Thirteenth Reading Group:
The Blind African Slave
Zoom, 27 November 2020, 2-4pm (GMT)
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The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace was first published in 1810 and constitutes an ‘as-told-to’ autobiography of the narrator-subject, Jeffrey Brace. Kari J. Winter, in her edited edition published by the University of Wisconsin Press in 2004, has engaged in an effort to “authenticate” Brace’s story and his existence. Beyond this however, Brace’s narrative of slavery has fallen into critical obscurity. This reading group’s focus serves as a continuation of our discussion earlier this year regarding the significance of foregrounding lesser-known voices and perspectives in our study of nineteenth-century African American materials and in such a way enriching our critical understanding of the field. Brace’s story is significant in this regard, because unlike other slave narratives it contains an account of Brace’s service in the Revolutionary War, while Brace also spends most of his time on land in New England as opposed to the southern States.
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In its structure and descriptions of the lands, customs, flora and fauna of both the African nation of Boo-woo and New England, and in conversation with other slave narratives including for example Briton Hammon’s A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, A Negro Man (1760), Brace’s narrative allows us to bring to the fore the transatlantic literary overlaps with other slave narratives, captivity literature, and travel narratives more generally, while thus also potentially allowing us to revise Orlando Patterson’s understanding of slavery as a “social death” (which has reverberated in our field). Such a focus for example, raises questions regarding why critical conceptions of black slavery and white captivity reduce the former to a position of ‘nothingness,’ ‘powerlessness’ and ‘voicelessness,’ while simultaneously granting the latter with power (for example in studies of Indian and Barbary captivity narratives)? Perhaps now, more than ever, it is our duty to reflect on how we read and teach nineteenth-century literature and in so doing revise dominant critical and cultural narratives.
Reading:
Jeffrey Brace’s The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace (1810). Available as online text: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/brinch.html
Further reading:
- Briton Hammon’s A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man (1760). Available as an online text: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/hammon/menu.html
- Joanna Brooks, 'The Unfortunates: What the Life Spans of Early Black Books Tell Us About Book History', in Early African American Print Culture, ed. Lara Langer Cohen and Jordan Alexander Stein (University of Penn Press, 2012). If you don't have a copy please contact the organiser.
To receive a Zoom link for the event, register by email with Anna Diamantouli adiamantouli@acg.edu
Reading:
Jeffrey Brace’s The Blind African Slave, or Memoirs of Boyrereau Brinch, Nicknamed Jeffrey Brace (1810). Available as online text: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/brinch/brinch.html
Further reading:
- Briton Hammon’s A Narrative of the Uncommon Sufferings, and Surprizing Deliverance of Briton Hammon, a Negro Man (1760). Available as an online text: https://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/hammon/menu.html
- Joanna Brooks, 'The Unfortunates: What the Life Spans of Early Black Books Tell Us About Book History', in Early African American Print Culture, ed. Lara Langer Cohen and Jordan Alexander Stein (University of Penn Press, 2012). If you don't have a copy please contact the organiser.
To receive a Zoom link for the event, register by email with Anna Diamantouli adiamantouli@acg.edu
