A Quest for Rights: The Abolitionist Movement in The Nineteenth-Century United States of America

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A Quest for Rights: The Abolitionist Movement in The Nineteenth-Century United States of America

Journal Title: Ankara Üniversitesi Sosyal Bilimler Dergisi - Year 2017, Vol 8, Issue 1

Abstract

The institution of slavery was one of the most challenging problems in the history of the United States of America. Created as part of the idea of white supremacy, slavery was in essence based on race difference or racial inferiority of the black race. These ideas led to the enslavement of Africans who were uprooted from their own lands and transported to the North American continent. Since its inception as a nation, the United States disregarded the rights of black people (or other ethic groups) on its land in all of its founding documents. However, the intriguing point was that the same years also witnessed the formation and dissemination of a process of enculturation through the ideology of domesticity, which promoted the significance of the idea of home for the white Americans. While such ideals were meant to shape the lives of particularly white middle-class women, black female slaves were suffering from homelessness and tortures in the very same houses. Observing this discrepancy between such cultural ideals of the nation and the enslaved conditions of thousands of Africans, abolitionists dedicated themselves to produce potential antidotes to end slavery, also paving the way to the achievement of both female and human rights. The purpose of this article is thus to examine the selected texts that address the relation of the nineteenth-century American slavery to the conventional ideas of domesticity in the context of abolitionism. Abolitionists centered on the dysfunctional nature of the ideology of domesticity by questioning and subverting the complicated function of domesticity in relation to the institution of slavery. They stressed in their works the fact that racial slavery is a part of the history of the United States and that it is a state of homelessness and oppression in an era when domestic ideals are gratified by the middle class. This article discusses how the texts written in the abolitionist vein produce an effective response to complex private and social questions posed by slavery, and how they made a significant breakthrough to precipitate change and reformation in society.

Authors and Affiliations

Nisa Harika Güzel Köşker

Keywords

Slavery Abolitionism Domesticity Female Rights Human Rights The Nineteenth Century The United States of America

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