A Rhetorical Analysis Essay On Mary Ann Shadd Cary

In the era of American slavery, the rights of the colored were denied under authoritative rules, such as the Fugitive Slave Act that required the retrieval of all runaway slaves. It was during this time, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, an African American living in Canada, felt the need to combat racial injustice by voicing her opinions on the newspaper Provincial Freeman. In her second issue of the newspaper, she argued the need to continue her editorials is to promote the antislavery cause by embedding repetition to unify her targeted audience and by approaching her audience with a cautious tone to build on more support. By using repetition throughout the beginning of her editorial, Cary hopes she is able to identify and unify her audience. The rights she has been bestowed in Canada is undoubtedly the greatest freedom an African American will get in North America. With this freedom,

Her freedom of speech is dangerous during this time period, and the ideas she write will have considerable backlash from the United States, especially from those without the same views. She didn’t want to offend her readers and wants to build a movement out of honesty. With a cautious tone, she will speak true to her own words as “it is neither to be denied nor concealed” and hold herself “to be responsible for [her] remark.” Cary upholds her integrity in order to make her audience, not just her people, to see her cause with benevolence and truly meant for morality of human beings. Everything she voices in her newspaper, she will stay true to and won’t deny the fact for her actions, which makes her more credible to people outside of her audience range. Her honesty makes her movement appear less ambiguous of the choices and feelings she stands by, and it makes a genuine connection for other people to build sympathy for her