Definitions
Abolitionism is a movement
to end something — in this
case, to do away with slavery.
In earlier times like the
antebellum era, judges in
certain areas were required
to travel to different towns to
hold court. Their routes were
called circuits, so the courts
were called circuit courts.
A literary genre is a category,
or style of writing, such as
mystery, fiction, or short story.
An itinerant teacher is a
teacher who travels from
place to place to teach.
A novel is a fictionalized,
book-length story that has
characters and a plot. Novels
can he based on true events.
Propaganda is the spreading
of false or exaggerated ideas
about something in order to
make it sound different than
it really is.
An author who publishes his
work using a false name is
using a pseudonym to hide
his true identity.
A travelogue is a descriptive
report about a trip.
A yankee was a northerner
or a person with northern
“sympathies" or ideals.
W. Keats Sparrow is
currently dean of the
College of Arts and Sciences
at East Carolina University
in Greenville, where he is
working on an anthology
of North Carolina literature
from the colon ial period to
the present. He has
published articles in the
North Carolina Historical
Review and other works.
Illustrations in this sidebar
are copied from The Old
South Illustrated, a compil¬
ation of Porte Crayon's work.
Views through
pen and ink:
North Carolina's
antebellum
literature
records
an era
by W. Keats Sparrow
Jn t tntehclhnn times, no video or still cameras existed, if cube r dui
televisions or radios, tape recorders, or evert telephones So bon do wc know
what happened during those yam? One way is through the literature that
was produced. In the spring of IS 56, for example. David Hunter Strother,
ic ho used the pseudonym Porte Crayon, wrote and illustrated an account
of i journey through North Carolina. His pencil sketches and written
descriptions of what be saw captured North Carolina's character on
the eve of Americas Civil liar.
ince the late 1500s, many men and women have
written about the area we now call North
Carolina — its geography, history, society, and
politics. They have written travelogues, diaries, poetry,
even propaganda reports for royalty and relatives back
in the Old World. In fact, North Carolina easily boasts
the longest English-written literary' history of any state.
African American poetry and frontier novels
Intriguing literary' works began to appear in North
Carolina early in the antebellum era. Two of these
works were important contributions to literature
because they’ dealt with issues that were debated at that
time — issues surrounding slavery and Native American
and European conflict — especially’ in the eastern
United States.
In 1829, just before the era began, a collection of
poetry called The Hope of Liberty: Containing a Number
of Poetical Pieces was published. George Moses Horton,
its author, was an African American slave in Chatham
County. He is still referred to as the state’s first
professional poet, and his contributions are considered
among the nation’s earliest literary works by' an African
American. His poetry' reveals a hope for liberty felt by
an entire culture of oppressed people. Oddly, most
blacks could not have read Hortons work (since most
were not allowed to learn to read), but white society
showed interest and appreciation through purchasing it.
Robert Stranges 1839 epic frontier novel
Eoneguski; or, the Cherokee Chief: A Tale of Past Wars, by
an American provides a look at the hopes and dreams
of another culture — Native American. Strange, a
Fayetteville native, used material he gathered as a
circuit court judge in western North Carolina to
write this novel. Eoneguski is valuable as a record of
Cherokee customs and legends and as a look at clashes
that faced the different groups that came together in
the early decades of America’s settlement.
Gregory Seaworthy’s two books Nag's Head ; or, Two
Months among “ The Bankers": A Story of Sea-Shore Life
and Manners (1850) and Bertie; or, Life in the Old Field:
A Humorous Novel (1851) are considered masterpieces
of North Carolina literature from the 1800s. Seaworthy
was a pseudonym used by George Higby'Throop
(pronounced “troop”). Throop was an itinerant
schoolmaster from the North who served as a teacher
for children on several northeastern North Carolina
plantations.
Nag's Head is the story of one of these families that
moves to the Outer Banks during a summer to escape
an outbreak of malaria. Throop’s accounts of this
seaside holiday’ provide a glimpse into the wealthy’
planter lifestyle and into the living conditions of this
part of the state at the time. Bertie is a superb example
of the then-popular plantation novel genre. Its story'
unfolds through the eyes of a northern visitor who
finds romance in the culture, environment, and young
people of a plantation in coastal North Carolina in the
1840s. But the visitor finds another side to this life
when one of the plantation's young men returns from a
northern university with ideas of Yankee abolitionism.
A North Carolina work that focuses on the
negative side of the South’s slave culture is a work
by native son Hinton Rowan Helper. Helper’s book,
The Impending Crisis of the South, and How to Meet It
(1857), attacked slaveholders and warned of an
impending slave uprising. Antislavery Republicans
from the North printed and circulated one hundred
thousand copies of this book during the presidential
campaign of 1860 to show that not all southerners
supported slavery. Helper was soon run out of the
state for promoting his views. ^ *v
•Ю
Novels about phi ntatinu life an d slavery
Both northerners and southerners were interested in
reading about slavery and plantation life in the South.
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