‘Theresa’ to the Rescue! African American Women’s Resistance and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution
‘Theresa’ to the Rescue! African American Women’s Resistance and the Literary History of the Haitian Revolution
This chapter is all about ‘Theresa; a Haytien Tale’ (1828), a short story that was serialized and published anonymously in the first African American newspaper Freedom’s Journal, and is now considered to be the first African American short story. The author argues that this brief text provides an even more redemptive role for women of color. ‘Theresa’ imagines women as central to the liberation of the colony through their unfailing and unquestioning allegiance to the revolutionary cause. ‘Theresa’ is therefore not buttressed by pseudoscientific claims of the innate savagery or hyper-sexuality of “black” women, but instead unequivocally celebrates their ability to contribute to slave rebellions, imagining a hitherto denied active role for women of color in the events of the Haitian Revolution.
Keywords: Freedom’s Journal, Abolition, Print Culture, Masculinity, Feminity, Patriarchy, Anonymity, African American Culture, Louverture, Haitian Revolution, Slave Rebellion
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