Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth Century

by Vincent Carretta (Editor)

In Unchained Voices, Vincent Carretta has assembled the most comprehensive anthology ever published of writings by eighteenth-century people of African descent, enabling many of these authors to be heard for the first time in two centuries.

Their writings reflect the surprisingly diverse experiences of blacks on both sides of the Atlantic-America, Britain, the West Indies, and Africa-between 1760 and 1798. Letters, poems, captivity narratives, petitions, criminal autobiographies, economic treatises, travel accounts, and antislavery arguments were produced during a time of various and changing political and religious loyalties. Although the theme of liberation from physical or spiritual captivity runs throughout the collection, freedom also clearly led to hardship and disappointment for a number of these authors.

Briton Hammon, James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, John Marrant, Ignatius Sancho, Ottobah Cugoano, and Olaudah Equiano told their stories as Afro-Britons who recognized the sovereignty of George III; Johnson Green, Belinda, Benjamin Banneker, and Venture Smith spoke and wrote as African Americans n the United States; Phillis Wheatley, initially an Afro-British poet, later chose an African American identity; Francis Williams and George Liele wrote in Jamaica; David George and Boston King, having served with the British forces in the American Revolution and later lived in Canada, composed their narratives as British subjects in the newly established settlement in Sierra Leone, Africa.

In his introduction, Carretta reconstructs the historical and cultural context of the works, emphasizing the constraints of the eighteenth-century genres under which these authors wrote. The texts and annotations are based on extensive research in both published and manuscript holdings of archives in the United States and the United Kingdom. Appropriate for undergraduates as well as for scholars, Unchained Voices gives a clear sense of the major literary and cultural issues at the heart of African literature written in English.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, 18th Century, Race

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Vincent Carretta is emertius professor of English at the University of Maryland, College Park.

Reviews

[Lawrence · Rating 5 out of 5]

A totally invaluable resource and I’m one that I’m sure I will return to frequently. I can see a lot of pedagogical applications for Sancho’s letters, especially if teaching Sterne. Cugoano is blisteringly insightful and a perfect anecdote to assumptions that it was impossible for people in the 18thC to see the impacts of colonialism. I especially appreciated Cugoano’s intersectional insights on the impact of colonialism on Indigenous peoples; in general, I was surprised by the frequency with with Indigenous groups played a role as almost a commonplace fact of life in the various narratives. It was great to be able to become attuned to the personal differences between these writers and get a sense of their individuality. Occasionally Caretta abridged some thing I would rather have been left in (who cuts an expedition to the North Pole in favor of social calls in London??) but this volume is a great starting place. There’s a lot more I want to read from here!

[Barbara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This would be an excellent resource for a scholar researching slavery and abolition in the 18th century because it contains verbatim writings of some literate blacks about their lives before, during and after they were enslaved, as well as some poems. Apparently, much of the writing was used to convince people to support abolition, so it's very dramatic and pious which makes it hard to wade through. The only parts I really enjoyed were the biographical sketches in the appendix.

[DORIS · Rating 5 out of 5]

THIS IS A BEAUTIFUL BOOK. YES.

[Marlene]

redemption!!

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't generally like anthologies, but this contains some important works.