang of men, whom we cannot tell whether they are as good as

ourselves or not, I never could conceive. However, this is shut up with the Lord, and we cannot

precisely tell--but I declare, we judge men by their works.

Selection from “Article II: Our Wretchedness in Consequence of Ignorance”

Page 73

ADDITION.--I will give here a very imperfect list of the cruelties inflicted on us by the enlightened Christians of America.

--First, no trifling portion of them will beat us nearly to death, if they find us on our knees praying to God.

--They hinder us from going to hear the word of God--they keep us sunk in ignorance, and will not let us learn to read the word of God, nor write--If they find us with a book of any description in our hand, they will beat us nearly to death--they are so afraid we will learn to read, and enlighten our dark and benighted minds

--They will not suffer us to meet together to worship the God who made us--they brand us with hot iron--they cram bolts of fire down our throats--they cut us as they do horses, bulls, or hogs--they crop our ears and sometimes cut off bits of our tongues--they chain and hand-cuff us, and while in that miserable and wretched condition, beat us with cow-hides and clubs--they keep us half naked and starve us sometimes nearly to death under their infernal whips or lashes (which some of them shall have enough of yet)

--They put on us fifty-sixes and chains, and make us work in that cruel situation, and in sickness, under lashes to support them and their families.

--They keep us three or four hundred feet under ground working in their mines, night and day to dig up gold and silver to enrich them and their children.

--They keep us in the most death-like ignorance by keeping us from all source of information, and call us, who are free men and next to the Angels of God, their property!!!!!! They make us fight and murder each other, many of us being ignorant, not knowing any better.

--They take us, (being ignorant,) and put us as drivers one over the other, and make us afflict each other as bad as they themselves afflict us--and to crown the whole of this catalog of cruelties, they tell us that we the (blacks) are an inferior race of beings! incapable of self government!!

--We would be injurious to society and ourselves, if tyrants should loose their unjust hold on us!!! That if we were free we would not work, but would live on plunder or theft!!!! that we are the meanest and laziest set of beings in the world!!!!! That they are obliged to keep us in bondage to do us good!!!!!!

--That we are satisfied to rest in slavery to them and their children!!!!!!

--That we ought not to be set free in America, but ought to be sent away to Africa!!!!!!!!

--That if we were set free in America, we would involve the country in a civil war, which assertion is altogether at variance with our feeling or design, for we ask them for nothing but the rights of man, viz. for them to set us free, and treat us like men, and there will be no danger, for we will love and respect them, and protect our country--but cannot conscientiously do these things until they treat us like men.

By David Walker, 1830