Literature and Ethnic Diversity

To some, it seems that there is little diversity in American literature before the end of the 19th century, but this is an illusion. European literary forms were not immediately adopted by other groups in the United States. There are many examples of authors of diverse backgrounds who wrote before the appearance of the “first novel” by a person of color. In fact, by the end of the 19th century, a multicultural tradition of literature had developed to satisfy a reading public that was interested in the conditions of and insights from people of color.

Notions of “regional” American literature helped support the publication of literature by authors of diverse backgrounds, and the early 20th century was marked by literature by immigrants as well as the flowering of African American literature known as the Harlem Renaissance. In the years around World War II, authors began to question the mimetic forms of literature, and a more stylized literature emerged. After the experimentation and protests of the 1960s, a recognizable group of authors began to emerge who thought of themselves as writing mainstream American literature. This group increasingly gained acceptance at the end of the 20th century.

One of the first recognized African American writers was Phillis Wheatley, whose Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral was published in 1773. An enslaved person, Wheatley was taught to read and write by the wealthy Boston family to whom she was sold. Her poetry was used by both proslavery advocates and abolitionists to support their arguments. While the abolitionists said that the poems showed creativity and intelligence, proving that people of African descent had equal capabilities to Europeans, those who supported slavery said that Wheatley was simply mimicking her masters. Thomas Jefferson wrote in Notes on the State of Virginia that the poetry was written thanks to her religion, not her creativity.

Another form of early literary diversity was the autobiographical narrative. Slave narratives include the biographical account The Interesting Narrative and the Life of Olaudah Equiano or[Page 1352]Gustavus Vassa, the African, by Olaudah Equiano, which was published in London in 1789. This genre blossomed in the next century. William Apes, a Pequot Indian, wrote the spiritual confessional A Son of the Forest in 1829. Black Hawk, the leader of the Sauk Nation, told his story to a journalist, and the resulting Black Hawk: An Autobiography was published in 1833. More literary efforts in this genre are seen in Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, published in 1845, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, by Harriet Jacobs, which was published in 1861.

In this period, collectors of African American and Native American culture also made contributions. In 1850, The Traditional History and Characteristic Sketches of the Ojibway Nation was published by George Copway; in 1867, W. F. Allen's Slave Songs of the United States was published, followed by Daniel Brinton's Myths of the Americas the following year. Joel Chandler Harris began publishing his Uncle Remus tales in 1876, and the first collection of them, Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, appeared in 1880. Although not written by people of color, collections such as these offered insight into a cultural life that was unfamiliar to the wider public.

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